A music essay (for the hell of it)

Post Reply
User avatar
StevieFan13
Wuthering Heights
Posts: 6967
Joined: Mon Jan 02, 2017 5:00 pm
Location: New York, New York
Contact:

A music essay (for the hell of it)

Post by StevieFan13 »

Hey, guys! I thought I'd use this forum to try something a little different. I'm currently taking a class in college all about writing about songs and songwriters. Our first assignment was to write a personal essay about a song we really liked and explain its emotional significance to us. I thought you guys would get a kick out of this one, which I wrote about the Cure's "Just Like Heaven." Hope you enjoy!

In a recent interview with TimeOut, Cure frontman Robert Smith discussed a particular facet of his band’s legacy that he resented. For years, The Cure have been hailed as the ur-example of “goth rock,” or at least the goth rock band that had the biggest mainstream impact. A lot of that comes down to Smith’s look, distinctive even by the standards of ‘80s British alt-rock. Lanky, with floppy limbs like a Muppet that has no one controlling the hands. The hair, long, greasy, and black, standing straight out like he just stuck his finger in an electrical socket. His all-black outfit, the defining wardrobe of a goth rock type. And, of course, there’s the makeup. That ever-so-distinctive pale white makeup with black eyeshadow and red lipstick. He practically looked like he was dying right in front of you.

However, Smith always resented the goth label. It stuck, based on his “ill-defined features and naturally pale skin,” not to mention his tenure as a member of fellow goth rock icons Siouxsie and the Banshees. But personality-wise? Never there. “Goth was like pantomime to me,” he remarked. “I never really took the whole culture thing seriously.” He even said that the interview was his first time putting on makeup in 18 months. Smith, of course, embraces his goth fans (of whom there are many, likely quite confused now), but he’d hardly apply the label to himself.

To a degree, if the shoe fits, wear it. If a band writes songs with lyrics like “The spider man is having me for dinner tonight,” and titles albums with names like Disintegration or Bloodflowers, people kind of make assumptions. It’s not hard to take one look at Smith in the Cure’s ‘80s heyday and not see a direct throughline to the ‘00s emo wave and the legions of teenage imitators shows like South Park lampooned (for what it’s worth, Trey Parker and Matt Stone were fans, to the point where Smith made a guest appearance on the show). The Cure have a mopey aura.

But then you realize The Cure have something a lot of other goth rock bands don’t have: a sense of joy. Take a look at their contemporaries: The Smiths only saw joy as futile, a brief respite from the slog of day-to-day existence and, overall, a superficial aspect of life. Joy Division (talk about ironic) saw joy as non-existent, doomed to oblivion right from the start (you can’t get much more cut-and-dry than “Love Will Tear Us Apart”). The Cure, however, knew about joy. They knew it existed, even if it’s delayed (“Friday I’m in Love”) or conveyed in their own slinky, slithery way (“The Lovecats”). Even sad songs like “Boys Don’t Cry” have a bouncy sound, like even being sad has a positive place in the world, but it will end eventually, so don’t sweat it.

That kind of thinking, that sort of meaning behind the emotions, is what I like in music. I like all kinds of music, but the songs I like the best are ones that look for meaning in emotions we don’t always think about. A music reviewer I admire once said that he disliked artists like Jimmy Buffett because all they knew was contentment, and contentment isn’t a strong enough emotion to build a song around. That may be true, but any emotion when examined and blown up enough can be considered big enough for a song. Pure joy is more than enough to build a song around if it comes from an honest place, and we’re always at our loudest and proudest when we’re just speaking from the heart. Good musicians just know how to take those strong emotions and put the words to them that we ordinary folks might not immediately be able to conjure up. Sometimes being vague gets to the humanity of the joy, like when George Harrison simply states that he doesn’t know exactly what he loves about his girlfriend, but “Something in the way she moves/Attracts me like no other lover.” And the point is made. Sometimes it’s all about the specificity, like Tim Minchin painting the portrait of a perfect Christmas in “White Wine in the Sun” (“I’ll be seeing my dad/My brothers and sisters, my gran, and my mum/They’ll be drinking white wine in the sun”) but he still needs to set it up with a basic but true and emotional statement (“I really like Christmas/It’s sentimental, I know/But I just really like it”). And The Cure epitomize that hybrid of specificity and vagueness, because if it weren’t for a specific source of joy and a vaguer way of explaining it, we wouldn’t get “Just Like Heaven,” their most joyful song.

