These a quiet storm and it never felt like this before

At least, that's all there is on the recording on The Head on the Door: the magnificent single version, released a few weeks later, ramps up the fun by means of a brass band that wanders into the mix halfway through, sounding like they're on their way back from a New Orleans funeral (including a trombone player who, hilariously, doesn't catch on that the song has ended until a moment too late). There's no murk, no foreboding, not even guitar, just a rhythm track with a wiggle in its hips and Porl Thompson and Lol Tolhurst's keyboards cooing and plinking at each other. The Cure made a point of adjusting their identity on a regular basis-that was the prerogative of new wave-and the big difference here from the band's earlier work is that the arrangement of 'Close to Me' is straight-up pleasure music.

He rolls his words around his mouth, as if he's figuring out if they're delicious or disgusting or both his lyrics incorporate some of the most freighted words from the first few Cure albums ('sick,' 'faith,' 'clean'-remember, this is a man who three years earlier had made 'I will never be clean again' the hook of a song). Smith's voice is right up in your face, with the arrangement's handclaps and heavy breathing almost indistinguishable from the sound of someone leaning in to confide something in confidence. 'Close to Me' is the peak of the latter period: a festive love song caught in the middle of a panic attack, a song about happiness and erotic bliss sung from the point of view of somebody who's still convinced that it's all about to be ripped away ('if only I was sure that my head on the door was a dre-he-heam,' Smith hiccup-moans). Robert Smith spent the first few years of the Cure gazing and then plunging into the abyss of existential horror, and the next few clawing his way back out of that abyss, with a grin on his face drawn on with lipstick.

These a quiet storm and it never felt like this before