1001 Songs Challenge #718: Lullaby (1989)

On 11 February 2019 I set myself the challenging of reading 1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die by Robert Dimery (ed.) and following the book’s advice to the letter. I’ve previously read 1001 Films… and started 1001 Albums… but felt 1001 Songs… would be a sensible place to start for what I have in mind here.

My challenge is to read about one song per day and listen to it (YouTube and Spotify, I need you tonight!) before sharing my own thoughts. Some songs I will love, others I’ll hate, and I’m sure there will be those that leave me perplexed but listen to them I shall.

I’ll also try, and most likely fail, to pinpoint the best song from the 1001 on offer but I’m nothing if not foolhardy. Instead of one song, I’m predicting I’ll have about 100 favourites by the end and may have to resort to a Top 10 so far to maintain any semblance of sanity.

So long as I post everyday (including Christmas) then this challenge should come to an end on Wednesday 8 November 2021. Staying with the Barney Stinson theme I am hoping that the whole experience will prove to be…

The Cure – Lullaby (1989)

We’re continuing in the UK but leaving London to make our way to Crawley. It is a fourth appearance on our list for The Cure which is one hell of an achievement on out of 1001 Songs. Tracing The Cure, we have seen them gradually gain in popularity and in 1989 they have released their eighth album, Disintegration, which would prove to be one of their most acclaimed and successful records yet. 1001 Songs have gone with the song – Lullaby. 

Lullaby has been open to interpretation in the past with one suggesting it concerns lead singer, Robert Smith’s, experience of drugs in the past. A more popular interpretation is that it refers to bedtime stories Smith once heard as a child of a spiderman that eats children alive. The song does make reference to the spiderman himself and the fear and uncertainty that comes with his approach and ultimately having one for dinner. On the surface this does just seem to be a childhood nightmare manifest in an eerie bedtime story but it could easily be metaphorical for drug addiction. 

The Cure were enduring and had made it through the late 1970s and the entirety of the 1980s. Bizarrely, Lullaby would give them their highest UK chart hit at no.5. Never a no.1 hit for The Cure in the UK. They had the consolation of Disintegration helping to propel them to worldwide fame and recognition. In 2019 the band were immortalised with a place reserved for them in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Three young men from Crawley probably never dreamed of this back in the late 1970s but The Cure had made it and deservedly so.

Favourite songs so far:

The Animals – House of the Rising Sun (1964)

Simon & Garfunkel – The Sounds of Silence (1965)

The Beatles – A Day in the Life (1967)

The Doors – The End (1967)

Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here (1975)

Meat Loaf – Bat Out of Hell (1977)

Queen – Don’t Stop Me Now (1978)

Ultravox – Vienna (1980)

The Smiths – How Soon Is Now? (1984)

Tracy Chapman – Fast Car (1988)