The Cure Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me Vinyl

[Brayan Jacobsen]

Listeningto the album again, it struck me that I still love it, but the words of Josh Jackson quoted at the top of this post hung with me. It is a critique often levied against this album in favor of other works of the band. It's too "pop". It's too "commercial". It's too "upbeat". The comments aren't wrong, but I have to ask: is this a bad thing? Does being pop and upbeat make this a bad album? Whereas 1989's Disintegration is moody and dark and atmospheric, a return to - and prime example of - the gloomy-goth rock they're rightly famous for, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, is a departure from that sound. Lighter, more 80's pop-oriented, full of upbeat songs and sounds, and lots of horns. Like, all the horns. This album is just chock full of horns.

One thing The Cure does not get away from is the minutes of intro. On first listen, you could think that most of the songs on this album are instrumentals, and just when you're settling into that groove, Robert Smith starts singing. Right off, this is a dark, angry song. The synth in the background is melancholy, but the drums are angry, and just under a minute in the lead guitar snarls to life, clearly indicating the intent of this song. By the time we get to the 4 minute mark and Smith starts singing about tongues like poison, guts being pushed inside out, getting her fucking voice out of his head, and wishing she was dead (seriously, he howls "I wish you were dead" repeatedly to close out the song), there's no doubt that this song is dark and stormy and angry. The first lyrics are "Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me..." Roll Credits! Makes you wonder what other albums would be titled if they used the first lyrics as the album title. Disintegration would be called "I Think It's Dark and it Looks Like Rain". Wordy, but fitting. The Pixies classic Doolittle would be "Got Me a Movie". Not bad; I could see it being the title of a Pixies documentary. The Offspring's underrated ignition would be called "Ahhhh fuck fuck fuck fuck!" IMHO, an improvement. An interesting way to start off the "more upbeat" album.

In 1996, The Cure released a new album called Wild Mood Swings, which may well be the spiritual successor to this album, as that is similarly criticized for being too upbeat, and largely forgotten, while Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me is criticized for being too upbeat, but its wild mood swings are largely forgotten. Where "The Kiss" starts with that raging guitar and drum intro, "Catch" slides right into Smith do-doing over some light synth and drums.

The song is about meeting a girl, and reminiscing about a girl Smith "thinks [he] used to know". A girl who used to just stand around and smile and stare vacantly off into space for hours at a time. A girl who fell down a lot. A girl who Smith used to "spend the night/just rolling about on the floor". A girl whose name Smith never caught.

Imagine you're the girl he's talking to in this song. Oh, I remind him of a girl who may or may not have existed, was a clutzy space-cadet, and occasional sex partner. Hey, thanks. Of course, if you really are like the girl he (sort of) remembers, by the mid-point of the song you've stopped paying attention and are staring at clouds.I like to think this is a much more innocent song about a dog. The "rolling about on the floor" line always makes me think of playing with a big dog. Also, I like the imagery of proto-goth Robert Smith in full make-up and hairdo snuggling and frolicking with a furry dog. It's like imagining Marilyn Manson sitting on his couch watching "Chopped" and yelling at the chefs that they didn't use the galangal correctly.

Another possibility is that the girl he's singing to and the girl he is singing about are one and the same. He barely remembers her, never knew her name, and isn't sure of anything (except the sex - he remembers that). That makes it either sad -- he's singing to a former love about their good times together (and her clutziness/epilepsy/seizures) -- or hilarious. You remind me of someone...oh right, you.

Back to the minute-long intro, and an angry song. The intro is dark, with a bassy synth driving the rhythm. A minute in, Smith's howling voice breaks in about how he's in a "room without a light", a "room without a view". He calls it "one more treacherous night", and "torture". He's hung upside down, tied up, beaten. He can't take anymore. Then he goes on to sing about skin being pulled so tight it "screams and screams and screams for more".

His skin screams for more? Interesting.

Ok, so Robert Smith is apparently into freaky, kinky torture sex. Honestly, I'm not judging -- as long as you and your partner are consenting, safe, and open about expectations, have fun in the bedroom (or wherever) -- it's just a little unexpected.

3-minute intro, synthy and atmospheric, slow-paced (but not plodding), almost sultry. Smith's tortured voice is slightly subdued as he sings about sleeping, and the flute at the end just solidifies the atmosphere. If this were by a band that didn't have a reputation for writing incredibly depressing songs, people would have an entirely different reaction to it.

