The Cure's "Just Like Heaven"

Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick The one that makes me scream, she said The one that makes me laugh, she said Through her arms around my neck It's your heart and your code, your yes and your no Your in and your out, your heart and your down You be living life after love Living life after love Cause I'm like a bird and I'll only fly away I don't know where my soul is I don't know where my home is Somebody once told me The world is gonna rule me I ain't the sharpest tool in the shell You must not know about me You must not know about me I can have another you in a minute Matter of fact, he'll be here in a minute Check it out I know who I want to take me home. I know who I want to take me home. Just like heaven. So Luxury, today we're talking about a song from one of the biggest and most prolific bands ever. They've been around for 50 years and they've influenced everyone from Olivia Rodrigo to Interpol to the Smashing Pumpkins. That's right, Diallo. And today's song is the one that broke them into the American mainstream. It's pure euphoria, chiming guitars, driving drums, a build so satisfying you almost don't realize how meticulously it is constructed. And Hot Take, we're going to ask the question, is this band the seminal goth band or not a goth band at all? We're talking one song, and that song is Just Like Heaven by The Cure. Hey, OneSong listeners, if you love our show, you should check out Trapital, the podcast where technology meets culture. Each episode, Trapital host and founder, Dan Runcie, digs into the strategy behind the media and technology that drives our attention. You'll hear Trapital explore topics like YouTube's growing influence in music and entertainment, the never-ending saga about TikTok's future, and how AI is shaping the future. Media is one of the first industries to get disrupted by new tech. It's Trapital's job to keep you ahead of the latest trends. You can listen to Trapital wherever you get your podcasts. That's Trapital, T-R-A-P-I-T-A-L. So good. It's a good song, isn't it? That's not how he talks at all. Hey, it's my Robert Smith from The Cure. Where you want to go, mate? Blimey. I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes goth, Diallo Riddle. And I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, musicologist, and always goth luxury, aka the guy who whispers interpolation. And this is One Song. The show where we break down the stems and stories behind iconic songs across genres and tell you why they deserve one more listen. You will hear these songs like you've never heard them before, and you can watch One Song on YouTube. While you're there, please like and subscribe. So today we're talking about The Cure, and I gotta say, what I love about this band is they're not afraid to evolve and keep making music. They just picked up their first ever Grammys, best alternative music album and best alternative music performance for the song Alone. Let's hear a little snippet of Alone. I mean, that song could have gone on after Fascination Street. They have not missed a beat. They have a sound. They definitely have a sound. we're going to talk about with that sound is try to break it down a little bit he still sounds like robert smith he still sounds like i guess it helps to always sing like a 60 year old british man the same he absolutely does it's a luxury i consider myself a cure fan but you're a next level cure fan what does this band mean to you i think they're the band that i listen to the most in my life i think they're the band that after all of these years of like discovering them as a teen and like by the way when i discovered them as a teen they were the favorite band of so many of the cool kids at my school, like Maggie Nelson. It was her favorite band and Louisa Smith. And importantly, Heather Barrett, who famously in our circle of friends, her phone number was 563 Cure. The Cure were very stalker. Is that how you remember her number? I mean, it's an impossible number to forget. 563 Cure. That's pretty good. It also sounds like a song that could be written by the Cure. So they were really important to me in high school and even middle school, as they are for so many people. I think they sort of perennially pick up a new generation of teenagers who can relate and identify with whatever the sound and the gossip we'll be talking about in a few minutes. But that's never left me. And I probably turn to a Cure record. I play them on my radio show. Like I'm listening to thinking about, talking about The Cure kind of my whole life. I don't think, and I can't think of a band that's second to that as much as I love The Beatles or Zeppelin or whatever. The Cure may be my number one band. I think there's an age that you hit in your teenage years where a band can help kind of define who you identify as and i think that's for me i think it was like the native tongues crew i wanted to be in a tribe called quest or diggable planets and those kind of groups it sounds like you were like these guys are like who i want to be i'll bet you it's a similar thing too where you can identify with i mean a huge part of it is the music but there's also something about who the people making the music are yeah and there's also something about the other people listening to that music and totally what i i identified with all three. I can tick all three of those boxes with the cure. And I'll bet you can too. I'll just say one more thing about my middle school experience. My first ever concert experience, besides seeing the Manhattan transfer being dragged by my dad when I was 10, literally the one I wanted to go to that I went to was the cure. And that was this amazing epiphany for me when I realized when I got to the Greek theater in Berkeley for the head on the door tour, and I saw all these other like seventh and eighth graders and older who were like, looked like the outcasts in their school. It looked like you got the two to three kids from every school who kind of looked like that, who were like the early got the wearing the black, you know, with the black fingernails and whatever else and all the Robert Smith visualisms. That was the first time I was like, oh, all of these people exist in the world in other schools and other cities and other towns. Before the internet kids, there was you could definitely feel isolated. You could feel absolutely alone. And whether it was the record store or a Cure concert, when you thought you found your community, that was a big deal. That became my tribe, and I don't think that's ever left me, and I think that's true for a lot of people with this band. A hundred percent. What about you, Diallo? How did you first get into The Cure? They popped up on my radio. You know, like, it was one of those songs, I was like, maybe the second or third time, I used to do my homework with the radio playing. I think it was 99X was the station in Atlanta. And I remember maybe the second or third time I heard Love Song, I was like, I really like this song. And here's what's interesting. I think you're saying you fell in love with The Cure because you got to see them and you got to see this community around them. For the longest time, I didn't know what The Cure even looked like. Oh, really? I think it's so funny, growing up in an all-black environment in Atlanta, where we had famously two non-black kids in my school, I didn't know there was a goth culture. I didn't know there was a whole culture that went with the music. I just appreciated the music. And I came to The Cure, I think, kind of what you would consider the pop era. Like I remember liking songs like Love Song. Friday I'm in Love. And High on the radio and in Atlanta on MTV. Let's check out a clip from the music video High, which is one of my favorites. It's a sunny day in L.A. today. And I got to say, anytime it's sunny and I feel well rested, this is the song that plays for free in my head. This is High. See you in a beautiful world. Videos used to be so much more literal back in the day. Literally. Like he says, see you in a beautiful world. You know, like it's just one of those songs. Flash to beautiful. Yeah. Flash to cloudless skies. Blue skies. If it weren't for songs like these, I might not have even gotten into The Cure. But these were songs that broke through in the mainstream, at least in Atlanta. These are songs that got me to go back and discover their earlier stuff. But I wonder, Luxury, as a longtime fan of the band, how did you feel about this period and this album, Wish, which is one of my favorites? Honestly, Wish was a little bit – they had already