3 Alternative Rock Songs From 1985 You Wish You Could Hear for the First Time Again

Imagine hearing your favorite song for the first time all over again. With its magic and mystery still intact. The surprise musical turn or the lyric you scribbled like a new mantra onto a notebook. In 1985, alternative rock was continuing to evolve as it worked its way toward the mainstream. So, let’s travel back to the mid-80s as we highlight three alternative rock songs you wish you could hear for the first time.

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“In Between Days” by The Cure

“Killing An Arab” introduced me to The Cure. “Boys Don’t Cry” and “A Forest” made me a fan. But “In Between Days” made the band essential to me. Here, Robert Smith describes the desperation of feeling frozen after a relationship falls apart. Smith places his loneliness within an upbeat post-punk song. Imagine if these words were sung over a ballad. Instead, the quick pace echoes the suffocation one feels in the fog of a breakup. Especially if you weren’t the one leaving.

Yesterday I got so scared
I shivered like a child
Yesterday, away from you
It froze me deep inside.

“She Sells Sanctuary” by The Cult

For those who weren’t ready to abandon classic rock for post-punk, The Cult offered a way to navigate the divide. Guitarist Billy Duffy wrote melodic riffs like his fellow Mancunian, Johnny Marr. But he did so while still paying homage to the blues-based rock the punks rebelled against. Meanwhile, singer Ian Astbury crooned and gyrated as a goth version of Jim Morrison. But there’s no pretense of Morrison’s poetry here. “She Sells Sanctuary” is simply the Lizard King without the influence of Beat literature.

Oh, the heads that turn
Make my back burn
And those heads that turn
Make my back, make my back burn.

“The Headmaster Ritual” by The Smiths

Rock history is full of transformative guitarists. But when I first heard Johnny Marr, it seemed a world apart from the usual descendants of Jimmy Page or Eric Clapton. That’s exactly what he was, but as a kid, I didn’t yet understand what I was hearing. I just know I was drawn to it. To the shimmering chords, Morrissey’s rage, and all the indie rock bands that The Smiths would inspire. A radical release at the time, Meat Is Murder became the only Smiths album to reach No. 1 in the U.K.

Belligerent ghouls
Run Manchester schools
Spineless b*stards all.

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