As Principal Songwriter
Smith was also not the sole songwriter or lyricist in the group during their early years; the name 'Easy Cure' came from a song penned by Lol Tolhurst, while "Grinding Halt" began as a Tolhurst lyric that Smith shortened to the first half of each line. Between 1978 and 1979 Smith composed and recorded demo versions of some of The Cure's definitive early songs on his sister Janet's Hammond organ with a built-in tape recorder, including the song "10:15 Saturday Night". By the time the NME interviewed the band in October 1979 during their tour with Siouxsie and the Banshees, Smith was acknowledged as the principal writer of "almost all of The Cure's songs and lyrics", and stated that he was uncomfortable playing and singing songs that weren't his own. Following his return from the Banshees' tour, Smith also composed most of the music for the album Seventeen Seconds using the Hammond, a drum machine and his trademark Top 20 Woolworth's guitar, during a home demo session in his parents' basement, while most of the lyrics had been written in one night in Newcastle. Michael Dempsey, discussing his own departure from the group at this time, later remarked:
| “ | Robert's new songs were more of a personal statement - entirely personal to him - and I couldn't make that statement on his behalf. | ” |
Although Smith wrote most of the lyrics for Seventeen Seconds, many were also rewritten by the group during the recording of the album itself. Dempsey's replacement Simon Gallup described the collective writing process to Sounds in 1980:
| “ | When we play new songs live Robert ad libs a lot until he gets the feel of it. Then when we record it if it's still not right it means everyone sitting around Chris Parry's (their manager's) kitchen all night scrawling sheets and sheets of paper - for "At Night" we got really desperate and finished up at six in the morning with Lol standing on the table pressing his head against the ceiling because he thought that might help. | ” |
Lol Tolhurst later stated that he, Simon Gallup and Robert Smith all wrote lyrics for The Cure's early albums, and that the group dynamic only changed after their 1982 album Pornography:
| “ | Generally as Robert had to sing the words he chose which ones he sang but they were from all of us. He kept a big box of words to which I contributed from time to time (Simon too) and he would use them all for songs. | ” |
Tolhurst also claims to have written the lyrics to "All Cats Are Grey" from The Cure's 1981 album Faith, which he later re-recorded with his own project Levinhurst. In contrast to Tolhurst's recollection of their songwriting as a group effort, in 1982 Smith claimed to have written "90 per cent of the 'Pornography' album", and that he therefore couldn't leave The Cure, because it wouldn't be The Cure without him.
For their first four albums (Three Imaginary Boys, Seventeen Seconds, Faith and Pornography), all members of the group had received equal songwriting credits. With Simon Gallup's departure reducing the group to a duo, and Tolhurst quitting drums to start taking keyboard lessons, from July 1982 until Gallup's return in February 1985, according to Smith, much of the writing and recording process within The Cure effectively became a solo effort. While the songwriting of their next single, "Let's Go to Bed" was credited to both Smith and Tolhurst, Smith later claimed that Tolhurst was credited with keyboards despite not playing anything.
| “ | I did them on my own and Lol was just there for company, basically... I was spending late nights in the studio and he was just someone who'd sit there and I'd talk to. When we did "Let's Go To Bed" he tried to do the drumbeat for it for about three days, and it cost us a fortune in studio time. In the end we got in a session drummer. He was going to pretend he'd played it until I pointed out to him that if he had to play it somewhere and he couldn't he'd be humiliated. | ” |
Nonetheless, Tolhurst was credited as co-writer of five of the eight songs featured on 1983's singles and b-sides collection Japanese Whispers (including "Let's Go to Bed" and "The Walk"), while "The Love Cats", "Lament" and "The Dream" were credited to Smith solely. Of 1984's The Top, Smith later described it as "the solo album I never made", having played nearly all instruments himself except for drums (by Andy Anderson), with Porl Thompson contributing saxophone to one song ("Give Me It"). Tolhurst is obliquely credited in the album's liner notes with performing "other Instruments", and shared co-writing credits with Smith for only three of the ten album tracks.
Smith has co-produced most of the band's material.
Read more about this topic: Robert Smith (musician), Role in The Cure
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