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Rating: The early nineties of The Cure were marked by an album as debated as it was successful, and in many ways a turning point, like "Wish". Guitars reigned supreme as never before, with a groove of authentic rock spirit, and atmospheres that were not as gloomy but more expansive, with a nod to a certain carefree sound (see "Friday I'm in Love").
The lineup, after yet another tweak (Bamonte replacing O'Donnell), is in a state of grace both in terms of composition and stage chemistry. The historic duo of Smith and Gallup could rely on the vibrant guitars of Porl Thompson, who knows a thing or two about rock, on the grand drumming of Boris Williams, undoubtedly the best drummer The Cure ever had, and on newcomer Bamonte, a valuable wild card alternating diligently between guitars and keyboards. The "Wish tour" brings the band to the masses and is a triumph of lights, colors, ever-changing setlists but all with a deliberate rock-pop basis, with the more gothic songs sacrificed on the altar of memories. The double live album "Show", recorded in the summer of '93, is clear evidence of this.
A few months later, somewhat surprisingly, another live album was released, this time titled "Paris". It is a recording of the Paris concert at the Zenith from the fall of the previous year. The setlist, short but well thought out, returns the image of the band most cherished by the devoted fans, which seemed to have been questioned: that of The Cure as champions of a music sometimes dark, sometimes tense, sometimes sweeter and catchier, but always incredibly romantic and emotional. Just think that the first twenty minutes of the concert are entrusted to the glory of "The Figurehead", "One Hundred Years", and "At Night": three majestic gothic frescoes that, in the live setting, come to life, best unleashing their dark solemnity; it's worth noting the unsettling interplay of the two "pornographers" guitars and the monumental keyboards of the "Seventeen Seconds" track, the latter very rarely performed live. The following "Play for Today" enriches the scene with moments of pure epicness, with the audience singing at the top of their lungs along the characteristic melody line; an euphoria soon interrupted by a new atmospheric masterpiece like the recent "Apart", the only extract from "Wish" capable of competing with the dark magnificence of the previous tracks.
"In Your House" serves as an ideal dividing line between a decidedly gloomy first side and a second that will be more pop-oriented, albeit with great class. The sequence includes single-gems like "Lovesong", "Catch", "A Letter to Elise", and a delightful unexpected intermezzo like the whimsical "Dressing Up", performed excellently; culminating in the stunning "Charlotte Sometimes", the quintessential curesong, mysterious and romantic, with keyboards even more prominent than on the album and a very heartfelt, almost dramatic vocal by Smith. The performance closes with the geometric lightness of "Close to Me", and Smith's farewell "merci" that sends everyone home happy and satisfied.
Seventeen years have passed since that event, so why this tribute to "Paris", a live album of a band that counts dozens of albums, official and otherwise? The discography in terms of bootlegs, then, is virtually countless. Well, perhaps because in "Paris" more than ever we find the essence, the best concentration of what the Smith-thought has been able to express to be adored. Rock, pop, gothic, decadence, psychedelia, in one word, The Cure and their pantheon of emotions, all masterfully on display and captured on disc that evening. Alas, to the regret of those who were not among the fortunate at the Zenith that night.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 The Figurehead (07:26)
Sharp and open
Leave me alone
And sleeping less every night
As the days become heavier and weighted
Waiting
In the cold light
A noise
A scream tears my clothes as the figurines tighten
With spiders inside them
And dust on the lips of a vision of hell
I laughed in the mirror for the first time in a year
A hundred other words blind me with your purity
Like an old painted doll in the throes of dance
I think about tomorrow
Please let me sleep
As I slip down the window
Freshly squashed fly
You mean nothing
You mean nothing
I can lose myself in Chinese art and American girls
All the time
Lose me in the dark
Please do it right
Run into the night
I will lose myself tomorrow
Crimson pain
My heart explodes
My memory in a fire
And someone will listen
At least for a short while...
I can never say no to anyone but you
Too many secrets
Too many lies
Writhing with hatred
Too many secrets
Please make it good tonight...
But the same image haunts me
In sequence
In despair of time
I will never be clean again
I touched her eyes
Pressed my stained face
I will never be clean again
Touch her eyes
Press my stained face
I will never be clean again
I will never be clean again
02 One Hundred Years (07:15)
It doesn't matter if we all die
Ambition in the back of a black car
In a high building there is so much to do
Going home time
A story on the radio...
