Robert Smith went to great lengths to avoid putting out a new Cure record over the past decade and more. There have been world tours, more world tours, another world tour, collaborations with The Twilight Sad, Gorillaz, Chvrches and more, taking on Ticketmaster, redecorating the spare room, anything, it seemed to avoid finishing and putting out the record that would become this month’s all-conquering Songs Of A Lost World.
One such diversion came out ten years ago this month as Smith and his bandmates appeared on a mammoth tribute album to Paul McCartney titled The Art Of McCartney. The Cure surprisingly opted for the very chirpy Hello Goodbye, enlisting Sir Macca’s son James to help them out on keyboards.
Releasing a statement about the recording at the time, The Cure said, “We consider it an honour to be asked to participate on a tribute to one of the most influential and greatest singer/songwriters of all time. Not to mention, a major force in the most important band of all time, The Beatles. Wow!”
A few years before, Smith had told Rolling Stone how the Fab Four were one of the first bands he was ever into. “I grew up listening to The Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd,” he recalled, “cos that was what was played in the house.”
His band’s reworking of Hello Goodbye isn’t the only time Smith has been involved in a Beatles cover, either. He was covering as guitarist in Siouxsie And The Banshees in 1983 when the goth trailblazers covered Dear Prudence, appearing on Top Of The Pops with Siouxsie Sioux and co.. His love of The Beatles hasn’t softened in recent times – last year he was spotted wearing a Magical Mystery Tour T-shirt during a Cure show in Atlanta.
Watch The Cure and James McCartney’s version of Hello Goodbye below:
