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Rating: Japanese Whispers was officially released as a collection of the main songs written by Robert Smith during one of the most unstable phases of the British band. Chronologically, this phase can be placed between Pornography (1982) and The Top (1984) and holds great significance in the historical perspective of the group's evolution. During that period, Robert Smith independently matured various ideas and projects, which led him to write a lot of material both on his own and collaborating with other musicians from the post-punk scene of the time.
But the name of The Cure, setting aside the long tour with Siouxsie and The Banshees (with the related live double album Nocturne) and the album by The Glove (Blue Sunshine co-written with Steve Severin, bassist of the Banshees), was nonetheless linked to a very precise project line, which saw Smith undertake a notable stylistic and iconographic turn.
From the essence of the songs that were eventually published on Japanese, the group's reformation and two significant albums of the mid-80s emerged: The Top and The Head on the Door.
The break from the prolifically dark and nihilistic atmospheres of Pornography is immediately evident, where songs like Lovecats, Upstairs Room, and The Walk show a more nonchalant, disillusioned, and often playful approach to life's emotions. While remaining adherent to a non-bright view of the future and relationships with others, Robert Smith in 1983 began writing lyrics less focused on internal short-circuits; he started looking around, describing everyday loves (Let's Go To Bed, Speak My Language), small urban dramas (Lament), dreamlike sensations (Just One Kiss, The Dream). All this was set against a choice of sounds that were certainly less traditional for The Cure's standard; sounds generated by the use of instruments that in turn revealed a more sarcastic and dreamy hue, to the point of infusing jazz into the mood of certain tracks (pianos, trumpets, double basses, flutes) or technopop (synthesizers, drum machines).
All of this, not coincidentally, would partially reflect in the subsequent albums mentioned above, sometimes mitigating the playful vein but strongly erasing the depressive and dark impressions of the early days. Perhaps keeping the jazz imprint more alive than the electronic one.
Japanese Whispers encapsulates the essence of this phase and becomes its unique testimony, presenting eight songs among the many that were released on mixes, remixes, mini-LPs over the course of those fifteen months.
Among the various musicians who collaborated with Smith at the time, note the bassist Phil Thornalley (who also played on The Top and its related tour) and the drummer Steve Goulding.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Let's Go to Bed (03:34)
Let me take your hand
I'm shaking like milk
Turning
Turning blue
All over the windows and the floors
Fires outside in the sky
Look as perfect as cats
The two of us together again
But it's just the same
A stupid game
But I don't care if you don't
And I don't feel if you don't
And I don't want it if you don't
And I won't say it
If you don't say it first
You think you're tired now
But wait until three...
Laughing at the Christmas lights
You remember
From December
All of this then back again
Another girl
Another name
Stay alive but stay the same
It's just the same
A stupid game
But I don't care if you don't
And I don't feel if you don't
And I don't want it if you don't
And I won't play it
If you don't play it first
You can't even see now
So you ask me the way
You wonder if it's real
Because it couldn't be rain...
Through the right doorway
And into the white room
It used to be the dust that would lay here
When I came here alone
But I don't care if you don't
And I don't feel if you don't
And I don't want it if you don't
And I won't say it
If you don't say it first
Doo doo doo doo
Let's go to bed!
Doo doo doo doo
Let's go to bed!
04 The Upstairs Room (03:30)
I love it all
These games we play
I close my eyes
You run away
I'm sure I asked you to stay
But now you're gone
And so I feel the grey
Pulse in my head
I turn off the lights and crawl into bed
I try to think of sunshine
But my body goes wet
With the first crash of thunder...
I don't think I can know
Anyone but you dear
That's for sure!
When it gets to four
It's my turn to go
Oh the kiss!
So alcoholic and slow
Arranging me for Saturday
I thought you would know
That I always sleep alone...
I don't think I can know
Anyone but you
Dear
That's for sure!
The upstairs room is cool and bright
We can go up there in summer
And dance all night...
Your sister started talking at a minute after ten
So everyone jumped up
And then fell over again
In April you can join them
And stare at me
At the ghost from your past...
05 The Walk (03:30)
I called you after midnight
Then ran until I burst
I passed the howling woman
And stood outside your door
We walked around a lake
And woke up in the rain
And everyone turned over
Troubled in their dreams again
Visiting time is over
And so we walk away
And both play dead then cry out loud
Why we always cry this way?
I kissed you in the water
And made your dry lips sing
I saw you look
Like a Japanese baby
In an instant I remembered everything...
I called you after midnight
Then ran until my heart burst
I passed the howling woman
And stood outside your door
I kissed you in the water
And made your dry lips sing
I saw you look
Like a Japanese baby
In an instant I remembered everything...
06 Speak My Language (02:40)
It was only yesterday
Waving arms across the street
Your white face left me blue...
How can I say all the things
I have to say to you?
Oh! all the people here
All look the same...
The little time I spend with you
We drink each other dry
Mammnnarghaassstmmetc!
Speak my language!
It was only yesterday
My eyes touched yours across the street
We cut the words
And waved goodbye
And dropped off the edge of the world
Mammnnarghaassstmmetc!
Speak my language!
08 The Lovecats (03:40)
We move like caged tigers
We couldn't get closer than this
The way we walk
The way we talk
The way we stalk
The way we kiss
We slip through the streets
While everyone sleeps
Getting bigger and sleeker
And wider and brighter
We bite and scratch and scream all night
Let's go and throw
All the songs we know...
Into the sea
You and me
All these years and no one heard
I'll show you in spring
It's a treacherous thing
We missed you hissed the lovecats
We're so wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully
Wonderfully pretty!
Oh you know that I'd do anything for you...
We should have each other to tea huh?
We should have each other with cream
Then curl up by the fire
And sleep for awhile
It's the grooviest thing
It's the perfect dream
Into the sea
You and me
All these years and no one heard
I'll show you in spring
It's a treacherous thing
We missed you hissed the lovecats
We're so wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully
Wonderfully pretty!
You know that I'd do anything for you...
We should have each other to dinner
We should have each other with cream
Then curl up in the fire
Get up for awhile
It's the grooviest thing
It's the perfect dream
Hand in hand
Is the only way to land
And always the right way round
Not broken in pieces
Like hated little meeces...
How could we miss
Someone as dumb as this?
I love you... let's go...
Oh... solid gone...
How could we miss
Someone as dumb as this?
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Other reviews
By the clash
Robert Smith... so real with his doubts and troubles and so transcendent in the way he narrates them.
"Japanese Whispers" is a way to understand the evolution, for others devolution, of Robert Smith’s Band.
By vikcrow
"I admit to shedding a few tears listening to it."
"A rising climax that explodes like fury, drenching the heart in tears, down to the bones, which helplessly shatter."
