Robert Smith
For the past few weeks I've kept coming back to one of my favourite songs by The Cure, Homesick.
Homesick is a sort of unusual song in a lot of ways - it's incredibly rigid in its structure and has just lush, gorgeous and obvious layers. Each cycle of the song adds another instrumental part, then there are two choruses with vocals, then each instrument leaves and the song is done.
It's a really beautiful piece of music and one that I find very moving. Have a listen here.
When I was listening to the song on a walk recently I was thinking about how much of Robert Smith's just incredibly prolific career has been mining the same emotional space for, what, 44 years now? So much of his work as a songwriter is finding things that feel both sad and loving. While there are sporadic (and famous!) moments of joy and play in his work, the vast majority of it is an incredible trust in coming back to the same emotional ground again and again and finding another way to express the feeling of being both in love and in tears.
Another way of explaining why this trust really inspires me comes from Sister Cortita Kent, who is just one of those underground powerhouses of art making. Anyway, in her 10 rules for artists she has this one incredibly wise rule, it's the first one: find a place you trust and try trusting it for a while.
When I think about Robert Smith and how I understand his career, that rules comes to mind and I wonder how much trust would it have taken for him to keep coming back to love/longing/grief/sadness over and over and over? How much richness is there in his music because of that.
The thing is, it's known that he had a lot of struggles as an artist. In 1979 when The Cure formed their early successes came from really goth music, almost defining parts of the scene. Yet through the 80s adding more pop to their work led to a lot of individual song successes (Love Cats, Close to You, Just Like Heaven, etc). Most of us know those songs even if we don't realise it.
But arguably the best piece of work he created - Disintegration (the album that Homesick is on) - was made 10 years into The Cure's existence, and came from a place of feeling scared of being thirty. He felt, as I understand it, that he hadn't created anything enduring. That the work he had made up until that point, all the songs written, concerts played, etc, just weren't going to last, and saw thirty as a milestone to live up to. I feel that there was a lot of challenge, ambition, nervousness and fear in that.
And what does he do? He fucking writes and records Disintegration. Just a masterpiece: completely unique, singular, driving, immense. An album you feel like dancing and crying to at the same time. It's a monolith and a best friend, a whisper and a scream, a storm and a rain shower, quiet and loud. I love it.
In my life, I've been struggling with some of the same feelings: the combination of wanting to make something better than previous work, but also the concern that maybe it's too late.
I wonder, have you read Hemmingway's novella The Old Man and The Sea? It's sort of similar, in a way, this old guy takes a hand reel fishing line on his row boat and tries one last time to catch a fish. As a huge storm rolls in and the younger fisherman won't go out, he pushes the boat out one last time. He is nervous, scared, struggling and in that moment a gigantic marlin is hooked. The rest of the story involves the fisherman holding on as the line bites into his hand and he tries to keep the fish on the line, knowing that if he can reel this one last fish in he can retire (or maybe die?) knowing he did it on his terms. Equally, we learn, if he fails, so much more than the catch is at stake: how can he face those that know him having not been able to do the thing he is trying to do?
That story is nothing like Disintegration or Homesick - they function differently. But the making of that album was as much one last go as the casting out into the Atlantic is in the story.
I find it reassuring in a way, to think about people one admires and see that they've navigated the same problems, the same worries, the same niggling voices in their head that say 'are you still going to be trying so hard when you're 30 (or Smith) or 40 (for me)? How can I look people in the eye if I don't try? Or fail?
Sometimes we make truly wonderful things when we're trying to outrun something or prove something. As much as that worry can feel fatiguing it can also be incredibly energising, it's like when someone tells you 'no', sometimes you give up and sometimes you fight back. It's hard to know what reaction we'll have, but it's fair to say it's not always the same one. It's definitely not for me, sometimes I just feel like sitting down and letting all the things I've been working on - my art, my publishing business - just slip away, like it's too hard to keep pushing. But then I think well, what would I do if not push? Sit on the sidelines and feel left out? I'm not sure that would be better, or even easier, to be honest.
Anyway, sometimes there's this false binary between the easy or hard path, but in reality I find it easier to try. I'm no good at sitting back. For me doing so many things IS the easiest path, being less ambitious would be a much more muted life for me.
I was at an art show on Saturday and felt, really strongly, I have at least one more really good really big art piece in side of me, but also had that feeling of 'if not now, then when?'. I found that a really intense and motivating feeling. It was thrilling but also worrying - because where is the TIME?
I'm rambling a bit at the moment, so let's wrap it up. Whether it's Robert Smith, Sister Cortita Kent or Hemmingway's The Old Man and the Sea there's something about the notion of effort, of feeling that perhaps one won't quite get there but one really needs to try that I find so deeply humanising. I really genuinely feel like Hemmingway's character is me, like Disintegration is music that feels like my head, that Cortita's commitment is necessary, but so hard. These things all resonate more because of the inherent struggle, and the need to keep on, to prove to yourself that you can and that, more importantly, you did.