The Cure’s Robert Smith explains meaning behind ‘A Fragile Thing’
"It's the 'love song' of the album, but it’s not really a love song in the way that 'Lovesong' is a love song"
by Tom Skinner · NMERobert Smith has explained the meaning behind The Cure‘s new single ‘A Fragile Thing’, saying that it is about “how love is the most enduring of emotions”.
The band released the song last night (October 9) as the second preview of their long-awaited 14th album ‘Songs Of A Lost World’ – the follow-up to 2008’s ‘4:13 Dream’. Smith and co. shared lead track ‘Alone’ last month.
In a clip of a forthcoming video interview, the frontman shared some details about what had inspired the lyrics to ‘A Fragile Thing’ and talked about how it fits into the full record. “It’s the ‘love song’ of the album, but it’s not really a love song in the way that [1989’s] ‘Lovesong’ is a love song,” he began. “It’s about love and how love is the most enduring of emotions, I think.
“It’s the most powerful emotion, and it’s incredibly resilient. And yet at the same time, incredibly fragile.”
Smith continued: “That’s paradoxical, I know, and doesn’t really make much sense. But I think you know what I mean. You feel sometimes you’re in danger of destroying something, and yet you kind of know that it can’t be destroyed.”
The musician went on to say that he had “struggled” to write ‘A Fragile Thing’, adding: “It was originally called ‘Kill The Sun’ and it was a very different song, and it mutated into this song – which is very specific to me, I suppose.
“But I’m hoping that it resonates with other people because [love is] a universal thing.”
Recommended
Smith explained that he had tried to keep the whole ‘Songs Of A Lost World’ album “universal” in its themes. He said: “So even though most of the songs are very personal, they’re not things that only happen to me.”
Speaking again about ‘A Fragile Thing’, he added: “It’s [about] how you can not live up to the person that you really think you should be. I think that drove me to write the song – that disappointment in myself, I think. [That] was at the heart of it.”
You can watch the clip in the post above.
In a separate statement, Smith wrote: “‘A Fragile Thing’ is driven by the difficulties we face in choosing between mutually exclusive needs and how we deal with the futile regret that can follow these choices, however sure we are that the right choices have been made.
“It can often be very hard to be the person that you really need to be.”
The Cure have also shared the full tracklist for ‘Songs Of A Lost World’, which will feature eight songs in total. They’ve already begun teasing another new track titled ‘Endsong’.
The group are due to play a special intimate show at the BBC Radio Theatre in London on October 30 ahead of their new album arriving on November 1.
Smith has shed some light on The Cure’s upcoming record, describing it as a project that’s been “drifting in and out of my life”.
Following The Cure’s Glastonbury headline slot in 2019, Smith told NME that the album would be “merciless” and “express the darker side of what I’ve experienced over the last few years”.
Speaking to NME backstage at the NME Awards 2022, Smith revealed that the band were working on two studio records – describing ‘Songs Of A Lost World’ as “relentless doom and gloom” and the second one as more “upbeat”.