Some songs are perfect. When Robert Smith wrote “Just Like Heaven,” he told his bandmates he’d never write something this good again.
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The Cure’s seventh album, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, released in 1987, introduced goth dream-pop to a mainstream American audience, and “Just Like Heaven” was their first U.S. hit single. Smith, who epitomized the “outsider,” found an audience who, like him, didn’t always fit in. But it wasn’t the disheveled hair or smudged lipstick that did it for his fans; he also just so happened to write one of the greatest pop songs of his generation.
It Was Just Like a Dream
Smith was inspired by a seaside trip with his future wife, Mary Poole, whom he met when he was only 14. The song tells the story of a relationship in a dream-like state, with images of oceans and crashing waves. The opening verse is from the perspective of Smith’s then-girlfriend.
“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
And threw her arms around my neck
Show me how you do it
And I promise you, I promise that
I’ll run away with you
I’ll run away with you
“Just Like Heaven” is about seduction, but it also speaks to the anxiety accompanying new love. People fear losing loved ones. A whole heart is only one tragic event from collapsing into broken fragments.
Vacationing at Beachy Head and dancing on the edge of the cliffs represented physical space and the feeling of young love. The disorientation of something so beautiful was dizzying to a Romantic goth who viewed the world from a darker perspective.
Spinning on that dizzy edge
Kissed her face and kissed her head
Dreamed of all the different ways
I had to make her glow
“Why are you so far away?” she said
“Why won’t you ever know that I’m in love with you?
That I’m in love with you?”
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Their young love endured. Smith and Poole shared a small flat in London where The Cure’s frontman put himself on a strict writing schedule. After finishing “Just Like Heaven,” he knew he had something special.
You, soft and lonely
You lost and lonely
You, just like Heaven
The Cure recorded Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me in southern France. The group’s girlfriends were present during the sessions and commented on the songs they liked as the band worked. Acting as an accidental focus group, the reaction to “Just Like Heaven” reaffirmed Smith’s faith in the song.
Spinning on That Dizzy Edge
Director Tim Pope filmed the band as though they were near the same English cliffs visited by Smith and Poole for the video to “Just Like Heaven.” However, the Beachy Head scenes were taken from The Cure’s 1985 video for “Close to Me.” Most of “Just Like Heaven” was filmed in a studio.
Poole appears in the video where she dances with Smith at the cliff’s edge. She appears in a white dress, like from a dream, dancing whimsically with Smith, who, though dressed in black with the band, appears in white for the dream sequence.
Waves crash into the rocks far below as Smith peers over the edge. In Smith’s world, dark clouds are omnipresent even during tender moments, as if a nightmare hides behind every sweet dream.
Dinosaur Jr.‘s Version
In 1987, Dinosaur Jr. covered “Just Like Heaven” for a compilation album, but J Mascis liked the version so much he chose to keep it. It appeared on their third album, You’re Living All Over Me. Smith told the Chicago Tribune he’d “never had such a visceral reaction to a cover before or since.”
Dinosaur Jr.’s version increases the tempo, replacing The Cure’s jangly guitars with Mascis’ signature fuzz. Dinosaur Jr.’s cover influenced how The Cure performed the song live.
Legacy
Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me represents The Cure during their creative peak; it was followed by Disintegration in 1989. After finally breaking through in America, they were on the way to playing stadiums. By the time they released Wish in 1992, however, they had become a legacy band.
Younger bands grabbing the media’s attention in the ’90s all seemed to cite The Cure as an influence. The band had defined goth romanticism, and yet they reached their highest level of success with an uncharacteristically happy love song. The beauty of “Just Like Heaven” isn’t the irony of Robert Smith singing a tender love song; it’s how it makes everything that came before just like a dream.
Photo by Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images
