Curesong Literary Links
Songs of a Lost World
It arrived at last and was well worth the wait.
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Alone, as Robert has said, was inspired by Ernest Dowson's poem Dregs. See below for the details. Thanks to Tania for the pointer.
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As far as other literary links go, so far in And Nothing is Forever there is a Dylan Thomas reference to the dying of the light from Do not go gentle into that good night; those of us of a similar vintage to Robert will doubtless share its sentiments.
I Can Never say Goodbye includes the words something wicked this way comes which is from the early words of the witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth and is also the title of a 1962 Ray Bradbury novel. See below for more.
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But this is Robert's poetry; in future, others will quote from this album as their own inspiration.
Cureious: Curesongs the book
If you would be interested in an expanded version of this site in book form, please drop me a line in 'CONTACT' to say 'yes I'm interested'. Several publishers have loved it but turned it down because they did not think the market was big enough.
If there is enough interest, I will publish it myself.​
Many songs by The Cure contain references to literary works. This site details as many as it has been possible to verify.​ It includes detailed references, including text from the source literature and how they relate to the lyrics.
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Click on the list to select a track - to the right on a desktop or below for a mobile device.
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So far around 35+ tracks out of the couple of hundred or more tracks that The Cure have produced have identifiable sources of inspiration. There are more on the way.
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Thank you so much to everyone who has sent me ideas for new sources. A first update was added in January 2023) Please let me know if you find any further links to Curesongs.
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Lol Tolhurst published 'Goth: A History' (Quercus) in October 2023 which he describes as "a historical memoir of sorts".
It refers to many of the sources of Cure songs he had a hand in. I have included a new section on it in the link below.
Particularly of note:
P 129: “I know this story will surprise many readers who think of Robert as the sole lyricist for The Cure - that simply wasn’t the case. It’s not so much a secret as a reclaiming of my past. Over the decades, assumptions have been made about the band’s creative process, after I wrote Cured I thought it was time to speak up. It’s about repossessing my art…”
“I believe that the creative process is often the sum of many psychic streams converging and reinforce each other…”
“With our lives are so intimately entwined we are naturally a self reflecting feedback loop...”
P120: “Martin… departed in January 1977, and we changed our name to Easy Cure… a name change seemed like a good idea and the name is taken from some lyrics I had written.”
Link:
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