{"id":539960,"date":"2025-10-31T14:05:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T14:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/539960\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T14:05:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T14:05:12","slug":"three-poems-that-inspired-the-cures-best-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/539960\/","title":{"rendered":"Three poems that inspired The Cure’s best songs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n

Fri 31 October 2025 11:00, UK <\/p>\n

From Macbeth to a picture by Edvard Munch to Portuguese wine, the English rock band is definitely not short of inspiration material. The Cure<\/a>\u2019s songs have so much depth that many stop at listening, but there\u2019s a lot to be discovered between the lines.<\/p>\n

The poetic magnetism in the band\u2019s lyrics is no secret, but it was brought to the world\u2019s attention when frontman Robert Smith discussed his inspiration<\/a> for The Cure\u2019s 2024 single \u2018Alone\u2019 on the band\u2019s official YouTube Channel. \u201cI was writing it, it wasn\u2019t poetic, and suddenly I discovered this and I thought, \u2018That\u2019s it, that\u2019s what\u2019s been bugging me,\u2019 because I knew what the song was supposed to be about,\u201d he said about Ernest Dowson\u2019s poem \u2018Dregs\u2019.<\/p>\n

Starting with the leading song of the beloved 1989 studio album Disintegration, the eponymous track<\/a> makes reference to the British poet Brian Patten and his poem \u2018Party Piece\u2019. The first verse calls the poem in by name, \u201cAs bit by bit it starts the need, to just let go my party piece,\u201d before doing a dazzling job of capturing its hedonistic disintegration. <\/p>\n

Patten\u2019s \u201camong the woodbines and guinness stains\u201d becomes \u201cStains on the carpet and stains on the scenery\u201d in \u2018Disintegration\u2019, as the stolen scene of debauchery frames that of a broken relationship. The poem has a taste of unforgotten nostalgia that taints the song\u2019s lyrics and gifts it with a scent of doom since its opening notes.<\/p>\n

The poem that inspired The Cure\u2019s \u2018How Beautiful You Are\u2019 from Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me starts with the following line: \u201cOh! You want to know why I hate you today.\u201d <\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t contemporary revisionism of political speeches, but the work of Charles Baudelaire\u2019s poem, \u2018Through The Eyes Of The Poor\u2019. Many lines come directly from the body of the poem, since they do such a literal job of conveying the dismay of lovers diverging: \u201cAnd promised to each other, That we\u2019d always think the same, And dreamed that dream, To be two souls as one.\u201d<\/p>\n

The immaculate homage to the poem invites one to think which one was written first, and which inspired the other. One thing is certain: The Crawley crew and the French poet and essayist may have captured vastly different times, but both had experienced a loss of faith in love. Baudelaire concludes with \u201cSo hard is it to understand one another\u2026even between people who are in love,\u201d with the song\u2019s closing line to match: \u201cThat no one ever knows or loves another.\u201d<\/p>\n

And for a not-so-little-known third, \u2018Birdmad Girl\u2019 by The Cure<\/a> is a song inspired by a Dylan Thomas poem, \u2018Love in the Asylum\u2019 \u2013 a classic that was impossible not to name. Both discuss themes of insanity and the intense love attached to it, while dismantling stigma on mental illness. The track is home to the band\u2019s most cryptic lyrics, leaning into the psychedelic feel built up throughout the album The Top.<\/p>\n

One of the most famed lines of the Welsh poet\u2019s portfolio is brought back to life in this track: from \u201cthe first vision that\u00a0set fire to the stars\u201d into \u201ctry to talk, The sky goes red\u201d. The Cure\u2019s acknowledgement of Thomas\u2019 artistic achievement is a pleasure to listen to \u2013 never has a poem been brought to life as the sky of \u2018Birdmad Girl\u2019.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy) Fri 31 October 2025 11:00, UK From Macbeth to a picture by Edvard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[174072,144707,77,269,22417,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-539960","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-baudelaire","9":"tag-dylan-thomas","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-the-cure","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115469164533460789","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}