lost me a little bit with the album we're talking about today, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me is a divisive album, I feel like, in the Cure fandom. It's a great record. It's also very long, and it has a lot of songs that had they left them out, I might not have had a problem with it. But there's a shark jumping moment or two on this record. Wow. So you're referring to specifically the 1992 record Wish, right? And prior to that, we had Disintegration. Which is another perfect album. And what we're going to talk about today is this cure, 50 years. There's a lot of music. The duration of this band means that there's a lot of different sonic directions they take from one record to the next, one song to the next on the record. But to your question, I think in 1987, it felt like it's a book ending for me, a little bit of the band, and I would extend it to disintegration. That is prime cure for me. That's the cure that I go back to when I say I keep going back to it. after that they really double down on these beautiful more pop songs that take into account some of the curisms that we'll be talking about some of the sound qualities some of the rhythmic qualities but they lose a little bit of the darkness sometimes a little bit more than i'd like something like disintegration you think i know no i would say that's a record that has some of it yeah that's the bookend right there on kiss me kiss me they sort of allude to what's going to come next with like more songs that are like beautiful i don't have any problem with them it's just not what i want from the cure this kind of reminds me of our depeche mode yeah double episode because i think you are more of a fan of like the earliest depeche mode i'm more of a fan of like the sort of like violator depeche mode and there's no doubt that we become fans of and when we get into them yes also i think that yes because i got into blur late and went back and discovered earlier blur albums i think at the end of the day we are fans of depeche mode we are fans of the cure and i'm sure that there's some songs on wish that you like and there are definitely some songs on their earlier albums that i love and we're going to get into some of those as well and there's a lot of ways to be a fan and you know sometimes being a fan means you're so locked in something meant so much to you in the early work that when the band naturally evolves and in this case when they leave the cavern and start you know silent signing to deca robert smith didn't just want to make a forest over and over again i would have loved that band i would have gone back but There's something natural about evolving, but sometimes a fan like me is like, but I like these 10 years. Do you remember the first time you heard Just Like Heaven? It was very likely on 120 Minutes, which I watched religiously on MTV every Sunday night. I think before or after The Young Wins. I can't remember the sequence, but I watched that whole block of time. That was me. I was locked in every Sunday night. So it's likely I would have seen it there. Why don't we play a little bit of the Just Like Heaven music video? We're not a god band. Come on. they look like it went to golf school i like the stripped down 80s music video there's very little set dress there it's pretty much on a white psychs you know that they throw a nice blue gel on it's just a performance like a cactus i think over here in the corner something like that it's just a performance video and you see all of them as their instrumental parts come in which is very satisfying because what you're seeing is what you're hearing sometimes that's all you really need in the video i hope i'm not jumping the gun but has the lineup of The Cure basically stayed the same? We know that Robert Smith's been there the whole time. Let me just give you the really quick rundown. Fourteen studio LPs that this band has made. The first one, Three Imaginary Boys, was the three imaginary boys were Robert Smith, Lawrence, Lol, Tallhurst, British accent, Lol, probably, and Michael Dempsey was the first bass player. That record is amazing. It's sort of standalone. It's a little bit more post-punk, a little more buzz-cocky. It hasn't quite got the goth stuff in there yet. The next three records are really the goth core of the band, and that's 17 Seconds, Faith, and Pornography. And those lineups had a replacement, a very important one, where the bass player was replaced by Simon Gallup, who then is seminal to the band. In a lot of ways, we're going to talk about it. Because I hear the bass of these songs. And today, listen, we're talking about Just Like Heaven. It's important to point out, by the time this song came out, there had already been, as you said, they'd already been around for a decade. There had already been six albums under their belt. And these earlier albums, we're going to talk about them. They were darker. They were of a goth, I'd say, new wave. I'd even argue sort of a punk, post-punk edge. Oh, yeah. The sound evolved. So this core period of like where I think the gothness really hardens because of the sound and because of the look, really. And because of some of the curisms we'll be talking about today get established on a lot of these records. There's a moment from 82 to 84 after the record Pornography where Robert Smith's kind of in the wild a little bit. He's going through a lot, drinking a lot, drugging a lot. he's had a fight with Gallup, Simon Gallup, who's no longer part of the, it's just the two of them again. And almost as a rebellion against this goth period, this is when you start to get Robert Smith and The Cure coming up with songs like Let's Go to Bed, The Love Cats, The Walk, which is one of, I think, our shared favorites. And what's important about this, though, is that not only has the lineup shrunken. But this is when Robert Smith starts to realize, hey, I can have more fun with this. We're going to talk about this a little more when we get into the goth stuff. But the pop music, it's important to remember, really starts in 82, like in Let's Go to Bed, which is intentionally meant to be like an anti-goth song. He's like, I'm no longer doing this sound exclusively anymore. I'm going to be doing what I want to do. And I'm going to be exploratory in pop music and try to find new sounds and new melodies that are more along the pop lines. Well, let's hear a song from one of their early albums. This is from their second album. This is a song called, it's one of our joint favorites. This is probably my favorite Cure song. Absolutely, yeah. Even though I said just like Kevin. You don't think it's the best, you just think it's your personal favorite. See, this is going to be the show today. This is going to be the show today. It is my favorite. It's his favorite. He doesn't think it's the best. He does not think it's the best. I am not going to be consistent. and I reserve the right to be inconsistent today. This is a favorite known as a forest. Let's make the listening audience guess what's happening in the video. Can you guess? Can you guess what's happening in a forest? If you say a worm's eye view of some very tall trees, then you are correct. And then Robert Smith comes on, and he doesn't look like the Robert Smith we know. He almost looks like he's in Devo, but he's wearing a green hat. He hasn't become the quintessential goth yet. No. It's got punk edge. And can I just talk about Robert Smith's voice? He's always had this sort of like bratty, I'm just so weak and weakened by whatever emotion I feel. Like he always does this. There's a lot of yelping, a lot of moaning, a lot of sighing, a lot of sounds that are melodic but aren't necessarily like melodies. in addition to the melodies there's all these peripheral sounds though that are part of the emoting part of the character part of the emotional output i i once heard that goss um the the the a lot of people who made goth music were heavily influenced by jim morrison of the doors and i can kind of see it because i feel like there's this sort of like the same way jim has like the growl yeah and that's how he emotes uh i feel like a lot of the goss they're they're So emotional. And they're like, let's not be afraid to put this emotion in our voice. Listen, let's go there. It's time to talk about what is goth? What is it? Sure. Is the cure goth? Were they goth? Are they ever? If you were goth before, are you are you forever goth? All of these questions come into play. So what we've talked about genre many times on the show is one of our favorite topics because it's really important. I think a lot of people can get locked