The Promise

This song is full of emotion, and so powerful. I think this song is about a relationshp that when it started was beautiful. The one person in the relationship may have promised everything to be perfect and nothing bad would ever happen. Then they reach the end, and what happened to the promises of everything? I guess they're still waiting... -Amanda

notice how none of the sentences resolve, how none of the notes he sing resolve, how the melodies, especially the bassline, never resolve, how the drums suspend touch the ground for less than a moment, and suspend again.... Everything is suspended awaiting resolution for ten minutes and fifteen seconds. Everything builds, but the climax never comes. his words come closer and closer to their full meaning, but the meaning never really comes, until you put it all together and realise that the joke is on you.

Some emotional scars never fade, time can't heal them and love can't save you from it because you still remember. The author is promised that if he just waits and ignores the pain, it will stop bothering him, but he can't forget what happened and the promise that he will get better with time and love is never kept. What they don't understand is that he can't get over it!

This reminds me of a lot of the problems I have!

this is one of their most intense songs. the only one more intense is Disintegration. Its about remembering what you lost and knowing you will never be able to truly forget it. Knowing that no matter who you fall in love with or what you tell yourself that pain will always be there

If you have the song up loud and listen closely, Robert mutters a sarcastic "sure" after the first "Love will save us all".

After hearing that, my interpretation of the song changed from resentment towards a former partner to resentment towards society as a whole. As kids, most of us are taught this overly romanticized view on life, which later in our lives comes crashing down. The world has "promised" us that love will never hurt, that time will heal all wounds, that everything gets better over time. Life isn't like that though, and we can spend our entire lives waiting for life to be what it is in fairy tales.

seriously one of my favorite songs not only by the cure, but all time. I can just close my eyes everytime I listen to it and get totally lost in the sounds. Amazing.

this is just SUCH a damn powerful song. a true masterpiece, but then again all of their stuff is just phenominally beautiful/amazing/wonderful/mind blowing. Hobofuzz i agree with your interpritation. :P

Such a powerful song. In 2004, Robert described this as his greatest ever guitar work.

My take on the lyric is that the person who is making the promises isn’t the person he was in the relationship with. Rather it’s the person trying to console him after the end of that relationship. They tell him time will heal his pain, he’ll find love again. He believes their promises because he needs to (‘I needed your words’). But as time passes there is no resolution some wounds never heal. He finds no salvation.