Music Monday: The Cure

Kat suggested talking about an artist that was important to us in college or high school.

Oh boy. So today is confessional time.

When I was in high school, and really it started in middle school, I was a huge Cure fan. Yes, yes, yes, I was one of those Cure fans. Obsession seems like too tame a word. Now in my defense, I was a teenager. I had MAJOR teen angst. Additionally, my sister and brother before me had liked the Cure. So I was a copy-cat teenager suffering with teen angst. Yes, it all makes sense.

For those of you not familiar with The Cure, (and really how could you not be--oops lapsing!) their music is very emotionally charged and full of turmoil! I remember once we had to bring a song by our favorite artist into Humanities class and I brought a Cure song. Many of my happier classmates said something about wanting to kill themselves after listening to the song. I had such positive influence as a teenager.

In any case, I do still enjoy listening to them from time to time. Many of those songs are the soundtrack of my youth. And besides that, I actually like a lot of the music. I saw them live twice. Both times were super fun, and are good memories. Now, I have selected one of my very favorite Cure songs to share with you today. Please just let the absolute agony of this song wash over you. Ever since I decided to do this for Music Monday, I've been listening to this song non-stop on my computer. (in my car I've been listening to Coldplay...hmm.) I mean really, can anyone else capture the same sense of urgency and tragedy in a song as the Cure can?

This song is called "From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea" and was on the album Wish.



Now, this is Andrew Peterson week. And I was thinking...what do the Cure and Andrew Peterson have in common?

And I was surprised to realize more than I originally thought!

1) I love both of them! Okay, so that's not a very good one, but it's true.

2) They both have heavy doses of literary allusion in their lyrics. Can you see why I love them? A few examples from The Cure include "Killing an Arab" (The Stranger), "Charlotte Sometimes" (Charlotte Sometimes), and "The Drowning Man" (The Gormenghast Trilogy) (but there are so many more)
Andrew Peterson has referenced Narnia in "Little Boy Heart Alive", and Godric in "Lay Me Down". In fact, come to think of it, in this way, they have both influenced what I read as well because I never would have read Charlotte Sometimes otherwise, which incidentally is a really fantastic little book.

Not a book, but AP has a fabulous song called "High Noon" (still haven't seen the film) and in light of it being Easter week if you go to Andy's myspace page, you can listen to this brilliant song.

3) They both make use of storytelling in their songs.

4) Homesickness is a prevalent theme in their music. I find this to be the most interesting connection and perhaps part of the reason why I love them both? Because it's an idea that resonates with me?

Anyway, I'd love your musical confessions as well. Were any of you Cure fans? If not the Cure then who? (by the way, I have a few more of these high school favorites to reveal in the future...)