Pick four songs from any band and you can tell a lot about their sound. This summer, I’m featuring #RockBlocks, four picks from bands across various genres. They might be wildly different from each other, but what binds them together is the fact that they’re all a part of my life soundtrack.
The Head on the Door was the first album from The Cure that I loved from beginning to end. Each song seemed to flow perfectly into each other. They worked together brilliantly as a cohesive collection of songs, and the band seemed to strike the perfect sequence of tracks. “Push” was the mid-tempo connective tissue between the slow meanderings of “Six Different Ways” and the manic pacing of “The Baby Screams”. It’s also one of my favorite Cure songs of all time.
“Push” was written to thrive in the live performance. While the band is well-known for launching into long musical preludes prior to the first verse of many of their songs, “Push” literally pushed the band’s own limits, not introducing Robert Smiths’ vocals until after the 2:23 mark. This delay gave all the gorgeous, swirling layers of instrumentation the spotlight — from the percussion fills of new drummer Boris Williams to the guitar and synth attack from Smith, Tolhurst and Porl. More than 35 years after it was recorded, it still holds up.
“A smile to hide the fear away. Oh smear this man across the walls. Like strawberries and cream. It’s the only way to be.”