This is a very moving song which was first made public in a live performance in Stockholm, Sweden on 10 October 2022 on The Cure's Lost World tour.
It's clearly a song about death. It's slightly unusual in that it is not told from the perspective of the person mourning the deceased but rather from the perspective of the dying person. The person is aware that they have grown old and that the end is coming but they just want their loved one to share their final moments with them, to come down on to their death bed for a final hug.
It could be a generic song about death or a deeply personal one. If the latter, it could have been written about a number of people since there were a number of deaths in Cureworld in the period in which this album was written. Between 2016 and 2022, Robert Smith lost both his parents, his brother and then some of his Aunts and Uncles succombed to the Covid pandemic. In 2019, bassist Simon Gallup lost his second wife, Sarah.
My guess would be that it is about the death of Robert's father. I'm basing that merely on the reference to 'murmured lullaby'. When The Cure released the song Lullaby in 1989, one of the claims that Robert made about the song was that when he was a child his father used to read rather gruesome lullabies to him. But I'm basing that idea merely on the reference to lullabies, so it is rather speculative.
In any event, this is a very moving song. The first time The Cure played it live Simon Gallup could be seen giving Robert Smith a very sympathetic pat on the back as the song began.
This is a very moving song which was first made public in a live performance in Stockholm, Sweden on 10 October 2022 on The Cure's Lost World tour.
It's clearly a song about death. It's slightly unusual in that it is not told from the perspective of the person mourning the deceased but rather from the perspective of the dying person. The person is aware that they have grown old and that the end is coming but they just want their loved one to share their final moments with them, to come down on to their death bed for a final hug.
It could be a generic song about death or a deeply personal one. If the latter, it could have been written about a number of people since there were a number of deaths in Cureworld in the period in which this album was written. Between 2016 and 2022, Robert Smith lost both his parents, his brother and then some of his Aunts and Uncles succombed to the Covid pandemic. In 2019, bassist Simon Gallup lost his second wife, Sarah.
My guess would be that it is about the death of Robert's father. I'm basing that merely on the reference to 'murmured lullaby'. When The Cure released the song Lullaby in 1989, one of the claims that Robert made about the song was that when he was a child his father used to read rather gruesome lullabies to him. But I'm basing that idea merely on the reference to lullabies, so it is rather speculative.
In any event, this is a very moving song. The first time The Cure played it live Simon Gallup could be seen giving Robert Smith a very sympathetic pat on the back as the song began.