Behind the Childhood Fear That Inspired “Lullaby” by The Cure

Reading the lyrics to The Cure’s 1989 single “Lullaby”, you can interpret the words as a bleak metaphor describing anything or anyone that’s got a hold on you. But there’s also a literal meaning to “Lullaby”. Think of it as Robert Smith’s “Nightmare On Fascination Street” and how it formed not only major parts of Disintegration, but possibly Smith’s collective body of work.

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Say “Uncle”

Smith described the inspiration behind “Lullaby” in the liner notes to Galore. His uncle, also named Robert, used to whisper grim tales into his ear. The stories often revolved around Uncle Robert’s invented character, The Spiderman, who feasted on little boys.

On candy-stripe legs, the Spiderman comes,
Softly through the shadow of the evening sun.
Stealing past the windows of the blissfully dead,
Looking for the victim shivering in bed.

To dial up the terror, Uncle Robert once snuck in through Smith’s bedroom window at night, leaving Smith to “scream for what seemed like days.” Smith said the Spiderman’s stories stopped after that, but his fear of spiders and the dark “persisted for quite some time.”

Quietly, he laughs and shaking his head,
Creeps closer now, closer to the foot of the bed.
And softer than shadow and quicker than flies,
His arms are all around me, and his tongue in my eyes.

“The Same Deep Water As You”

“Lullaby” remains The Cure’s highest-charting single in the U.K. But pulling singles from Disintegration misses the point. Smith’s phobias represent only one aspect of the melancholy abyss fueling The Cure’s masterpiece.

Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me hops across a vast pop landscape of ideas. Itself, a gothic and post-punk masterpiece. The two albums together broke The Cure in the United States. And it created an identity for Cure fans, with the aesthetic as an identity adopted by kids who found themselves in solidarity with Smith as an outsider. Finally, a rock star for the wallflowers.

But instead of releasing “Lullaby” as a single in the U.S., Elektra Records opted for “Fascination Street”, a song loosely about a night out adventuring on Bourbon Street. Yanking these individual pieces from Disintegration disrupts the focused mood of the entire epic. This isn’t a concept album, it’s a place. It’s why teens went to it like a religion in 1989. But feeling lost and lonely doesn’t always fade with youth, which is why those same kids have stayed with Disintegration as adults.

Soothing Lullaby and a Brief Note on Romanticism

There’s something both alien and soothing about Smith’s voice. He sounds like no one. There’s not a classic rock reference with which to connect Smith.

He studied classical guitar as a child, and though his playing is marked by post-punk minimalism, there’s a sophistication to it. Beethoven once said of his Pastoral Symphony that it’s an expression of feelings rather than a musical description of scenes and events. Think of this as the evolution of Classicism into Romanticism. (My German college professor will be happy to know I often dust off my trusty Western Music history book by K Marie Stolba.)

The Cure belongs in a similar tradition of Romanticism within popular music. It’s the DNA of gothic rock or dark wave: Joy Division, Siouxsie And The Banshees, etc. Disintegration contains lengthy instrumental movements within songs. Heavy moods. Slow developments, establishing “feelings rather than a musical description of scenes and events.”

Speaking of “scenes and events”, “Lullaby” provides a peek into Smith’s childhood and one of the catalysts for his greatest work. The whole point of a lullaby is to soothe. Ironically, Uncle Robert ignited his nephew’s ability to soothe others with his own lullabies.

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