Welcome back to Left of The Dial! I’m shocked that I haven’t talked about The Cure yet, so let’s end that right now by reviewing their album The Head on The Door.
To cover my bases as widely as possible I’ll call The Cure a post-punk band, but they’ve covered such a spectrum of genres over the course of their career that it would be too constricting to refer to them as any singular genre. They formed in Crawley, West Sussex in the United Kingdom in 1978, and change their lineup almost as often as they change genres. For this particular record, the band consisted of Robert Smith on vocals and guitar and keyboard, Lol Tolhurst on keyboard, Porl Thompson on guitar and keyboard, Simon Gallup on bass, and Boris Williams on drums and percussion.
The Head on the Door is the band’s sixth studio album, which released in August 1985. Although it spawned some memorable singles like “In Between Days” and “Close to Me,” I feel as though the album as a whole is stuck in the shadow of more popular records like Pornography and Disintegration. That isn’t to say that those records don’t deserve their success, because they totally do, but The Head on The Door deserves to stand with those albums as some of The Cure’s best material. If you aren’t convinced, then let’s put this gem on and give it a listen, shall we?
Side A
Side A consists of “In Between Days,” “Kyoto Song,” “The Blood,” “Six Different Ways,” and “Push.”
“In Between Days” is not just a strong opener for the record; it also encapsulates everything that makes The Cure stand out as a band. At first glance, the composition gives you the impression that this will be a sweet and romantic song. The guitar is light and airy, and the synth work makes for one hell of an earworm. But diving deeper and listening to the lyrics, it’s anything but lighthearted. Smith has a pension for writing about heartbreaking situations wrapped in metaphor, and “In Between Days” is no exception. He sings about a breakup so unwanted that “it froze me deep inside.” Many of us understand the struggle of a one-sided relationship, and Smith’s fragile vocal performance certainly makes us feel it. No wonder the song was such a big hit!
Up next is “Kyoto Song.” Sticking with the nightmarish subject matter, this song describes a horrifying dream about drowning (see what I did there?). Like lots of dream scenarios, almost random elements are incorporated to push the surreal feeling, such as the narrator hearing thousands of voices that belong to the same person, as well as seeing a vision of fire that’s unlike anything earthly. The lyrics are paired up with a deliciously demented composition that solidifies the dream-like atmosphere. The bass line is the clear standout on this track, rumbling slow and heavy underneath the oriental strings. Speaking of the strings, that seems to be the only obvious nod to the title “Kyoto Song.” I wouldn’t say it’s a fitting title, as there’s no other allusion to it present on the track. If you happen to notice something that I’m missing, then please let me know!
“The Blood” is up next. Did you ever expect The Cure to do a flamenco track? I certainly didn’t, but it doesn’t feel out of place at all for them. It’s a good follow-up to “Kyoto Song” in that way, and it fits the subject matter of the lyrics well. It expresses regret over a long-gone relationship through the perspective of a drunken stupor. The titular blood is likely referring to red wine, which in religious context is often called “the blood of Christ.” Overall, it’s a solid song.
The next one is “Six Different Ways.” Boy, this is a strange one! I don’t really understand what Smith intended these lyrics to mean, but I’d personally interpret the “six different ways” to be different facets of everyone’s personalities. If you think about it, we all have different sides of ourselves that we show to different people, and it’s not like we’re faking anything when we do that. It’s practically impossible to see every side of an object at once, and that goes for metaphorical things like personalities as well.
Speaking of sides and facets, let’s talk about this piano hook because it has a fascinating connection with another British post-punk band. Before the release of The Head on The Door, Smith collaborated with Siouxsie and the Banshees on their record Hyæna in 1984, and their single “Swimming Horses” uses a similar piano tune. This wasn’t by accident, as Smith used that hook as inspiration for the piano on “Six Different Ways.” If you compare both songs, you can hear the similarities, but it’s also clear that one isn’t a rip-off of the other. It’s just a neat easter egg, and I highly recommend that you check out “Swimming Horses” after you’re done with this record.
