{"id":223844,"date":"2025-09-13T15:08:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T15:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/223844\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T15:08:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T15:08:10","slug":"the-epistolary-lyric-about-a-dying-love-affair-from-robert-smith-and-the-cure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/223844\/","title":{"rendered":"The Epistolary Lyric About a Dying Love Affair From Robert Smith and The Cure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Which version of Robert Smith and The Cure do you prefer? Do you like it when they show off their pop chops and sound positively breezy? Or do you groove to their darker, goth-influenced side? Perhaps you lean to The Cure as tortured balladeers, with songs where Smith\u2019s heart is laid bare for the world\u2019s perusal. If that\u2019s your bag, we present to you \u201cA Letter To Elise\u201d, a colossal offering from that cross-section of this wonderful band\u2019s catalog.<\/p>\n

In Your \u201cLetter\u201d<\/p>\n

The title of The Cure\u2019s 1989 album pretty much told you everything you needed to know about the tenor of the music within it. Disintegration features Robert Smith at his gloomiest and most lovelorn. Even a track titled \u201cLovesong\u201d came off as ominous. Yet the band brought it off in such a convincing fashion that fans were willing to wallow with them.<\/p>\n

Disintegration delivered the band their biggest audiences to date. They sought to capitalize on that with the follow-up. Wish, released in 1992, found The Cure widening its sonic scope a bit. Most notably, they allowed for a little more light to enter the picture, especially on the hit single \u201cFriday I\u2019m In Love\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But Smith and company still found room for deep sorrow here and there. On \u201cA Letter To Elise\u201d, Smith found inspiration in letters sent by the famous author Franz Kafka to his one-time fianc\u00e9e Felice Bauer, as collected in the book Letters To Felice. He transcends that influence, however, once he dives into the song.<\/p>\n

Using the epistolary form allows Smith to be a little bit freer in terms of the song structure. He expresses some thoughts over several lyrical lines. As listeners, we feel like we\u2019re privy to something very personal. You feel like the narrator has thought this out, collected his emotions, and poured them onto the page.<\/p>\n

Exploring the Lyrics of \u201cA Letter To Elise\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA Letter To Elise\u201d comes from the perspective of someone who has given a relationship his very best shot. And although he still clearly loves Elise, he also knows that they likely don\u2019t have a future together. As such, you can argue that he writes the letter to convince himself as much as he\u2019s trying to convince her.<\/p>\n

\u201cElise, it doesn\u2019t matter what you say,\u201d Smith begins over the band\u2019s trademark ringing guitar sound. \u201cI just can\u2019t stay here every yesterday.\u201d In other words, living in the past no longer works for him. And he knows no matter how long they\u2019re together, she\u2019ll remain impenetrable. \u201cI know I\u2019ll never really get inside of you,\u201d Smith shrugs.<\/p>\n

The side of her that he can\u2019t locate worries him, the \u201cSomething else that hides away.\u201d He remembers the times when he pretended that they were meant for each other. \u201cAnd the face I saw looked back the way I wanted to,\u201d he says. Regret for his decision creeps up as he\u2019s making it. \u201cI thought this time I\u2019d keep all of my promises,\u201d he admits.<\/p>\n

Smith goes back to the first verse towards the end of the song before sighing his way through the final moments with some fresh reflections. He compares their relationship to sand slipping through his fingers. And then he sadly admits that it\u2019s over for good. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing else I can really do,\u201d he repeats.<\/p>\n

With \u201cA Letter To Elise\u201d, Robert Smith leaves no doubt that the relationship being described has run its course. But the depth of the emotion and sorrow he displays throughout also makes it clear just what\u2019s been lost.<\/p>\n

Photo by Paul Harris\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Which version of Robert Smith and The Cure do you prefer? Do you like it when they show…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":223845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[171,975,4006,4185,22853,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-223844","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-pop-music","11":"tag-rock-music","12":"tag-the-cure","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115197621414474324","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}