into this idea that it's only one thing and it can't be anything else. But the actuality of what genre tends to be is you have to separate it There what the music sounds like Sure There the lyrical content There what maybe the band looks like or the visuals Right Or even the perfect like the artwork and everything everything aesthetic about the musical packaging And then there who is listening to it and what sort of tribe do they belong to And is there something that they share something they have in common That is these are sort of some of the component parts, maybe the main ones of genre. But if you just say this is goth or this isn't goth, you're going to get lost and be wrong fairly quickly because it's a very reductive and oversimplified thing to say. And let me try to break down just some of that. I would say that the earliest bands that would be considered goth yeah not by them for the most part right but by people who like goth music such as myself would include but not be limited to suzy and the banshees the birthday party and nick cave the damned of all people like literally considered one of the first punk bands But basically after that first record, they become kind of a goth. And in no small part because of what Dave Vanian, the lead singer, looks like. And he was a gravedigger, which is part of where that look comes from. And by the way, Susie and the Banshees were also punks before they started. And a lot of it was just the visuals came before the sound. I'll just name a few more. Southern, Death Cult, Throbbing Gristle, Killing Joke, Bauhaus. By the way, Killing Joke is so slept on. Killing Joke has one of my favorite songs. 80s? Yeah. It's amazing. So good. I would say that what these bands have in common that make them goth are a little bit more thematic and visual than sonic. But some of the sonics of the music they made become concretized into if I sit down and want to write a goth song, I'm going to start using some of the, for example, guitar effects. And I'm going to create some of the moods and atmospheres that come from having boss pedals like a flange and a delay and a chorus pedal. These are three literally off the rack, inexpensive guitar pedals that a lot of these bands used. So when you hear their music, one defining theme that runs through a lot of it, especially with the Cure, especially with the Cure and Susie, are these guitar pedals and some of the sounds and some of the swirl that they create. And I think geography comes into play, too, because a lot of these groups are like, you know, I think there was like, even if they were from America, they were often thought of as English. What I didn't know at the time is that some of this goth culture, at least some of the influences, actually have roots in like the Caribbean and Haitian and other places that, you know, you don't typically think of black people being goths. I certainly didn't. But like as more people have gotten into sort of like Afro-Goth, they've formed their own community sort of like drawing on stuff like The Cure and Susie but also bringing in stuff like Voodoo and a lot of black clothing. It sort of speaks to something that I read in an interview with Robert Smith where he said, I feel a community of spirit with Goths and other subcultures who choose to live an alternative lifestyle, but I wouldn't consider myself to be a part of it. Robert has said many times he doesn't consider The Cure to be a goth band, saying that it was more of a phase for them. But I think to your point, you know, everybody sort of picks and chooses what part of goth that they will pick off of. I completely agree. And that's interesting he said that. There's something actually related to religion, I would say, too, because some of the sonics of the music, especially these early – you mentioned geography. It's also the time. So 1980, 81, England and Australia with the birthday party. Margaret Thatcher. there's margaret thatcher there's also i think a rejection just like punk rock is kind of a questioning of politics and power yeah i'd say a lot of goth music like lyrically a lot of the content a lot of the ideas are questioning religion and some of the presumptions of religion in fact robert smith another robert smith quote for the record faith which is called faith for not no reason he says i used to go and write songs in church i'd think about death i'd look at all the people in church and i knew that they were all there above all because they wanted quote eternity. And I was thinking about when you're young, you're indoctrinated and forced to believe in something. So for him, this early, you know, again, seminal helps create the template for the sound and feel and lyrical content of goth is about questioning faith. It's about questioning these things that are kind of imposed upon you by the, you know, your family, perhaps, and people in your community and the church elders. And this idea, it's like, you know what, maybe we should question that we shouldn't take it. So and some of it is a reclamation of the imagery and sound a little bit of the imagery of think of like catholic church imagery it's very dark right there's a sort of brutality about a lot of it and even the sound a lot of the reverb on the vocals and like even the minor key it sort of harkens to some gregorian chant melodies and minor key melodies so there's kind of there's something about the church we call it goth not for no reason gothic architecture were churches yeah of the medieval period what would you say is the pinnacle of the band's gothness. Probably the pornography record. And there's going to be songs before and after that. But that record to me is the darkest record. It's sometimes the hardest one to listen to, but it's really good. And just the first line off the first song of the record tells you everything you need to know. Let's listen to the live version of 100 Years. This is from Glasgow, 1984. Ready? First line. Doesn't matter if we all die. Does it matter if we all die? Okay. Doesn't matter if we all die. That's a mission statement. That's a mission statement. For those of you not watching us on YouTube, imagine Robert Smith looking the most like Robert Smith. Yeah. You know, like, looking literally like a bat. He almost looks like, and the crowd looks like those videos of, like, the bats in their cage hanging upside down, but then they flip it, and it looks like a golf cart. that's what the crowd those are my people man this is the coolest band i love it in their coolest era 1984 cure it's like peak peak peak all the way it's up to the late 80s i would say what a great performance what a great performance i'm glad you put that on the radar there's so many live performances that are amazing on youtube and sometimes you're just like i just want to see like this band in that year um and since we mentioned the iconic visuals right a couple times now this is this is now robert going from not looking like robert smith in her mind to very looking like Robert Smith, which is the classic Robert Smith is the big black tussled hair with lots of like hairspray in it. So it sticks up. It's the lipstick, which is smeared. And a fun thing. My favorite kind of lipstick. When it's smeared, it's the best. Smeared, it says so much. One theory as to the origin of that look, which we've come to think is so iconic and so goth. Yeah. Actually, from Steve Severin, Susie and the Banshees bassist. Now, you have to remember that in 1982, that was this year. By the way, a bass god, in my opinion. like totally like like the cure that when you hear a good bass line on a suzy track like you're just like oh my gosh suzy one another one of my favorite bands of all time we're definitely going to do an episode so i mentioned in 1982 sort of the wilderness years begin where he's no longer play simon gallop isn't in the band for two years they're not even talking they had a big fist fight at a bar after a gig that's why they break up so in this moment robert smith in addition to making these sort of poppy singles joined suzy and the banshees he's in that band as a touring guitar player for about 18 months, works on the record Hyena. And for him, it's a relief to not be the singer, to just be the guitar player in somebody else's band. But importantly, as Steve Severin says, quote, he was definitely influenced by Susie. You only have to look at him before and after the band. She used to see that. So let's put Robert Smith side by side on the screen with Susie Sue from Susie. And he even has a theory about this smeared lipstick. So here's Steve severance smeared lipstick origin theory we all went to