Something small falls out of your mouth
And we laugh
A prayer for something better
A prayer
For something better
Please love me
Meet my mother...
But the fear takes hold
Creeping up the stairs in the dark
Waiting for the death blow
Stroking your hair as the patriots are shot
Fighting for freedom on the television
Sharing the world with slaughtered pigs
Have we got everything?
She struggles to get away...
The pain
And the creeping feeling
A little black haired girl
Waiting for Saturday
The death of her father pushing her
Pushing her white face into the mirror
Aching inside me
And turn me round
Just like the old days
Just like the old days
Caressing an old man
And painting a lifeless face
Just a piece of new meat in a clean room
The soldiers close in under a yellow moon
All shadows and deliverance
Under a black flag
A hundred years of blood
Crimson
The ribbon tightens round my throat
I open my mouth
And my head bursts open
A sound like a tiger thrashing in the water
Thrashing in the water
Over and over
We die one after the other
Over and over
We die one after the other after the other...
It feels like a hundred years
One hundred years...
04 Play for Today (03:50)
It's not a case of doing what's right
It's just the way I feel that matters
Tell me I'm wrong
I don't really care
It's not a case of share and share alike
I take what I require
I don't understand...
You say it's not fair
You expect me to act
Like a lover
Consider my moves
And deserve the reward
To hold you in my arms
And wait...
For something to happen
It's not a case of telling the truth
Some lines just fit the situation
You call me a liar
You would anyway
It's not a case of aiming to please
You know you're always crying
It's just your part
In the play for today
05 Apart (06:37)
He waits for her to understand
But she won't understand at all
She waits all night for him to call
But he won't call anymore
He waits to hear her say Forgive
But she just drops her pearl-black eyes
And prays to hear him say I love you
But he tells no more lies
He waits for her to sympathize
But she won't sympathize at all
She waits all night to feel his kiss
But always wakes alone
He waits to hear her say Forget
But she just hangs her head in pain
And prays to hear him say No more
I'll never leave again
How did we get this far apart?
We used to be so close together
How did we get this far apart?
I thought this love would last forever
He waits for her to understand
But she won't understand at all
She waits all night for him to call
But he won't call
He waits to hear her say Forgive
But she just drops her pearl black eyes
And prays to hear him say I love you
But he tells no more lies
How did we get this far apart?
We used to be so close together
How did we get this far apart?
I thought this love would last forever
06 In Your House (03:59)
I play at night in your house
I live another life
Pretending to swim
In your house
I change the time in your house
The hours I take
Go so slow...
I hear no sound in your house
Silence
In the empty rooms
I drown at night in your house
Pretending to swim
Pretending to swim
07 Lovesong (03:31)
Whenever I'm alone with you
You make me feel like I am home again
Whenever I'm alone with you
You make me feel like I am whole again
Whenever I'm alone with you
You make me feel like I am young again
Whenever I'm alone with you
You make me feel like I am fun again
However far away
I will always love you
However long I stay
I will always love you
Whatever words I say
I will always love you
I will always love you
Whenever I'm alone with you
You make me feel like I am free again
Whenever I'm alone with you
You make me feel like I am clean again
However far away
I will always love you
However long I stay
I will always love you
Whatever words I say
I will always love you
I will always love you
08 Catch (02:41)
Yeah I know who you remind me of
A girl I think I used to know
Yeah I'd see her when the days got colder
On those days when it felt like snow
You know I even think that she stared like you
She used to just stand there and stare
And roll her eyes right up to heaven
And make like I just wasn't there
And she used to fall down a lot
That girl was always falling
Again and again
And I used to sometimes try to catch her
But never even caught her name
And sometimes we would spend the night
Just rolling about on the floor
And I remember even though it felt soft at the time
I always used to wake up sore...
