It Can Never Be the Same

It Can Never Be the Same was written for the 4.13 Dream album (released in October 2008) but did not feature on that album. It was first recorded at Parkgate studios in April 2006, although the only versions which are publicly available are live recordings from 2016.

Cure leader Robert Smith's original intention was that 4.13 Dream would be a double album. He usually attributes the fact that it wasn't to the record company, although it should be noted that in 2014 it emerged that, in 2008, he hadn't actually written lyrics to some of the songs which would have been on this double album. When it became clear that 4.13 Dream would be released as a single album, Robert Smith put some songs aside to be released on a subsequent album to be entitled 4.14 Scream. Some of the songs which we know were to be included in this 4.14 Scream album were A Boy I Never Knew, Please Come Home and It Can Never Be the Same. The first of those songs was actually left over from the 2004 album The Cure and had been re-recorded and played live in 2008.

In 2014, Robert Smith announced that 4.14 Scream would be coming out. It's not clear precisely why this never happened but one possibility he suggested at the time was that he didn't want to release an album made with one line-up (Smith, Gallup, Thompson, Cooper) when The Cure had a different line-up by 2014 (Smith, Gallup, Gabrels, O'Donnell, Cooper).

It is not apparent at what point lyrics were written and added to the song 'It Can Never Be the Same'. The recording in 2006 was very probably just the instrumental backing. Some of the 4.14 Scream songs already had lyrics in 2008 (eg Please Come Home and A Boy I Never Knew). In 2014, Smith began preparing the vocal parts for the remainder of what would have been 4.14 Scream. Did he finish the process and was It Can Never be the Same one of the songs with completed lyrics?

'It Can Never Be the Same' is often seen as a song about the death of Smith's mother in 2016. That would only be possible if the lyrics were added in 2016 around the time of the live performances. It is clear that Smith delivered the vocal with great emotion at the 2016 shows so it seems credible that even if the song wasn't originally about the death of Rita Smith it made him think of that subject.

Essentially, the song is about someone dying and the protagonist goes back and forth betweeen acceptance of the death and a complete denial.