a club in the west end called legends on opium or maybe it was lst i like it when you don't know which drug you're taking that's always robert borrowed suzy's lipstick went to the toilet and when he came back he had on the trademark wonky lipstick on and that was it forever so suzy and robert smith you never see them together anymore i wonder you know can we be sure can we be sure they're not the same hey man paul is dead all right i think to the uninitiated sometimes there's this idea that like goth has to be like this sad dreary music and obviously there are songs like that that i love uh you know pictures of you comes from behind there's a delicious wallowing in the yes there's a wallowing but allow me to point out that there are a lot of poppy songs even in the early part of the cures uh catalog but they're usually the singles when they were uh touring in support of pornography they released a singles compilation, one of my favorite albums I ever owned, Japanese Whispers. It has many of their biggest songs, including this 1983 classic, Love Cats. You know that one from Halloween? That's a really, really fun one. And it's a very fun video. Also, a personal favorite of mine, The Walk. I think The Walk is one of those songs that I really get into every time. I called you after midnight. Robert Smith is like the guy from Interpol. Like, I just feel like maybe it's the register of my voice, but I feel like we can all sing like them. I passed the howling woman. I think he's the howling woman. He's the howling woman, for sure. Or maybe it's Susan. I love The Cure. I'm so excited we're doing this episode. We're going to take a quick break. But when we get back, we're diving into the track Robert Smith himself has called the best pop song The Cure has ever done. Also, what's a curism? We've said it a couple of times on this episode. You might be asking yourself, are there elements that you can add to any song to make it sound more like The Cure? Stick around. We'll break it down after this. Hey, guys, it's the top of the year. And look, if you're like me, you're trying to figure out your finances. You're thinking about maybe I should pay off some debt. Maybe I should build an emergency fund with everything going on out here. You know, there's also like milestones coming up, like kids' tuition, retirement, all kinds of things. And I know it can feel overwhelming sometimes. But here's a solution. Do you want a tool that helps you plan, project, and proactively achieve your financial goals? Set yourself up for financial success this year. Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. That's right. It brings your entire financial life, budgeting, accounts, even investments, network, and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or your laptop. Feel aware and in control of your finances this year and get 50% off your Monarch subscription with code 1SONG. Set yourself up for financial success in 2026 with Monarch, the all-in-one tool that makes proactive money management simple all year long. Use code 1SONG at Monarch.com for half off your first year. That's 50% off your first year at Monarch.com with code O-N-E-S-O-N-G. One song. All right, welcome back to One Song. So, Luxury, you and Robert Smith think this is the best Cure song. Not your favorite, but the best, no less. And it's an incredible song, no doubt. We think that it actually establishes what we're going to call on one song. We're going to copyright this. We're going to call it Cure-isms. These are elements. These are things in so many of our favorite Cure songs. that just seem to be recurring. It's kind of a checklist of things. You won't find all of these in every song, but a lot of these ideas show up in a lot of places. List off some curisms for us, my man. All right, let's start with the sound. Literally the sound of the instruments and some of the effects that they're using are very iconic. And in many ways, they're very simple. They're off-the-rack pedals in a lot of cases and off-the-rack guitars and strings that you can buy. But the way, obviously, they are used and mixed and the actual performance by the players gives them a really iconic sound. I'll be specific. Let me just play an example of one song that to me epitomizes just like the sound of the Cure. And not coincidentally, it is the song that they play first in a lot of their concerts, not least of which is my favorite Cure concert video. This is from In Orange, Live In Orange, 1988. Shake Dog Shake. Just those strums. Man, this tickles every part of the pleasure centers in my brain. Just those initial whole note guitar strums are layered and lathered and bathing in effects. And some of the effects in this song in particular, what I hear are the chorus, literally a boss chorus pedal, $100 at any guitar center. The flange, another boss guitar pedal. Probably a phaser might be in there as well. These very simple effects pedals very much define a lot of the sound of a lot of those bands. and hugely define, I would say, the cure, because both Robert Smith on his guitar effects board is using them, and so is Simon Gallup on the bass. So, curism number one, boss effect pedals. What's our next curism? Another major, major thing is the use of rhythmic motifs. And what this sort of is an insight into is that when you have a melody that's memorable, it's comprised of two things, the pitch and the rhythm. And what I think Robert Smith and company do is extract that rhythmic thing and give it to the bass, give it to the drums. And these are all hooks and like little, they feel like melodies that you're excited to hear them come up in the song, but they're not necessarily always melodic. And a lot of times they're really persistent through the song. We're going to hear this today in Just Like Heaven. There's a bass motif in particular that we hear in this song and other Cure songs. What are some of those songs? That's a very familiar one. So here are a couple of examples of motifs. This is Fascination Street. Listen to the bass line on this song, and then we'll talk about it. Now let me just say one thing. Listen to that motif. That particular motif goes through the whole song, becomes very hypnotic to hear this rhythm. And now that I've said that in the room without pitch, does that remind you of anything? That's Phil Collins in the air. That's the same rhythm as the drum. it's found in a lot of things it's also found in the beatles and the ends so that rhythmic motif is carried through the whole song and it's very pure to have a rhythmic motif carried through the song another example and there are many more i'll just give you a few more check out close to me close to me is a great song hot hot hot has the famous three on e yeah and one last one one of my favorites i'll play it for you i know this one well long time listeners of the show what does that sound like oh uh you're gonna say a child called malice which is part of the family that we talked about on lust for life i think it was just a thing that like people forget people used to dance at dance clubs even at rock clubs like the goss you always want a song where you can kind of go like this exactly like those people who are about to get killed by the terminator in that one scene when you like walked into the club and they were like intimacy intimacy i uh which is actually sounds like an interpol early cure song so go back and watch the terminator intimacy great track the cure why can't ibu uses the same rhythmic motif that we heard in iggy pop lust for life go back to that episode because we named 20 other songs not not the least of which is town called malice you just walking on sunshine katrina in the waves jed are you going to be my girl so it's part of that rhythmic motif family as well So, curism number two, rhythmic motifs. That run through the whole song. That run through the whole song. I have a curism I want to throw out there. I think you'll agree with it. I noticed that he likes to bring in instruments one at a time. Absolutely. Like, I didn't notice this until we started working on this episode, but now I can't unhear it. Like, it's such a curism. It's the Bob build. Bob's always building, Robert Smith being Bob. Talk to us about this curism. Well, we just heard it on Fascination Street, right? It tends to start with maybe two instruments, maybe one. Yeah, we heard it on high. We heard it on so many of these songs. We're going to hear it on Just Like Heaven. It's just the introduction of instruments over the span of many bars. So in Just Like Heaven, you're going to be hearing drums and bass. And then the first guitar comes in, then