You know I even think that she smiled like you
She used to just stand there and smile
And her eyes would go all sort of far away
And stay like that for quite a while
And I remember she used to fall down a lot
That girl was always falling
Again and again
And I used to sometimes try to catch her
But never even caught her name
Yes I sometimes even tried to catch her
But never even caught her name
09 A Letter to Elise (04:50)
Oh Elise it doesn't matter what you say
I just can't stay here every yesterday
Like keep on acting out the same
The way we act out
Every way to smile
Forget
And make-believe we never needed
Any more than this
Any more than this
Oh Elise it doesn't matter what you do
I know I'll never really get inside of you
To make your eyes catch fire
The way they should
The way the blue could pull me in
If they only would
If they only would
At least I'd lose this sense of sensing something else
That hides away
From me and you
There're worlds to part
With aching looks and breaking hearts
And all the prayers your hands can make
Oh I just take as much as you can throw
And then throw it all away
Oh I throw it all away
Like throwing faces at the sky
Like throwing arms round
Yesterday
I stood and stared
Wide-eyed in front of you
And the face I saw looked back
The way I wanted to
But I just can't hold my tears away
The way you do
Elise... believe I never wanted this
I thought this time I'd keep all of my promises
I thought you were the girl always dreamed about
But I let the dream go
And the promises broke
And the make-believe ran out...
Oh elise
It doesn't matter what you say
I just can't stay here every yesterday
Like keep on acting out the same
The way we act out
Every way to smile
Forget
And make-believe we never needed
Any more than this
Any more than this
And every time I try to pick it up
Like falling sand
As fast as I pick it up
It runs away through my clutching hands
But there's nothing else I can really do
There's nothing else I can really do
There's nothing else
I can really do
At all...
10 Dressing Up (02:49)
Going under slowly
It never seems too late
Going under so slow...
Dressing up to kiss
Dressing up to touch all this
I'm dressing up to dance all week
I'm dressing up to sleep
Dressing up to kiss
Dressing up to be all this
I could eat your face
I could eat all of you
Oh this night will never let me go...
Going under slowly
Never seems too late
Going under slowly...
You'll pick me up again
11 Charlotte Sometimes (03:58)
All the faces
All the voices blur
Change to one face
Change to one voice
Prepare yourself for bed
The light seems bright
And glares on white walls
All the sounds of
Charlotte sometimes
Into the night with
Charlotte sometimes
Night after night she lay alone in bed
Her eyes so open to the dark
The streets all looked so strange
They seemed so far away
But Charlotte did not cry
The people seemed so close
Playing expressionless games
The people seemed
So close
So many
Other names...
Sometimes I'm dreaming
Where all the other people dance
Sometimes I'm dreaming
Charlotte sometimes
Sometimes I'm dreaming
Expressionless the trance
Sometimes I'm dreaming
So many different names
Sometimes I'm dreaming
The sounds all stay the same
Sometimes I'm dreaming
She hopes to open shadowed eyes
On a different world
Come to me
Scared princess
Charlotte sometimes
On that bleak track
(See the sun is gone again)
The tears were pouring down her face
She was crying and crying for a girl
Who died so many years before...
Sometimes I dream
Where all the other people dance
Sometimes I dream
Charlotte sometimes
Sometimes I dream
The sounds all stay the same
Sometimes I'm dreaming
There are so many different names
Sometimes I dream
Sometimes I dream...
Charlotte sometimes crying for herself
Charlotte sometimes dreams a wall around herself
But it's always with love
With so much love it looks like
Everything else
Of Charlotte sometimes
So far away
Glass sealed and pretty
Charlotte sometimes
12 Close to Me (03:57)
I've waited hours for this
I've made myself so sick
I wish I'd stayed asleep today
I never thought this day would end
I never thought tonight could ever be
This close to me
Just try to see in the dark
Just try to make it work
To feel the fear before you're here
I make the shapes come much too close
I pull my eyes out
Hold my breath
And wait until I shake...
But if I had your faith
Then I could make it safe and clean
If only I was sure
That my head on the door was a dream
I've waited hours for this
I've made myself so sick
I wish I'd stayed asleep today
I never thought this day would end
I never thought tonight could ever be
This close to me
But if I had your face
I could make it safe and clean
If only I was sure
That my head on the door was a dream
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By whynot
Robert Smith intones the first verses with that voice that always seems on the verge of breaking under the blows of a furious cry.
Decadent, romantic, ghostly, gloomy, merciless. But always with that glimmer of light that by contrast makes the darkness even darker.
