According to Robert Smith, the album “I was really disenchanted” was the one that prevented him from leaving The Cure
Each and every musician goes through important shifts in their artistic practice. For some people, their musical endeavors are shaped by their experiences, while for others, their sound is essentially consistent but is influenced by a variety of diverse occurrences. To ensure that The Cure always stayed fresh and interesting, Robert Smith had to continuously coast the narrow line between artistic expression and tragedy, where beauty is manifested in ambiguity. This made it necessary for him to constantly coast the line.
This vagueness has always thrived in the complexity of the band’s arrangements, which in turn have been bookended by dark and visceral reflections and analogies that reflect Smith’s own experiences with demons. Smith has expressed his nightmare concerns with dazzling flames throughout his work, beginning with Three Imaginary Boys and continuing through Songs of a Lost World. He is aware that the embers themselves will always enhance uncertainty in the smoke clouds that remain through the years.
However, the one element that has always ensured that the music of The Cure resonates as much as it does is Smith’s unceasing pursuit of effective art. This is exacerbated by his own artistic and musical influences, and it is accompanied with words that eloquently express the subjects and messages that he wants to investigate. An example of such a lightning bolt occurred when he came across a metaphor about blood flowers in a book of poems about World War I that he was reading at the time. The metaphor was attributed to Edvard Munch, a Norwegian painter.
When it came to Munch, he used this as a metaphor to describe the moment he experienced creative pleasure. He stated that he knew he had created good art when he felt as though “a bloodflower popped out from his heart.” Similar to the last example, Smith was reading a poetry book that contained a poem that described “how a wound in one of the soldiers, hit by a bullet, opened a blood flower in his body.” He stated that he “liked this analogy” because it portrayed both “pain and art.”
The title of one of their albums was informed by this delicate perspective, which coasted between sorrow, art, beauty, and intensity. This perspective not only infiltrated the walls of every track, but it also exploded with gracious, emboldened hues as Smith relished his newly discovered voyage into a deeper emotional abyss. It was the blood flower, which is famously associated with ideas of strength, passion, and tenacity, that became Smith’s guiding principle. It was the blood flower that coaxed him out of disdain and despair as he contemplated the future of The Cure.
He had been prepared to call it quits on the band with a sense of bittersweetness before he experienced this new sense of enthusiasm and drive. He was aware that their legacy would continue to live on for many years after he had pulled the plug on the activity. Despite this, he persevered through the disillusionment and continued on his journey, discovering new ways to express his artistic side. “‘Bloodflowers’ was written during a period when I was really disenchanted with the group and had no intention of carrying on,” he said in an interview with the Chicago Tribute in the year 2000. However, the act of making it caused me to reconsider my decision.
It is possible that Bloodflowers is their most significant record ever, despite the fact that it is a gem that is often overlooked in their larger discography. Not only did it occur at a crucial moment for the band and for Smith himself, but it also revealed a new side to The Cure. By doing so, it demonstrated Smith’s preference for more basic instrumentation, which not only guided but also set the stage for his characteristic lyrical thoughts. Songs of a Lost World would not exist if it weren’t for this musical treasure trove of melodic and lyrical content, which is present throughout the entire album.