the second guitar comes in, then the third guitar comes in with the melody and the keyboards I think I forgot to mention it in there But basically there a build that lasts nearly an entire minute before we hear any vocals He not a guy who comes in right on the song Not always, yeah. Sometimes it doesn't matter if we all die. He likes to give you a solid minute and a half sometimes of just the instruments. And then he's like, okay, now I'll sing. But that buildup, Bob's Build, is definitely a major cure-ism. Curism number three, Bob's Bill, gradually bringing in instruments over the course of the first minute song. I'm glad you're calling it Bob's Bill. Thank you so much. What's a nice curism? Next up, we have chord cycles, number four. And to be clear, this is sort of like a checklist. Not every song does this, and not exclusively Cure songs do this, but very often, and in the song we're talking about today, there's a cycle of chords, sort of like the motif, that hypnotically repeats throughout the entirety of the song. There are often four of them, and they're often quite satisfying. Within the four chords, you sort of get the tension, the build, and the release, and then you're back to one again. So that chord change family thing we've talked about on many episodes. And we did our medley of songs at the top of the episode. Exactly right. All of the songs in our medley at the beginning of this episode cycle through the same four chords. And the point we were making is many songs are in that family. That's right. We'll talk more about it when we get to the guitars in the stems. But that's part of the chord cycle thing that is a curism. Curism number four, chord cycles. I have one more that I think we agree upon Which is it wouldn't be a Cure song Without the voice of Robert Smith Such a distinct voice There's so much emotion in his voice He sort of yelps it out We were joking how would he describe Today in LA and be like It's a beautiful day in LA There's so many things he does It's so distinctive But it's so emotional and it really just draws you in Because he taps into I think Something that we all feel especially if you're like an outsider which is just like why can't i be you it's very yearning and trying it's effort-filled he's you know he was frustration i actually there's some frustration and they're like that too why can't i fit in you're looking you're having fun you look like you're having fun he'd be the first to say that he's no shaka khan like he's not like a master he's a great singer because we relate emotionally to what he's saying but not necessarily because he's like a masterfully powerful like church level you know the voice level sinner it helps all these songs be releasing along that you don't have to be shaka khan look i'll try to be shaka khan i often try enough drinks in me and it's nighttime i will try to be shaka khan but even sober we all think we could be robert smith to a certain extent we all can be robert smith it's accessible to your point that's what's ironic he wonders why he can't be you but we're like why can't we be him there's that whole slate of bands in the early aughts like vhs or beta Interpol. The Rapture. Oh, yeah, The Rapture. Hot Hot Heat. There were many bands that were loving Robert Smith's voice and kind of sound like him. Go back and listen to some of those bands. Absolutely. Band of jazz, band of jazz in my heart's real. Band of jazz, band of jazz, band of jazz. Up and down on my legs in my arms. That's very Robert Smith. Absolutely. So Curism number five. Sound like Robert Smith. Robert Smith's vocals do a lot. And arguably the most important thing, because out of the 50-year history, Robert Smith is the only consistent through line for all of the songs you've ever heard by The Cure. They all feature him on vocals. That's very true. All right. Without further ado, let's start with those iconic driving drums. All right. Here's Boris Williams at 152 BPM. So one thing I want to point out is we're going to hear three motifs. Okay. And you just heard two of them. One, motif A, I'll call it, is the drum fill that starts what is essentially a 16-bar loop that goes through the whole song, but with these really satisfying two things, motifs. So these are patterns that we hear over and over. And there's a specific symbol that he's using, which is relatively unusual in pop music. Not never, but it's kind of more of a metal sound. So listen for the crash symbol. It's a special kind of crash that I'll be explaining in just a moment. So I'll point it out here. It comes in this section right here. It sounds a little different from your typical crash. We're going to hear it again right here. And then finally, this is the third motif, which happens at the end of the cycle to get us back to the next loop. Two things to listen for. One is that crash, which I've already mentioned, but we're also that crash and we're emphasizing the two. We're not coming in on the one. We're coming in on the two. I'll point that out. one two yeah so all the way through all of those motifs really emphasize that too i'll play the second one again here we go one two yeah so that's a really important thing the two is emphasized this song a lot by those motifs and the fact that he's hitting his china crash which is kind of more heard in metal and maybe jazz than it is in most pop music what it is is it's a crash symbol just like any other you'd see on a drum kit the difference is that it's a little higher in pitch it's bright it's crisp and it's kind of metallic sounding so it's a very small detail but it's distinctive sounding as well it really helps determine the character of the song you know why is that too like why does it make you go yeah do do like it's like it's like trying to drag a moody goth teenager you know to school in the morning like you know it's just like okay mom i guess i'll come you know like it's like that two does a lot because i was thinking like what would be the opposite if it landed on the one it would be like one two three four like one is way to go get her yeah you gotta drag those guys two is against their will yeah two is against the will man that crash table came in a beat too late while we're on the subject of the motif let's talk about the bass let's talk about the bass because that's the motif that motifs are made of this is simon motif i mean i would say simon gallop is an unsung hero not just of this song but of this band so this is simon on bass and just to give him a little flowers he's had the longest tenure in the cure besides bob the longest standing member minus those two years when they had a barroom fight between them and didn't talk for 18 months who hasn't had a barroom fight with their partner am i right luxury absolutely let's have one today after this episode like we haven't already i would say that simon gallup is the main motif man in the cure motifs can happen in every instrument we just heard them in the drums but boy do we hear a lot of motifs across cure songs in the bass so in this particular instance this is a very cure motif because we've heard it in other cure songs it's this two-bar loop and the rhythm is dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun which as longtime cure fans might recognize is also used in in between days from 1985 so that's the dun dun dun dun yeah i hear it i have a similarity now let's listen to simon gallup's isolated bass stems from just like heaven so that rhythm is literally one two three and four and one one two three and four and and and Thor and. And we're hearing it in that song. Yeah. Same as we're hearing it in In Between Days. There's a tiny, you know, there's one additional eighth note. And it's a motif they use again in Friday, I'm in Love from 1992. Oh. I don't care about you. It's Friday. I'm in love. This is a curism that the cure uses themselves as a cure-ism to remind themselves that they are the cure so we hear that particular motif a robot what band are we i forget are we the stone roses go to our checklist motif number 52 i believe with a cure i like the idea that they have to remind it's the cure the guitars are always very prominent and i gotta ask right off the bat is this a case of our curism like are there a lot of boss effect pedals in play let's listen and find out they sound so far away like in a good way like it sounds like why are you so far away she said are you so emotionally distant robert smith when you say far away what do you mean by that You know, I mean, it might just be the echo or the reverb or whatever, but it does sound immediately dated. Not like it was recorded in the 60s or 