Finally, let’s check out the final track on Side A of The Head on The Door: “Push.” Oh man, I’ve been clamoring to talk about this one! I’ve brought up this track before in a previous review describing the phenomenon of partially-instrumental songs, where the vocals don’t appear until a good way through the runtime. “Push” is by far my favorite of this breed of song. The guitar and bass work are absolutely perfect, painting a distinctly nostalgic picture of a sunset drive on a warm evening. Of course, in pure Cure fashion, the lyrics have a different story to tell, one of jealousy. The narrator has long been gone from this girl’s life, but he can’t stand to see another man fill his place, especially if that man seems dangerous and untrustworthy. He can’t fill this role himself, which adds some dimension to the drama. But the lyrics aren’t exactly the focus of the track; the composition is the draw, and man is it a draw.
Go listen to it already! It’s a great one to put on in the car, and it’s a fantastic way to end this side of the record. So let’s turn it over and see what awaits us on the other side.
Side B
Side B contains “The Baby Screams,” “Close to Me,” “A Night like This,” “Screw,” and “Sinking.”
“The Baby Screams” is another strange one, and this time I can’t figure out what Smith was trying to say with it. I get a strong disco vibe from the composition, which I can’t help but tap my foot to. But the lyrics leave me confused at best and a little uncomfortable at worst. I’d say give it a listen just for the sake of curiosity. I can’t imagine you’ll get anything coherent out of it, but you’d probably enjoy it for the instrumentals and Smith’s vocals.
“Close to Me” is thankfully more understandable. It uses a great combination of bass and synth work with the lyrics to relay feelings of crippling anxiety. As someone who relates to these feelings all too well, the quiet and creepy nature of the instrumentals is pretty on-point. Anxiety isn’t always manifested in dramatic panic attacks; more often than not it’s something that internally nags you and forces you to think in irrational ways. It’s a mental battle that tends to end in a self-fulfilling prophecy. If something doesn’t feel right, then your brain can trick you into seeing the world as wrong, and the worry can make you physically sick. The brain is a powerful thing, especially when it’s working against you.
Up next is another song I’m excited to talk about: “A Night like This.” It’s a dramatic song about the desire to rekindle a broken relationship. The lyrics are written in a more linear style than usual, but it makes for a great story when paired with the composition. The guitar and keys work wonders to paint a picture of a cold winter night tinged with desperation, and the saxophone that comes in later adds to the urban atmosphere.
Like “Six Different Ways,” there’s some extra lore to this song’s backstory that provides some insight into Smith’s creative process. “A Night like This,” according to him, was an early incarnation of the B-side single “Plastic Passion,” which was later revived into the song we know today. If you listen to both these tracks and compare them, the similarity starts and ends with the guitar lick. They have a distinctly similar melody, but “Plastic Passion” is played at a faster tempo, and the percussion gives it a tense atmosphere, whereas “A Night like This” is drawn out and played on a lower register. Aside from that, each song has enough unique qualities to comfortably stand apart from one another as different songs. Go listen to them both, then come back and listen to the rest of the record.
“Screw” is the next song, which Smith bluntly stated was about “drugs.” As hilariously forward as that description is, it doesn’t exactly state how drugs play into the narrative. To me, it seems to describe an outsider’s view on drug use, maybe as a retrospective of their own “first time.” The narrator is the outsider, and they describe how strange it is that their friend “screws up [their] face” and changes their shape the way they do. These drugs are either hallucinogens or the shapeshifting is an emotional change brought on by something like alcohol or stimulants. I think this is open-ended enough that it could describe a lot of common drugs. I appreciate the wordplay on display, and it’s certainly thought-provoking with its outside perspective.
Finally, we come to the last song on the record “Sinking.” It parallels “Push” as not just another side closer, but also as a partially instrumental track. The keys and synths build to such a climactic level that it gives the track a grandiose, yet melancholic, feeling. Smith admitted that this track was about his despair and fear of getting older, which would come to a head-on Disintegration years after this. To be truthful, I could see “Sinking” fitting well with the rest of that album in an alternate timeline, but I’m just as happy with it being a hint of what’s to come on The Head on The Door. It encapsulates The Cure’s dark and gothic side incredibly well, and if you were hoping to leave this record feeling kinda sad, then this is the perfect closer.
Overall, The Head on The Door is a fantastic record, and it does a solid job of introducing new listeners to their common themes and chameleon-like tendency to switch genres and styles. My personal top three tracks are “In Between Days,” “Push,” and “A Night like This.” I don’t have any bottom tier tracks this time, as they’re all fantastic in their own ways.
Rating: 9.5/10
Feature Photo by Becca Fauteux