The Cure’s “Other Voices”: A Masterpiece Rediscovered - A Little Hannukah Gift On Christmas Day
Robert Smith knew exactly what he was doing.
Faith was released on April 21st, 1981. It was the third album by The Cure and it’s a masterpiece - one of my all time favorite albums. And this blog post wrote itself as I texted it to myself in stream of consciousness fashion - you might say it came to me in Other Voices (see what I did there).
The Cure’s “Other Voices”: A Masterpiece Rediscovered - A Little Hannukah Gift On Christmas Day
Other Voices is the subject of this piece - the third track on the album. The double tracked vocals with all of that echo makes the vocals another instrument just blending into the soundscape. And yes you could say that about a lot of songs, but not everyone makes a song compelling without knowing what the lyrics are (R.E.M. comes to mind as a band with a vocalist that made an early career out of it). Simon Gallup’s bassline is so hypnotic here that you forget to pay attention to the vocals, and part of why you aren’t paying attention is because Robert Smith doesn’t allow you to recognize what he’s saying. I’ve listened to this song for almost 40 years and had no idea until now.
I was looking up songs with Christmas in the lyrics that might be obscure to most, and I saw Other Voices mentioned in a Reddit comment on the topic. So I went into my Apple Music and gave it a listen with fresh ears. I read along with the lyrics like I would have done in my bedroom as a teenager if they would have been included with the album. I didn’t have Faith on vinyl originally. I had the re-release …Happily Ever After (a double LP of Seventeen Seconds and Faith released a la Pink Floyd’s A Nice Pair which is why these two have always felt like companion albums to me - IYKYK).
Anyhoo, not only didn’t I know the words, but it was fascinating to follow along and I realize I really never knew this song. Amazing lyrics and even the phrasing sounded foreign to me. How did I miss them all these years? Such a spare and bleak sounding album with a genius level of layers to discover. And so early in their career too - it was released 4 days before Robert Smith’s 22nd birthday. Think about that - and it wasn’t the debut - it was their third album. So, about the lyrics - here’s a link to a pretty good breakdown on songtell.com that takes a stab at the meaning of this song and it sounds pretty astute to me. From the piece: "Other Voices is a haunting song by The Cure that depicts a sense of loneliness and disconnection from the world. The song speaks of a character who is haunted by voices and distant noises, as if in a state of constant mental chaos. The first verse paints an image of a person whispering to an empty room, while the second verse speaks of Christmas and the pain of unfulfilled expectations.”
Wait - a song by The Cure about loneliness and disconnection from the world? No way…. hehe…
Keep in mind unless Robert Smith spells out exactly what he meant there’s probably no way to really know exactly from where he drew a verse like this:
Come around at Christmas
I really have to see you
Smile at me slyly
Another festive compromise
But I live with desertion
And eight million people
Distant noises
Of other voices
On some level I knew that loneliness and disconnection was basically what Other Voices was about, but hearing it articulated in a new way for me along with some interpretations online gave me even more appreciation for it. And the way it all comes together - the elements of production, the ethereal feel lulling you into a bit of a hypnotic state, keeping you involved even without a full understanding, keeping the song around and never totally out of reach of your playlist to peel back the layers, being rewarded if you revisit it years - no, decades - later….. yep.
Robert Smith knew what he was doing.
A cool little Christmas-related Hanukkah gift on the first year I can ever remember when the first night of Hanukkah fell on Christmas Day!
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