#robert e. smith

[livesunique]

Robert E. Smith “Folie,” Lake Martin, Louisiana

[vinyl-artwork]

Chuck Mangione ‎– Land Of Make Believe (1973)

Cover by Robert E. Smith

Chuck Mangione ft Esther Satterfield - Land of Make Believe

[hchsqb]

In Between Days

I hadn't heard the song "In Between Days" by the Cure in a year and a half - wait, no, two years. It doesn't have the same sort of mainstream penetration that "Just Like Heaven" or "Friday I'm In Love," and it's not on one of the two Cure albums that make their way into my rotation, 1987'sKiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Meor 1989's tremendousDisintegration. Nah, it's just the lead single fromThe Head on the Door, which up until the writing of this post I didn't even know was a Cure album.

But man, did I ever love that song. Loved it. Played the ever-living shit out of it. My dad had a greatest hits compilation floating around on CD and when I was first getting into music I ripped all of his CDs, and "In Between Days" might have been my favorite track on any of those CDs (and he had Nevermind, Blue, and Blonde on Blonde among others). I loved it, front to back, loved the strum of the acoustic guitar, loved the cute little synth riff, loved the fact that the vocals didn't come in until like 50 seconds in to a 3 minute song. Loved the cliche lyrics. Loved Robert Smith's melodramatic voice. Loved the big 80s drums. The vague sense of longing. Loved it so much I'd play it 20 times in a row. Listen to it for hours on end.

And then I didn't listen to it. I disdained greatest hits compilations and downloaded the most acclaimed Cure albums - The Head on the Door and "In Between Days" were left out. I didn't have a song like "In Between Days." I listened to things twice in a row if I was really interested - couldn't dare break up the flow of the album! I forgot about the song, the cute little synth riff, the acoustic guitar, the fact that the vocals didn't come in until like 50 seconds into that three minute song. And I didn't realize, really, that I was falling out of love with it. It just happened. "In Between Days" vanished. And I didn't even miss it. Well, not until I heard it playing over the end credits of the TV show The Inbetweeners (hey, I wonder if that's a coincidence? Probably not). The late-2010, early-2011 nostalgia whacked me softly in the face. It was less like meeting an old friend than reading a vaguely familiar sentence or seeing an old building from a part of a neighborhood you don't go to much anymore. It was great. But it didn't make me want to download god damn The Head on the Door and listen to that whole album. Nah, it made me want to listen to "Inbetween Days" 20 times in a row.

Today I found out that the name of the song was actually "Inbetween Days," which is goofy, because Inbetween isn't a word, and I also found out that greatest hits compilations are a lot easier on your mind.