I was 15 years old when The Cure released The Head On The Door on 20th September 1985. Like many of my age, my interest in the band had been piqued by ‘The Walk’ and the even poppier ‘The Lovecats’ hitting the charts a couple of years earlier, (somehow ‘A Forest’ hadn’t registered with me, let alone, ‘The Hanging Garden’ or ‘Charlotte Sometimes’), and by the time The Head On The Door arrived, I had assembled a very modest Cure collection, also now comprising ‘The Caterpillar’ 7” single and the phenomenal 1983 mini-album / compilation Japanese Whispers, bought for £3 from Harrods, of all places!
So The Head On The Door was the first Cure album that I experienced ‘in real time’ and it will always have a special place for me for that reason. Signs for the record were good when ‘Inbetween Days’ was released as a single a couple of months ahead of the album, a joyous song with one of the best intros ever and also one of the all-time greatest record covers and videos (ok, the cover was taken from the video!). Adding to the pre-release excitement was an exceptional John Peel session, (the band’s last), including three songs from the album (‘Sinking’, ‘Screw’ and ‘Six Different Ways’) as well as a version of the recent B-side ‘The Exploding Boy’. It was broadcast three times in just a few weeks, so when the album appeared, fans were familiar with at least a few of its songs.
It was rare for me to have the money to buy an album on release back then, but I had managed to get a ticket to see the band at Birmingham NEC later in September and I just had to have it – the sleeve was absolutely perfect, perhaps the peak of the band’s artwork. It all seemed like the complete package.
‘Inbetween Days’ was a pretty obvious opener, very familiar by then, and the following ‘Kyoto Song’ was a more delicate affair, beautifully melancholic, recalling a little of the atmosphere of ‘Lament’ from that marvellous Japanese Whispers compilation. ‘The Blood’ appears with a frantic flamenco-style guitar motif that runs through the song alongside the memorable lyrics “I am paralysed / by the blood of Christ” (you didn’t get this with ‘Tarzan Boy’ or ‘Holding Out For A Hero’ or any of the other singles making up the Top 5 that week!). I later worked in an office where someone had written a whole verse from ‘The Blood’ on an old wooden desk, in biro, which probably impressed me more than most people who came across it.
Initially, I was disappointed by the album version of ‘Six Different Ways’, a playful song with a killer keyboard hook, when compared to the Peel version – I think I still prefer that radio version today. ‘Push’ meanwhile was an absolute stormer, a monster intro so long that I initially thought it was an instrumental (I always think of it as a kind of close cousin to New Order’s ‘Sunrise’, from the same year, in many respects). It’s still a strong fan favourite today.
‘The Baby Screams’ will always remind me of that gig at the NEC a couple of weeks later. It was the largest venue I had ever been to and the most I had ever paid for a concert (£6.50!) and they opened with that song, probably the most intense track off the album. They would also play the other nine songs off the record before the end of the night, which was fine by me. ‘Close To Me’ became the first Cure song to be a second single from an album – I remember Robert Smith even apologising for this – however that single version (the only one you ever hear now) with its brass and other embellishments lost a little of the charm of the more restrained album version for me. It’s probably now one of the best known number 24 hits of all time, with no small thanks to the ultimate expression of the song’s claustrophobic tendencies, a video recorded in a wardrobe on the edge of a cliff!
Tucked away at track number 8 (of 10) was the staggering ‘A Night Like This’ , which a lot of people even now probably consider a single in its own right (it got as far as getting a promo single in the USA and a video on the band’s 1986 Staring At The Sea collection). It’s a beautiful song, maybe the most straight-up anthem that the band have ever recorded. The album closes out with those other two Peel-premiered songs – the barmy ‘Screw’ with its nursery rhyme fuzz-bass and the gorgeously mournful ‘Sinking’ which I consider one of the most underrated songs in the band’s catalogue. It’s another song which initially gives the impression of being an instrumental, the vocals coming in very late.
The Head On The Door was the first Cure album to be written entirely by Robert Smith and is a brilliantly well-sequenced, cohesive and concise piece of work. It’s 38 minutes long and feels like 28. If I was going to pick a Cure album to introduce the band to a newcomer, I think this would still be the one. And if you are reading, Mr Smith, I’d really love to see an expanded version taking in that beloved Peel session, the contemporaneous B-sides (the ‘Close To Me’ singles added a few more classics), the 7” & 12” versions of ‘Close To Me’ and, let’s go crazy and throw in a DVD with those exceptional Tim Pope-directed masterpieces and some live footage.
I don’t think we are doing scores for this special Cure feature. But…10/10. At least!