“Just Like Heaven” is a rush of ‘80s euphoria so wistful and evocative I don’t have to listen to it to write about it. It’s etched in my psyche to such a degree that just writing the words is enough to cue up the “ba-da-dum-dum-CRASH” that starts the song. I love songs that know how to build the mood before they get started, so by the time the actual song starts, you’re already tingling with excitement. “Just Like Heaven” takes its sweet, sweet time to get going: the rhythm section kicks things off, with Boris Williams’ punchy drum line and Simon Gallup’s sneaky bass. It almost feels like they’re giggling to each other, like they know something we don’t (how good the song we’re about to hear is, I’d reckon). Then acoustic guitar, I’m guessing from Smith himself, the organic element that keeps the song within the reality...only to be followed by Lol Tolhurst’s synth line, distant and heavenly, almost like the angelic woman of Smith’s affections. Finally, Porl Thompson (again I’m guessing) brings the electric guitar in, completing the symphony of emotions. The way I’ve always seen it, the bass and drums are encouraging the acoustic guitar to tell his story. The guitar is shy, tentative, but then the synth comes in and reminds him of why he’s feeling the way he does in the first place. Then, the electric guitar is giving that final push: go on then, the floor is yours. Why do you love this girl so much?

As Smith later said, “The song is about hyperventilating - kissing and falling to the floor.” It comes from an album called Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, and considering the album also features songs with names like “How Beautiful You Are,” “All I Want,” “The Perfect Girl,” and “Shiver and Shake,” it fits the theme. “Just Like Heaven” sounds like a dream. Almost like a fever dream, but it’s induced by pure, unadulterated love. He sounds like he is in love with someone so amazing and pure that she can’t be real: she’s “strange as angels” and “just like a dream.” It doesn’t seem like he really minds, though. Smith sings the song in a full belt, as though this love can’t be contained any longer. He sings as though this story has been sitting in his head for ages, and he just now found all the right words to express it. When he gets to the first chorus, as the song swells, he harmonizes with himself as he bellows “Dancing in the deepest oceans/Twisting in the water/You’re just like a dream,” only to calm down again as he repeats, “just like a dream.” He sounds like he’s calming himself down: how can someone so amazing be both high above him in the clouds and down below in the ocean?

If Smith sounds like he’s idealizing a bit, he has every right to: it’s about his fiancé, Mary Poole. That, to me, is the most romantic part. So many songs have this idealized vision of the singers’ woman of their dreams, but there’s such an honest undercurrent to this one. He based it on a real experience (a vacation to Beachy Head), and it took Williams’ tempo increase after hearing the demo to let Smith unleash his excitement in full. Smith loved Poole so much that when the time came to film the video, no actress would do to fill the role: Poole literally became that dream girl, the logical conclusion of “Just Like Heaven”’s blurring of reality and fantasy.

Take a line like “Dreamed of all the different ways I had to make her glow.” He could be talking about “glowing” in a literal sense: if this woman is an actual, literal angel, that ethereal glowing quality is definitely a feature of hers. After all, aren’t most angels depicted as glowing? On the other hand, it could just be a metaphor for how he finds new, fun ways to amuse her. Just a verse before, Smith had been using magic tricks to entertain her (which he said was based on doing the same for Poole in real life), so maybe he’s trying to chase that euphoric feeling again. His happiness in making her happy (glow).

I’ve always loved that lyric. It distills it all: that rush, the absolute high of being in love. “Just Like Heaven” seizes every moment of that honeymoon period and blows it up in such a way that it would move even the gloomiest alt-rock fan. Even if, as “Just Like Heaven” suggests, it may just be a dream, it’s a wonderful dream with grounding in reality. And I’ve loved the “glow” lyric for so long because it shows how much Smith loves the woman in question. He just wants to see her happy, and just coming up with different ways to make her happy is enough to elevate his own mood. It’s a relentlessly optimistic song, but there’s nuance there. I think it’s brilliant.

Most people seem to think it’s brilliant. On Acclaimed Music, a site that serves as an aggregate of critical consensus on songs, it ranks in the top 300 (I believe it’s the highest-ranked Cure song, perhaps only eclipsed by the also-great “Boys Don’t Cry”). I haven’t met anyone who dislikes this song, although I’m sure they’re out there, sad and alone. I tried to think of why someone might dislike this song, and it hit me when I was listening to it in class. We were all listening to the songs others had picked to write essays about, and within it was a potpourri of genres, eras, and artists (and lots of Kanye). I grooved to a lot of it. “April Come She Will”? Great stuff. “The Fall of Jake Paul”? Beyond stupid but I love good musical junk food. “Under the Bridge”? Classic. My musical tastes go all over the place. I’m just as inclined to listen to ska as I am to campy Eurovision songs, with some Australian rock and female-fronted pop punk for good measure. I love digging through the recesses of Spotify and iTunes to find cool stuff nobody’s ever heard of. But by those standards, “Just Like Heaven” isn’t a deep cut. It’s one of the most famous songs from a very famous band. I didn’t think it’d stand out that much, maybe because I hadn’t heard all the other songs chosen by the class.