70s, but there's something very, like, 80s and early 90s about the way that those guitars sound. I think I can pick up on a couple of things. One of them is the curism. So the 80s-ness is coming from, there is definitely a chorus on that. The effects pedals, there's definitely a chorus. There might be a little flange on that particular one. But there's probably... Yeah, I think I hear some flange. I'm glad you said that. I hear some flange. I think so. and I think that there is some reverb that might be giving it the, not distance, you said distance, but when you add reverb to something, it makes it less dry. So it feels like you're in a room. It could be a small room. It could be a large room, but reverb is kind of an older sounding effect in a lot of ways. Like it does kind of evoke 60s Phil Spector wall of sound. A lot of that era is more reverb-y than say delay, which gives you space in a different way. I'm hearing a little bit of that there i don't know if that's what you're hearing like it doesn't feel like you're in a in a chapel doesn't feel like you're not in a big space yeah this is not led zeppelin yeah but this is also not like you know warm and like you're next to the guitar it sounds like you're no you're right a good amount of this i think that is part of the atmospheric moody guitar sound yeah in our curisms yeah that happens in this song and across the catalog is there is a lot of reverb across the Cure's catalog. It's not very dry. It doesn't feel close and intimate. No, it's not close and intimate. I think the ultimate effect of all of what we're saying is that it feels moody. It feels a little bit dark, not like in a sinister way, but just sort of like in a dark gray sky kind of way. So just to put some names to some of these sounds, and I can't necessarily correlate all of them, but Robert Smith is credited with guitars as is another unsung hero of the band and of the song poral thompson aka pearl for his art career and i say that because poral is another member of robert smith's coterie that's been around since day one they're school buds he was in an early version of the easy cure and he has been not just a musician and they often call him the best musician in the band because he plays saxophone and he plays keyboards and guitar but he's also the visual artist behind a lot of the early and most of the 80s cure album i didn't know he was the aesthetician poral poral and his uh that's right poral and his graphic design partner did that kind of iconic calligraphy the graphics that you see in a lot of early records and videos and album covers and he's playing guitar on this song now i say that because in the video we see both robert smith and poral playing guitars robert's playing the acoustic 12 string i'm not sure if that means necessarily they were recorded that way but let's listen and picture in our mind that iconic music video starting with robert smith coming in with this acoustic 12 string it's so great and it gives it kind of a spanishy it does i was gonna say you know this again takes me back to the best mode episode where they had this big fascination with the american west and flamenco guitars and that sort of that to me that's the jangliness yeah that i hear in these songs that oh i see it's translated over into like i see what you know stone roses happy mondays early blur like it's that jangliness like that and you're right flamenco guitar smith has been doing that too because in the previous record on um the in between days record there's a song called the blood which just is a straight up like spanish flamenco song yeah And last but not least, in the guitar section, we have this incredibly important and iconic melody line, which is literally just a descending and ascending scale. Let's listen and then we'll talk about it. So it goes down twice and now it goes up. You once said something on this show that has always stayed with me, which is the idea that a lot of our favorite songs are literally just ascending or descending broken scales. And that's what I hear now when I hear this part. It's going kind of where you expect it to go, but it's going there in a wonderful way, and then it comes back down from that high. It's just satisfying. It's A-A-B-A. And that's a pattern that our ears are used to. And so it's very gratifying. Whether in music or in poetry. Yeah. What about the chords of the song? You know, earlier we did our little medley of songs, Semisonic, Katy Perry, Cher. And that was based on the sort of like the 1-5-2-4, what we call the axis of awesome. Yeah. You know what I mean? So explain to us how that comes into play here. Right. So the axis of awesome, we've talked about on several other episodes of this show. Go back to Miley Cyrus, the Flowers episode. I think it came up there. And it definitely came up on Olivia Rodrigo when we did Good For You. So four chords that go back to, I think, early YouTube, there was this great video by this Australian group, The Axis of Awesome, who did a medley of dozens of songs that used the chords that you mentioned with one slight variation. So this is, as you mentioned, 1, 5, 2, 4. It turns out that 12% of the songs on the Billboard Hot 100 use some variation of those four chords, either in that sequence or with some shifting. So the five comes first or the two comes first, or sometimes the two is a six. All this to say 12% of songs in popular music. And therefore your ear is very accustomed to hearing these chords together. Hey, I does not disagree with you, my friend. But how does this relate to a song called Another Girl, Another Planet? Well, let's listen to that song and then we'll talk about it. This is by The Only Ones. It's called Another Girl, Another Planet from 1978. you're having thoughts my man is having thoughts over here i can tell when there's thoughts being had i've heard this thought before but it's just because we just finished talking about the axis of awesome and these certain chords now i'm thinking like don't stop believing yeah my journey is that's the original axis of awesome yeah right that one's in there these chords are slightly different because the third chord is different but the difference is it's just you can rearrange So the chords in Another Girl, Another Planet are 1, 5, 6, 4 instead of 1, 5, 2, 4. But 2 and 6 are sort of functionally interchangeable, right? And it's a minor 2 and a minor 6. The rest of the chords are the same. There's a similar tempo. There's obviously a similarity in how there's an instrumental with a melody that rises and falls basically as a scale in the first 50 seconds of the song before the vocals come in. All those same events take place in Just Like Heaven. Right. But when you really break it down and verbalize that out loud, what you're saying is, OK, the chord changes are similar, not identical, but similar. And there is a scale being played. Right. Which gets to the point, the heart of the matter on all of these like X sounds like Y conversations, which is, well, there are similarities. But is anyone not listening to the first song because the second one came out and replaced it? Or is it generally the opposite that people often go back in time and find a song that people say sounds like the new one? So Robert Smith himself says, I didn't realize it at the time, but the structure is actually very similar to a song called Another Girl, Another Planet when we just heard, which back to his quote, I can still vividly remember hearing on the radio late at night in the mid 70s. The main difference is that as the song progressed, I introduced different chord changes to give it a slightly melancholic feeling. And to that point, the chord changes are not just chord changes, it's actually a key change. So once we get to the you lost and lonely part, the song shifts from A major to D major. So let's listen to the stems. Here's what to listen for. We're going to hear two chords that are just a half step apart repeating three times that shift from the minor three to the four it's very tense it's a half step we talked about a half step recently on the Nas episode that's right so this half step is very tense and then after these six bars of tension we get four bars of really gratifying release on the D major and we just kind of lingering there lovingly so listen for that as i play for you the isolated guitar i put some synth in there too we in the four bars of release it a real magic trick of songwriting that we like left the key went to this completely different place right it was melancholy to use robert smith's words about what he did and then we come right back home to this beautiful