If I'm really honest and come clean - the songs that mean the most to me - the ones that get under my skin and touch deep, deep down inside are the dark and moody ones. Don't get me wrong I like light and fluffy, too, but the ones that leave me satisfied are songs that when they've finished feel like they've gone right to the pit of my stomach and twisted me up inside. Some bands/songwriters simply do this better than others and for me The Cure are masters of this kind of song.During the late '80s The Cure were one of those bands that everybody either loved or hated - there was no middle ground. Nobody I knew ever said, 'well, I like some of their stuff.' Pretty much all my friends claimed they were 'too depressing'. Strangely, though, they all turned up their radios when 'Love Cats' or 'Friday I'm in Love' came on. They couldn't bring themselves to admit they liked these tunes because according to them, The Cure were depressing and yet clearly these songs were not.
Well, I'm not afraid to admit I love depressing! Perhaps it's my dark side - but gloomy, gothic, indie rock reaches places in the pit of my stomach that other genres can't reach. I love much of The Cure's work up to the early '90s and in my opinion the gloomier the better. Take 'Plainsong', for example, the opening track of Distintegration (1989) - it's magnificent. It's almost a parody of the goth rock genre - lyrically and musically - yet it captures the wild, untamed, dark side of the human condition. And how I wish for an open place for this in church. Increasingly, my experiences are leading me to see this dimension of God himself - He's downright mysterious, wild and untamed and as it says in the song, He makes 'me feel like I'm living on the edge of the world'.