It is beautiful. The lyrics seem dark, as sleep is usually used as a metaphor for death. At first blush, it sounds like an overdramatic suicide pact. However, he talks about falling into "a deathless spell", and sliding into "deep black water" and breathing. This leads to some of my favorite Cure lyrics on this album:

The song closes with Smith crying out, "Don't let it end!"Most think this is about death, either the physical death of a partner, or the end of a relationship. I find a much simpler, more elegant interpretation fits better, though: two lovers, basking in the afterglow, wanting to just stay that way forever.

Did I mention wild mood swings earlier? I'm pretty sure I mentioned wild mood swings earlier. I hope I did, because...wow. We've gone from "I wish you were dead" to "She was pretty" to "hurt me more" to "nap time". And now we get the horns. Full-on frontal assault of horns. No warning, no quarter. All horns, all the time.

When people say this album is "pop", this is almost certainly the song they're thinking of. Not just upbeat, but practically manic in its upbeat-ness. Some people think this is a love song. Some think it's pure lust. I always thought it was kind of sarcastic, maybe even mocking of someone who thinks they're just awesome. "Yeah, you're soooo great. I wish I was you." Or, perhaps mocking people who have this attitude. Some say it's an attempt to see through the eyes of his fans (after a fan approached him and said, "I wish I was you"), or his response that he wants to be normal like his fans.Whatever the meaning, this song is just soaked in 80's synth Pop. Which is then smothered by horns.

If you could average the tone of the previous 5 songs, you'd get this one. Not aggressively angry, not quite happy, not sad. It does however start off with the line, "You want to know why I hate you? Well, I'll try to explain." and goes on to tell the story of walking through Paris with the subject of the song, apparently a gorgeous woman, when they run into a father and his two sons, apparently peasants. They don't actually say anything, but gaze upon the glorious visage of this young woman with obvious longing. The woman responds by telling Smith to tell the family to beat it. Smith hates her for this.

Ok, it's kind of bitchy, but does anyone really like having people stare at them? Don't we routinely tell kids that this is impolite? Or is that only for things like deformities and general ugliness? Beautiful people are meant to be stared at? Seems a little extreme to hate someone just for this reaction, but maybe the idea is that this is the seed of the hatred, and once she exposed her inner ugliness to him, he started to see beyond her outer beauty?

One thing that always stuck with me was the idea of Robert Smith hooking up with a super model. I know The Cure was huge in the 80's, but really? Turns out, this is a song version of Baudelaire's poem "Les Yeux des Pauvres" (The Eyes of the Poor), which tells a much more detailed version, and emphasizes the duality of external beauty and inner ugliness, of thinking you know someone and suddenly being proven completely and utterly wrong.

I really like this song, though. It has a great, driving bass line and a chorusy guitar playing along with it, counterpointed by a flowing synth organ. Smith's vocals are great, as is the imagery of the peasant family speaking with nothing but their eyes. It is also quite poppy, but...no, horns?

Another slow-building intro, bass-heavy this time, undulating, writhing, calling to mind the titular snake pit before any words are heard. Very cool. I'm not actually sure this song belongs on this album. What it reminds me of, especially when the woodwinds come in midway through is their song "Burn" on the soundtrack from "The Crow" (1994). It never builds to the crescendo that "Burn" does, but it always feels like the precursor to that song.

They would probably never admit to listening to The Cure, but I'm pretty sure this song inspired the sound of "Voodoo" on Godsmack's first album. (Side note: want to feel old? Godsmack's first album was released closer to 1987 than 2015. I feel old now. If you're reading this, and Godsmack's first album came out before you were born, well, now I feel super old. Thanks for that.)

If you bought US version of the CD before they released the "Deluxe" edition, you probably have never heard of this song, unless you read all of the fine print on the back of the CD case. If you did, hey there! Welcome to the nerd club! Due to the limited space on CDs at the time (74 minutes), the song, the last track on Side 2 of the original vinyl, was omitted. When the Deluxe version was released a few years back, new technologies allowed for 80 minutes on a CD, and the track was included. So, we got not just a remastered album, but we'd also get to hear this "lost" track. It was like a little time capsule.I now understand why this song, over any of the other seventeen, was left off this album.

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