landscape. Thank God for those major notes. It was sort of like, oh, we're back home. We're safe. It was very tense and strange. And then we got back. And the strangeness is really emphasized when we get to the vocals. I'll point out some of the ways that the strangeness is emphasized even more. What's going on with the keys on this song? I feel like there might be multiple keys. Not only are there multiple keys, but in the video there are multiple keyboard players. And I'm not sure that either of the people playing keyboards in the video are actually playing in the song. But it could very well be Loll Tallhurst Lawrence who in the video is shown on one keyboard. He was starting to be a little bit iced out of the band, but he wasn't yet. But there was a second keyboard player who had been brought in who was more properly able to play keys. And that's Roger O'Donnell. You'll see him in the video. He definitely is not on the song because he hadn't joined the band yet when the song was recorded. And last but not least, Pearl Thompson is also credited with the keyboards. Let's listen and decide whose fingers this sound like. big 80s just one note in an octave yeah so that runs through the intro just big sounding synth and i you know we've talked so much about how he brings in instruments one by one but like i generally join in with the song when these high elements come in so on fridays when the guitar and on this one I'm definitely I picture you hiding in the corner for the first 25 seconds and you jump out and you play your notes I'm just waiting for my notes man and then of course we have this iconic solo which is very simple and beautiful sounds like it's on to my ears it sounds like it's a piano sound but it sounds like an 80's keyboard piano like an Ensonique or something like that let's listen to it oh yeah with delay on it I love that part. And by the way, it should be mentioned, this is relevant for especially for the Deep Cure fandom. At that part of the video, it's Mary Poole, who's actually dancing in the video, which is Robert Smith's longtime girlfriend slash wife. He's only, to our knowledge, as Cure fans, like only ever been with her since high school. Another important thing to sort of keep in mind across the Cure catalog, he's kind of always singing about Mary. now that's extrapolation we can't really romantic it's so romantic we can't have been our valentine's day episode there's something so romantic about this literally on our sleeves i think it's important because when you think about the cure i think about how robert smith has always been with mary and how all these love songs are to mary pool and you see her as sort of a rare glimpse of her because she's not in the public eye very much but she is dancing in the video during the solo and robert beautifully says because he dances with her he says the video director was suggesting we get a girl and he's like i'm only going to dance with one person and that's mary that explains so much i think that's why as opposed to other rock bands the cure catalog with one notable exception has aged so well like lyrically like there's nothing there's nothing douchey about the cure yeah there's nothing douchey about the cure i love that like i feel like their their songs age well and it actually makes sense because he's singing about a legitimate love he's not like i think the Authenticity is right there in the lyrics. It makes me like this fan even more. Yeah, me too. For most of my life, including in the run-up to this episode, I heard the opening lyrics wrong, everybody. I heard, the one that makes me scream, she's sick. I thought that was so cool. The one that makes me scream, she's sick. Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick. The one that makes me scream, she's sick. I thought sick as in cool. Sick as in like, you know. You think that's in Robert Smith's vernacular? Dude, I didn't know. Mary, you're sick, bro. I thought it was sick. That line definitely connected with me. It just goes to show sometimes you can create art and people interpret it wrong, but they just like they put it inside themselves. I thought that was the one that makes me scream, she's sick. I thought that was so freaking cool. And when I read the lyrics this week and I was like, oh, he says she said twice. i was like i've been wrong i'm sorry robert i should have listened more carefully i apologize here we go guys the isolated robert smith vocals okay and challenge for you the listener tell me if you hear any repeated melodies or any rhymes show me show me show me how you do that trick the one that makes me scream she said the one that makes me laugh she said all right there's some rhymes in there i was wrong about that but there's not a lot of repeated melodies he's doing a lot of different things he's being very playful with the melody and that's true across all the verses of the song which are the bulk of the vocals i think they're they're rhyme-ish they're they're near rhyme there are there are some more rhymes than i remember but they're near a lot of rhymes and there aren't any i don't think repeated melodies in the verse that i believe but it also makes me feel better about thinking that he says she's sick because i thought he rhymed trick with sick oh but there you go there's not for no reason that you thought that but he clearly says she said the second time and i was like throw her arms around my neck i was like it's rhyme me yeah it's not a rhyme yeah and that's okay because he's being vulnerable let robert sing let robert do what he wants to do he's talking about mary pool we love mary pool let robert do do his thing so in that opening line show me how you do that trick it sounds really playful it almost sounds childlike yeah and that's intentional robert smith has said that part of it actually comes from his childhood obsession with magic tricks. Magic comes up so many times on the show. It's like a lot of musicians want to be magicians. I don't know. I don't know if that's, is that true? I think, I think it's true. I mean, a lot of actors, a lot of music people. Are the opposite ends of the spectrum on the cool cool-ometer? Well, on the cool-ometer, I think the magicians, hands down, right? Everybody, everybody wants to be related to a magician. No one's going to disagree with that. Everybody wants to say, yeah, it's my dad, the magician. But, oh, that was really neat. That's not the spirit of this show. Sorry, dad. If your dad's a magician, I apologize. but Robert had this love of magic but on another level it can be read as a seduction trick that's the way I sort of read it and Robert has said the song is about quote hyperventilating kissing and fainting to the floor that's what he said look I'm not sure that's my kink but hey to each their own the man is in love with this woman I know I know Bob loves Mary it's the cutest thing in the world it's the cutest thing in all of goth history a half century of Bob loving Mary It's like if you had a goth puppy and he was in love. It's goth puppy love. Let's hear the chorus because I think that this is the chorus. You mentioned earlier, does it have a chorus? I think this is the chorus. Listen, it's kind of more of a refrain than a chorus. We only hear it twice and we kind of only hear it one and a half times. The first time around, we get that full ten bars that I was mentioning. Six bars of the tension and four bars of the release. That only happens once. And then at the end of the song, we kind of get half of that. Half of that. Let's hear it real quick. and there's a crazy harmony in there i don't know if you noticed it but i'm gonna play it again listen for one of our favorite words of this show in the past year there's a tritone oh i knew it was going to try it down there's a tritone in this harmony which implies that it's like lydian mode but it adds to the strangeness of this moment here it is i'll point it out as it happens right here that's part of why that note feels so crazy because it is a tritone it's literally a minor third on top of a minor third like how do you go into the booth these are all robert by the way there's no other way i'll sing in the song does robert write the lyrics robert is for the most part the almost 100 songwriter we think across much of his catalog but we're going to talk about that a little more in the splits certainly the lyrics is unquestioned that lyrics and melodies because you said that he's the through line for the band is there anybody else who we know had a heavy hand in just talking about the catalog in general the music of the of the band i'll be honest with you i've read a