Then it started - “Ba-da-dum-dum-CRASH!” That perfect start. The build-up began, I was vibing hardcore...but something felt different. I couldn’t put my finger on what, besides the fact that it was my song. Then it hit me: “Just Like Heaven” is a very, very ‘80s song. That reverb, the synthesizers, just the whole vibe is very much of an era. When the parade of Smith-influenced frontmen took over the mantle during emo’s ‘00s heyday, they didn’t actually sound like The Cure at all. It was all about that look, not the sound, no matter what they said. Synthesizers? Nobody uses synths like that anymore. That’s old hat, that’s corny. In the moment that the synth line kicked in during class, all of a sudden The Cure didn’t just feel like their own unique entity. It felt like a song that’d follow Laura Branigan and precede Lionel Richie on a “NOW! That’s What I Call the ‘80s” compilation. It felt like a relic. How had this song stood the test of time? Why did I pick this one?

Then I remembered: Dad.

My dad gives me a run for my money in the music nerd department. He was a college radio DJ when all of this was going down. Most kids complain that their parents’ music collection is hokey and old-timey. My parents’ CD collection, prodigious and varied, is incredibly cool (there’s one Hanson album in there, but nevertheless). They were there for all of it. My dad spun songs from The Joshua Tree and The Queen is Dead when they were fresh off the press. My parents saw Ben Folds Five on their honeymoon, right before “Brick” became a hit, and they saw Shane MacGowan almost fall off the stage at a Pogues show. They’re either on or ahead of the curve on all things music. And they both, but especially my dad, love The Cure.

I don’t agree with my dad on everything, but when we’re listening to music, it’s like there’s not even a vague age gap. Dad’s enthused that a kid my age likes the bands he enjoys so much, and he loves hearing my recommendations on new stuff. In the same way, if my dad finds something on Spotify and tells me to look it up immediately, I don’t hesitate. When he heard that I’d heard “Just Like Heaven” for the first time, three years ago, he was giddy: “Isn’t it so good?” Then, in classic Dad fashion, he launched right into his best Robert Smith impression, “SHOW ME SHOW ME SHOW ME how you do that trick!” My dad played this song on his radio show thirty years before I thought the same song significant enough to write about it.

And that’s why it isn’t just an ‘80s song, and it isn’t just “of an era.” In its own way, “Just Like Heaven” is timeless. We don’t bond over this song in the context of it as an ‘80s song; we bond over it as a good goddamn song about why people love each other. The emotions in “Just Like Heaven” and how they’re expressed are just as easy to understand in 2018 as they were in 1987. Music, really good music, has no era. But it can have a soul. “Just Like Heaven” has a soul that’s thoughtful, heartening, and pure. It shows that being deliriously happy about falling in love doesn’t make you stupid, or forget about common sense. On the contrary, it shows that you are smart enough to know that gloominess doesn’t make you smarter. That’s why The Cure aren’t just a goth rock band, and “Just Like Heaven” isn’t just an ‘80s song. The Cure are a great band, and “Just Like Heaven” is a great song. I’ll shout it out from the heavens and the deepest oceans. A song this transcendent is almost too perfect. Just like a dream.
Music is a world within itself, with a language we all understand - Sir Duke (1976)
User avatar
Elder
Unquestionable Presence
Posts: 522
Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2018 8:59 pm

Re: A music essay (for the hell of it)

Post by Elder »

Interesting your idea.

Well, The Cure arrangements have always attracted my attention more than the compositions.

But, this song is a great composition, for me the song talks about the end of a relationship where he did not value his girl and lost her.
It is a joyful song that exalts the love story that existed, instead of crying at the end of the relationship.

All in Love is Fair, by Stevie Wonder

good job
Fetch the Bolt Cutters...
User avatar
bonnielaurel
Keep On Movin'
Posts: 1662
Joined: Wed Feb 20, 2013 2:48 pm

Re: A music essay (for the hell of it)

Post by bonnielaurel »

You should ask a fee for for mentioning AM.

It's true that The Cure has a happy side, so it isn't pure gothic.
De gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum.
Post Reply

Return to “Music, Music, Music...”