The Cure - “A Pink Dream”
How many times have you heard a b-side of one of your favorite bands and thought “WHY wasn’t this on the album?” It is even more frustrating/confusing when there are tracks on the album that are weak and if replaced with this hidden gem of a song, could elevate the album to a great (or at least considerably better) record.
The four-disc b-sides and rarities collection Join the Dots, released in 2004, showed the Cure to be a band that consistently casts aside great songs to b-side status, often in favor of questionable experiments. I’m all for variety on an album but 1996’s aptly-named Wild Mood Swings could have done without “Club America” and it’s bizarre low-octave croon from Robert Smith. As the second song on the record after the strong opener “Want”, it was probably seen by first-time listeners as an early sign of a disappointing album and seems to cast a dark cloud over the rest of the (actually quite good) record. If you ask me, it’s one of the main reasons Wild Mood Swings is so looked down-upon.
Now if Smith had replaced “Club America” with the “Mint Car” b-side, the gorgeous “A Pink Dream”, the album just might have been received a little differently and perhaps remembered more fondly. It is an almost ridiculously upbeat, sunny slice of pop. It starts out with heavy cymbal crashing and a mix of electric and acoustic guitars, fooling you into thinking it’s darker than it is. Then the momentum picks up and the clouds break. The bright, fiercely strummed acoustic guitars recall “Inbetween Days” and Robert spits lyrics like “I rub my head and stumble out the door / Head into the bright new beautiful day”. The production is pristine with every cymbal hit sparkling, every guitar strum exuding rays of sunshine. Not only should this have been on the album, this should have been a single.
There’s an abrupt shift of mood in the last verse when Smith sings “It was all so far away, so long ago / I hardly ever think about her anymore / Except sometimes when the summer twilight breeze carries me the scent of faraway rain…”, showing off how easily the Cure can slip from mindless joy to nostalgic melancholy. These two emotional extremes have always been what the Cure does best. The fact that the same guy who wrote “Pornography” also wrote “The Love Cats” (and within a year of each other!) is proof of that. I can’t help feeling Wild Mood Swings would have been a better showcase for these two strengths if “A Pink Dream” had been included in the tracklist. Alas, it remains a song I can put on mix-tapes/CDs I make for people knowing they’ve probably never heard it, thereby introducing them to a perfect piece of pop.
Comments
You are so right. I think their latest would probably be another example, wasn’t there a pre-release of a few eps in UK of different mixes, other songs prior to official release. Mr Smith is an artist and sometimes we just got to let them do what they want, what is lost to improvisation we gain from the b-sides…
dj4cast
Comment by Dj4cast from america — January 23, 2009 @ 10:13 am
Thry could have also made Wish an instant classic by adding This Twilight Graden and getting rid of Wendy Time.
Wild Mood Swings was good, but you’re right about A Pink Dream. It would have made it better, only I would have kept Club America and put it on the second half of the album and would have left off Return.
Comment by KNK from USA — January 24, 2009 @ 3:13 pm
simplesmente a banda e demais
Comment by marcos dantas from guarulhos — January 25, 2009 @ 6:10 pm
Am I the only one who thinks it’s the second half of the album where things fell apart? Yes, “A Pink Dream” is better than any pop song on Wild Mood Swings, but both “Club America” and “Wendy Time” are the kind of experimental fun that made The Top and Kiss Me(x3) such brilliant albums. The latter half, with the mediocre “Numb,” “Trap,” “Treasure,” and “Bare,” are forgetable. But that first half of the album, oh my!
Comment by Paul from Pomona CA — January 25, 2009 @ 7:38 pm
I absolutely LOVE “A Pink Dream” and usually put it on Cure mixes for those unfamiliar to represent the WMS era—along with “Gone!” which is underrated and usually loathed if mentioned at all. I happen to love it. I would’ve, however, replaced “Round and Round and Round” with “Dream.”
Comment by Michael from USA — January 26, 2009 @ 12:07 pm
Sorry… Wild Mood Swings sucks really hard. Let’s face it, Wish was The Cure’s last good album. Too bad… I love the band. Who knows, maybe one day they’ll return to form. Till then, my only hope is the next batch of remasterd albums.
Comment by Renato — January 26, 2009 @ 10:57 pm
Kiss Me was the Cure’s last solidly great album, and even that had some soppy bits. I know it’s hard to fathom, but many Cure fans at the time were disgusted with the pointless drone of the latter half of Disentegration, and if we’re honest with ourselves, Lovesong is still just a crappy Doors rip-off. The albums since have had brilliant songs and terrible songs, but the brilliance still makes up for the occasional awfulness.
Comment by Paul from Pomona, CA — January 26, 2009 @ 11:41 pm
Cure B-sides are their secret treasure trove- personal fave is “A Foolish Arrangement” a Letter to Elise b-side. “Catching a cold is quick this time but fish? fish may take a while.”
Comment by Chris from Grass Valley — February 11, 2009 @ 2:40 pm
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