The Cure has released “A Fragile Thing,” the newest single from their upcoming album Songs of the Lost World.
The track begins with haunting piano before bass and drums kick in, giving it a fuller sound. A gradual build leads to Robert Smith’s opening vocals: “Every time you kiss me I could cry, she said / Don’t tell me how you miss me, I could die tonight of a broken heart / This loneliness has changed me, we’ve been too far apart.”
Smith’s distinctive croon continues to resonate throughout the heart-aching tune, leading to the emphatic chorus: “There’s nothing you can do to change it back, she said / Nothing you can do but sing / This love is a fragile thing.” An emotive guitar solo midway through the song echoes previous Cure classics, while the final chorus showcases the band’s unique balance of beauty and heartbreak.
“A Fragile Thing is driven by the difficulties we face in choosing between mutually exclusive needs and how we deal with the futile regret that can follow these choices, however sure we are that the right choices have been made,” Smith explained in a press release accompanying the song. “It can often be very hard to be the person that you really need to be.”
Listen to “A Fragile Thing” below.
When Does ‘Songs of the Lost World’ Come Out?
Songs of the Lost World is due for release on Nov. 1. It marks the Cure’s first new album since 2008’s 4:13 Dream. The 16 year gap between albums marks the longest break in the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers’ history.
READ MORE: The Cure Albums Ranked Worst to Best
“A Fragile Thing” is the second song to be released from the upcoming LP, following “Alone” which arrived in September. The Cure also previewed other new tunes expected to be on Songs of the Lost World during their 2022-’23 tour, among them: “Endsong,” “And Nothing Is Forever” and “I Can Never Say Goodbye.” The album’s full tracklisting has yet to be revealed.
Why Has the Cure Waited So Long to Release a New Album?
Songs of the Lost World has been many years in the making, and Smith blamed himself for the long wait.
“I keep going back over and redoing [the songs], which is silly. At some point, I have to say that’s it. It’s very much on the darker side of the spectrum,” the singer admitted to the Los Angeles Times in 2019.
“I lost my mother and my father and my brother recently, and obviously it had an effect on me,” he continued, discussing the album’s overarching style. “ It’s not relentlessly doom and gloom. It has soundscapes on it, like Disintegration, I suppose. I was trying to create a big palette, a big wash of sound.”