As early as 1979, the Crawley trio imagined a punk future in order to distance themselves from it, in a patchwork where no song resembles any other.
From the Barbie-pink of the sleeve (in the midst of a fluorescent explosion!) to the Magritte-like portrayal of the three musicians as household appliances (vacuum cleaner, lamp, refrigerator), from the uncertainty raised by the title (imagination feels suspect in these days of punk realism) to the evasive connotation suggested by the label (Fiction), this debut album by The Cure carries all the markings of a dubious object when it was released to the public in May 1979. Added to the perplexity aroused by these enigmatic songs with biased viewpoints and uncertain truths is an era in which slogans, shouting, and spitting in your face constitute an accepted mode of communication.
10:15 Saturday Night, Accuracy, Grinding Halt, Subway Song, Fire in Cairo and Object are, in truth, as many white pebbles sown by Robert Smith, Crawley’s Tom Thumb lost in the forest of the ogre who sings at full blast, and, frankly, with a somewhat off-key voice, to dispel his fear.
Childhood on the Run
If there is a category to which this debut album belongs, it is that of albums bearing witness to childhood on the run. Here, a trio barely taken out of the shell attempts to rise to adult stature, carrying a sound almost too heavy for their delicate shoulders. With a cover of Foxy Lady by Jimi Hendrix, Smith nonetheless moves in 2’29 from the Little Tom Thumb to the apprentice wizard, guitar solos and pyrotechnics included.
There, he demonstrates his ability to master the capricious fairy of electricity and reveals an innate sense of the sonic atmosphere. Among the thirteen tracks offered, not a single one resembles another. All possess that famous hook that would render the subsequent releases fail-proof. On the American version of the album released a few months later (under the title Boys Don’t Cry), additions included, among others, Killing an Arab and Boys Don’t Cry, the first in a long line of crowd-pleasers. In 1979, it would be utterly false to say that people loved The Cure. We were madly in love.
