Robert Reviews the Disintegration Videos

(from Select magazine-August 1991)

 

Lullaby

Nightmares about a spider

"I woke up one morning with the first two lines-"On candystripe legs the spiderman comes/Softly though the shadow of the evening sun".I actually drew in boxes what I wanted the video to look like.We did it in a kind of Christopher Lee way.I refused to have the real spider on me:they had a bloke there with an antidote and I tried but I couldn't.I was kind of a throwaway video-Jim Kerr didn't understand it,my nephews did.Given the choice of audience I'd rather have my nephews." 

 

 

Fascination Street

The Cure perform their American single

"Awful.The original idea was a Doctor Who video,that's why there's a phone box and a clock,with rooms within rooms,done very tackily.But it was done on a low budget.Normally Elektra and Polydor both give us money,but this was only for America,so only Elektra did.The fantasy got lost.I was thinking of Bourbon Street in New Orleans when I wrote it-I was getting ready to go there and I thought,What the fuck do I think I'm going to find? It's about the incredulity that I could still be fooled into looking for a perfect moment." 

 

Lovesong

The Cure sit in different chambers of a cave

"I gave Mary a tape of it for a wedding present.She went away to the other room to listen to it,then smothered me with kisses.It's the most upfront,true,frank and honest thing that I've ever sung.It's about love,but also about the inability to ever really know someone.I was disappointed with the video.The idea was of a fairy cave going on forever,but it looked very cramped and posed.The opening shot is terrible,this lingering shot of a huge phallus that makes no pretensions to be a stalagmite at all."

 

Back

Pictures of You

In the snow surrounded by palm trees

"I lost the pictures I always carried around in my wallet.I realised that I'm clutching old pictures of things,even taken before my birth,to give me a sense that things went on then.After spending a lot building the "Lovesong" set we just took three Super-8 cameras to the place I thought it should look like.I wanted a sunny feel,but it mentions snow in the words.Snow looks like sand in black-and-white,so I thought,Let's start as if it's in the sun,then pull away and you'll see a blizzard.The old adage "The camera doesn't lie" isn't true."