Robert Smith, the singer of The Cure, once wanted to be an astronaut. The view of the stars always remained.
In 2019 the 50th anniversary of the moon landing was celebrated. This was a huge inspiration for The Cure when recording their acclaimed new album SONGS OF A LOST WORLD. Singer Robert Smith confirmed this in a conversation with Charlatans singer Tim Burgess in an episode of his podcast “Tim’s Listening Party”.
As a child, he said, he was “obsessed” with the moon landing. “I initially wanted to be a footballer, but if that didn’t work out, I wanted to become an astronaut. I thought it was something like, ‘If I fail at football, I’ll just become an astronaut,’ because that’s what the world was like back then. How wrong I was.”
Smith considered the moon landing a “momentous event” and recalled the moment he stood in the garden with his family and looked up at the sky. “A feeling of complete disbelief,” said the singer. “I’ve had a telescope since the moon landing and love nothing more than spending a few hours just staring into space.”
A lot of The Cure revolves around the moon
The 65-year-old explained that he processed the idea of flying to the moon in a variety of ways in his songs. “It all represented the desire to just do whatever you want. Kind of like ‘follow your dreams,’ but it was real.”
This galactic inspiration almost led to The Cure naming their new album LIVE FROM THE MOON. Smith and the band tried to literally recreate 1969 at Rockfield Studios in Wales during the first recording sessions in 2019.
Back to 1969
Smith: “No modern technology was allowed in the studio. We had all the stuff from 1969, magazines and newspapers and toys and board games. Also the Apollo board game – a fantastic game, especially with a few pints of Welsh beer in your blood. For a month we just created this kind of atmosphere that actually represented SONGS OF A LOST WORLD, because when I left the studio I realized that the world that we had created in Rockfield no longer exists and the world, that I celebrated was lost.”
Just a few days ago, Robert Smith revealed for the first time in an interview with the Los Angeles Times that “Songs Of A Lost World” was not the first title for The Cure’s new record. The LP thrilled many critics and was a sales success. In addition to several editions of the record, there is now also the live album SONGS OF A LIVE WORLD.