I thought this was a decent song when I first heard it a few years ago, but didn't think much of it. It took on an important and personal meaning for me around the time my aunt died of cancer. She was just 53, having suffered horribly for two years. She finally died on 25 April 2009; it was one of the saddest days of my life. I recall coming to this site in the months before that, reading the interpretations here, and thinking that this song represents the shock and surprise of finding one's self suddenly and prematurely dead. I couldn't get this song out of my head. It upset me so much that I couldn't bring myself to listen to it after she died. At the time, I thought I may never listen to it again. It was that terrible of an association.
Things went from bad to worse. My mother (my aunt's sister) because very unexpectedly and gravely ill that October. She died two days later, on 21 October 2009, aged 59. So I lost two of the very dearest people in my life over the span of just six months.
Still I could not listen to the song, though luckily I had associated it more strongly with my aunt's death. Finally, on 26 April 2010, a year and a day since she passed, I listened to All Cats Are Grey. Very loud. In my office after everyone had left for the day. It was a tremendous relief for me to find that, somehow it didn't carry with it the same awful emotional resonance as a year earlier. The time that had passed since those deaths had also healed, in some ways, the weight of this song.
Now I can listen to the song somewhat freely. I'll always associate it with tremendous loss, but at least I no longer fear it. I'm a pretty casual Cure fan, but there have been very few songs in my life that can compare with the impact that this one made. It is truly unforgettable.
@Starquest Lol Tolhurst wrote the lyric for 'All cats are grey' and it was his way of coping with the death of his mother. You are right to associate the song with loss.
@Starquest Lol Tolhurst wrote the lyric for 'All cats are grey' and it was his way of coping with the death of his mother. You are right to associate the song with loss.
I thought this was a decent song when I first heard it a few years ago, but didn't think much of it. It took on an important and personal meaning for me around the time my aunt died of cancer. She was just 53, having suffered horribly for two years. She finally died on 25 April 2009; it was one of the saddest days of my life. I recall coming to this site in the months before that, reading the interpretations here, and thinking that this song represents the shock and surprise of finding one's self suddenly and prematurely dead. I couldn't get this song out of my head. It upset me so much that I couldn't bring myself to listen to it after she died. At the time, I thought I may never listen to it again. It was that terrible of an association.
Things went from bad to worse. My mother (my aunt's sister) because very unexpectedly and gravely ill that October. She died two days later, on 21 October 2009, aged 59. So I lost two of the very dearest people in my life over the span of just six months.
Still I could not listen to the song, though luckily I had associated it more strongly with my aunt's death. Finally, on 26 April 2010, a year and a day since she passed, I listened to All Cats Are Grey. Very loud. In my office after everyone had left for the day. It was a tremendous relief for me to find that, somehow it didn't carry with it the same awful emotional resonance as a year earlier. The time that had passed since those deaths had also healed, in some ways, the weight of this song.
Now I can listen to the song somewhat freely. I'll always associate it with tremendous loss, but at least I no longer fear it. I'm a pretty casual Cure fan, but there have been very few songs in my life that can compare with the impact that this one made. It is truly unforgettable.
@Starquest Lol Tolhurst wrote the lyric for 'All cats are grey' and it was his way of coping with the death of his mother. You are right to associate the song with loss.
@Starquest Lol Tolhurst wrote the lyric for 'All cats are grey' and it was his way of coping with the death of his mother. You are right to associate the song with loss.