“I’ve experienced more of life’s darker side, for real. Before I used to write about stuff that I thought I understood. Now I know I understand it. The lyrics I’ve been writing for this album, for me personally, are more true,” Smith told Britain’s NME in 2019, when he first teased plans for the new record. “They’re more honest. That’s probably why the album itself is a little bit more doom-and-gloom. I feel I want to do something that expresses the darker side of what I’ve experienced over the last few years — but in a way that will engage people.” That same year, Smith told the Los Angeles Times that Songs of a Lost World would be “very much on the darker side of the spectrum. I lost my mother and my father and my brother recently, and obviously it had an effect on me. … It’ll be worth the wait. I think it’s the best thing we’ve done, but then I would say that. A lot of the songs are difficult to sing, and that’s why it’s taken me a while.”
The Cure’s Robert Smith, 64, grapples with mortality, plays six dark new songs during cathartic Hollywood Bowl residency: ‘It’s really hard to keep hold of your younger self’
