{"id":317945,"date":"2025-12-15T22:30:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T22:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/317945\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T22:30:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T22:30:10","slug":"the-one-song-that-stayed-with-robert-smith-his-entire-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/317945\/","title":{"rendered":"The one song that stayed with Robert Smith his entire life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Robert<\/p>\n

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

Mon 15 December 2025 21:00, UK <\/p>\n

Robert Smith<\/a> once explained that one of the reasons why he loses himself in his music is that explaining how he feels is exhausting.<\/p>\n

When The Cure first arrived, Smith wasn\u2019t just another heavily-rotated MTV face that became a physical association with gothic new wave; he was a musical force that put things into words that people felt and experienced in their everyday lives. Most of what made it stuck was how it balanced hope with despair, playing on themes of the macabre to navigate the more ambiguous threads of human existence. <\/p>\n

Before he became a major name himself, Smith looked for the same quality in other artists. For him, it was always about the emotional response to music, as well as those who had a natural ability to be risk-takers and push boundaries where it counts. Many of his favourite names, including David Bowie, Kate Bush, Joy Division, Prince, Cocteau Twins, and Depeche Mode, all had an artistic expression that hinged on slightly dark, edgier themes, the ones that, in Smith\u2019s words, embodied the \u201cidea of being an outsider and creating characters\u201d.<\/p>\n

Most of these influences are ones that Smith carried with him throughout The Cure\u2019s most celebrated moments, with some of them becoming Smith\u2019s own favourite songs, especially the ones that were more inspired by his own personal experiences but brought to life in a way that honoured everything he loved and cherished about music as an art form.<\/p>\n

As he once explained, the reason why he loves songs like \u2018Faith\u2019, \u2018Just Like Heaven\u2019 and \u2018Boys Don\u2019t Cry\u2019 is because they reveal a lot about his character<\/a> and provide glimpses of specific moments in time. \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ll ever write a song that\u2019ll ever move me as much as \u2018Faith\u2019, that\u2019ll change my life as much as that song did, or encapsulate a period of my life as well as that one does,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Robert<\/a>Robert Smith performing live with The Cure. (Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n

For Smith, there\u2019s nothing better than a song that sticks with you for life. Most of his all-time favourites are ones he discovered young and never let go, whether because of the musical excellence and innovation, the themes and messages, or a mixture of both. This was the case with Nick Drake\u2019s \u2018Time Has Told Me\u2019. <\/p>\n

\u201cI first heard Nick Drake\u2019s \u2018Time Has Told Me\u2019 on an Island sampler called Nice Enough To Eat,\u201d Smith told Uncut<\/a>. \u201cThat song stuck with me all my life. His voice, the way he plays, the simplicity of what he does \u2013 yet it\u2019s incredibly difficult, impossible to replicate it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also said how Jimi Hendrix \u201cinforms everything I\u2019ve ever done\u201d, mainly because, like many of Smith\u2019s influences, he discovered him young and didn\u2019t know a thing about him at first \u2013 he just knew that there was something about his music that drew him in. It was the same with Janis Ian\u2019s \u2018Tea & Sympathy\u2019, a mood he\u2019s tried to imitate in his own music, and Joan Armatrading\u2019s \u2018Love And Affection\u2019. These are all influences he calls his \u201clost world\u201d, ones he found early, which \u201cmatter so much more than they should then\u201d.<\/p>\n

Many of The Cure\u2019s songs achieve the same effect, mainly because, by the time it came to channelling his own worlds into music, Smith was already well-versed in the art of bringing it all to life. And, as he once said, the reason why he got so lost in his music to begin with was that explaining things to people became exhausting, and putting it into fully-fledged, gothic worlds often said much more than he ever could with simple vernacular.<\/p>\n

More than that, his songs also have the same inexplicable allure as the many visionaries that he discovered before he became a name in his own right, pulling you in without even having to do much to keep you there \u2013 it does because it\u2019s easy to fall into something that feels simple yet convoluted all at once, a true reflection of everything that makes us who we are.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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