lot of books i've seen a lot of interviews it's not frequently discussed what the actual literal contributions of other bandmates are it's unclear to me where he brings a demo and where the line is between guys let's work this song up together and the final result it's it's not always um i think a lot of it is worked up in the demo stage yeah but i think obviously a lot comes from i think boris for example on the song the drummer contributed those iconic motifs from my understanding and from listening to the demos and then at the very end we finally hear the song title this time no tension just the song title just like heaven The nice note. It's resolution. That's the only time we hear that, which is part of why I'm wondering, is that even the chorus? Because we don't even hear Just Like Heaven. Oh, but I like a song that only brings up the title once. Those are some of my favorite, you know. It feels poetic. It feels special. It does. All right, Luxury. Now that we heard the song, tell us how the splits break down. So Bob gets 60. I keep saying Bob. I do believe that's what they call them. Okay. Robert Bob Smith gets 60%. and that is divided lyrics 50 music 10 interestingly enough and i think generously he's given simon boris lol lawrence and paul aka porl are also credited with 10 each okay so they get 10 he gets 10 the four of them get 10 each yeah and bob gets 60 i keep saying bob it doesn't feel right anymore i'm gonna go back to robert because it feels more respectful and i think that that's in part because of the actual contributions that they're making on the musical side but i also think it's part of what keeps a band together. And Robert has talked, and we've talked a little bit early on the show about the history of getting to this lineup in the band. Once he locked in with this lineup, he loved playing with them. And it was so gratifying to have an actual band, especially after the early years of kind of having people come and go, that part of it is a retention strategy, in my humble opinion. I think part of it is you keep a band together by being generous. And whether or not they literally put 10% of Just Like Heaven into the song, these band members did a lot for the band sure watching them live it's what an incredible group of musicians it's mesmerizing so i think the splits reflect that a little bit too i can see that so diallo what do you think the legacy of just like heaven is well like i just said i think this song much like their catalog has aged incredibly well i think every generation at some point discovers a song by the cure that can resonate with them yeah and encourage them to pick up a instrument and start playing music i will say this is one of those groups that always makes me want to make more music you know i always feel like the cure and blondie hip-hop and electronic music i have a whole nother canon of groups but when it comes to specifically like guitar driven rock this is just one of those groups where i'm just like yeah it's it's so personality driven and it's so emotional and it feels so real i just can't help but love it so i think their legacy is that they are still making music winning grammys and winning fans i completely agree with you and i think part of their enduring appeal it's not just the songwriting the songwriting is a huge part of it but the reason why 14 year olds today and 14 year olds in next generation and beyond will probably find something appealing about the cure is there's a resonance there's an emotional resonance that's baked into the songwriting but also the visuals yeah the legacy the mythology yes the fact of them being canonical at this point they're right up there with joy division and depeche mode these are canonical bands that have meaning in a way that's baked into culture yeah so it's the music it's the culture it's the visuals it's maybe and subculture and all that wonderful stuff and this stuff trickles down the visuals like the goth aesthetic is an aesthetic forever it will live forever i mean it was it came out before the 80s yeah they were literally copying people for the previous century that's right and that's appealing in addition to the music and as a package yeah it has an undeniable appeal it's part of why i still Levitt to this day. It has almost a half century of appeal to me personally. Okay, Luxury, it's time for one more song. This is the segment where we share a deep cut or a hidden gem with you, the One Song Nation, and with each other. Luxury, I'm going to ask you to go first. And today, I think we're going to keep it with The Cure. We're going to talk about Cure covers, covers of Cure songs that we really enjoy. So what's yours? Awesome. Well, I'm going to do the song we did today. My favorite cover of The Cure is Just Like Heaven by Dinosaur Jr., big Jay Damascus fan. I don't know that I know this. This version is so good. I can't wait. I'm going to play you the part and I can't wait to see your reaction to it. Okay. I did not see that coming. Up until that point, he sounded like a drunk co-ed in college or something like that. I love Dinosaur Jr. That's the Damascus fan. I did too. I did not see that one coming. And it ends like this, just for some satisfaction. That's the end of the song? Yeah. This just ends on you? Abruptly. Oh, I kind of like that. I love a song or a movie that ends really abruptly. You're like, oh, that's all I got? It's genuinely terrifying. Like when it ends like that, you're like, what the fuck? No Country for Old Men? abrupt ending oh boy i don't remember that oh my god i probably drowned it out internal affairs a great movie for the 80s i don't like scary things i don't like to be scared what about you diallo what is your cure cover du jour for one more song well i'm gonna set some history here at the show because i'm actually going to do two more songs what two more songs so my cure cover is a song by the group novelle vague uh and they covered a forest in a very sort of like bossa nova elevator music style, but I found it really endearing. This is Novel Vague with A Forest. I tell you, do you guys have a little vague? I saw that acoustic guitar. It works. It's bossa nova. They did a bossa nova cover of A Forest, and it really worked. It really works. The chord changes in that song, in the actual song, which they just are using, are really, they sound native to what bossa nova chord changes might have sounded like. That whole album, if you're into really cool covers in a bossa nova style, that Nouvelle Vague album is a really it's a good album, it's a good purchase but for the first time ever I do have one more song on top of that and that is because being big fans of The Cure and everything that they influence, you and I did a song together we haven't made many songs together but we did do a song together called Black Nerds which was for my show, Sherman Showcase and I was going for sort of a Robert Smith, even more so the Interpol song And this is a song produced by our man Luxury Sung by me This is Black Nerds We had a lot of fun that day That was great And you put a tritone in that song I didn't even know what a tritone was at the time And you put it in the song You put it in there You knew Robert Smith, we'll see you at Glastonbury as always if you have an idea for one more song you can find us on instagram and tiktok you can find me on instagram at diallo d-i-a-l-o and on tiktok at diallo riddle and you can find me on instagram at l-u-x-x-u-r-y and on tiktok at luxury xx and you can follow our podcast on instagram and tiktok at one song podcast for exclusive content you can also watch full episodes of one song on youtube just search for one song podcast we'd love it if you'd like and subscribe And be sure to check out the One Song Spotify playlist for all the songs we discuss in our episodes. You can find the link in our episode description. And if you've made it this far, you're officially part of the One Song Nation. Show us some love, give us five stars, leave a review, and send this episode to a fellow music fan. It really helps keep the show going. Luxury, help me in this thing. I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, musicologist, and KCRW DJ every Friday night from 10 p.m. till midnight. Luxury. And I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. And this is one song. We'll see you next time. This episode was produced by Melissa Duanez. Our video editor is Casey Simonson. Mixing by Michael Harmon and engineering by Eric, Mr. Patience Hicks. This show is executive produced by Kevin Hart, Mike Stein, Brian Smiley, Eric Weil, and our friends at Artbeat. We'll see you soon.