The Cure: From The Smiths to Robert
|11:35 UK time, Friday, 25 June 2010
Whilst doing an interview a journalist asked if I'd drop a Cure song title for her. I did. It was 'A Forest'. But then I got carried away as usual and by the end of the first programme I had sewn four into the unscripted mix.
I know that the titles are not in the main as enigmatic as The Smiths' poetic offerings but the band enjoyed a double cult following. Some of us bought the brilliant first single on Fiction Records, some of us still have that treasured 45, and others came on board with the second coming of the Goth/stadium part of the band's long and musically prosperous reign. Along the way they produced some wonderful music.
Some of their titles were always going to be a challenge to gently segue into Springwatch programmes, that challenge as before to do it without it either being obvious or incongruous or interrupting the flow of the show. 'Close To Me', 'Round And Round And Round', 'A Short Term Effect', 'Never Enough' and the like were easy. But I was lucky with 'Plastic Passion' with the bustard decoys and it was a pity that nothing cropped up which permitted 'The Lovecats', 'Love Song' or 'A Japanese Dream'.
Kate did a couple for me one night - 'Why Can't I Be You' and 'To Wish Impossible Things' - but also helped with the two most satisfying scores. 'Killing An Arab' was the one for which she fed me the 'killing' when we were talking about flies and Martin lined up a 'three' to seed the 'imaginary' from me and 'boys' from Kate when we were discussing the end of the Twitch-Off. My '10.15 Saturday Night' was a bit misplaced and 'Fire in Cairo' presumably surreal, as was 'Bananafishbones' and splitting 'Friday' and 'I'm in Love' over a sentence hopefully didn't jar too much.
Obviously many Cure titles are 'one-worders' and therefore not fair game. These would be too easy or too ambiguous. Indeed, I'm sure many quite accidentally found their way into our random ramblings. But none were intended as were the following 34 deliberate ones...
Programme 1:
A Forest
The Baby Screams
Boys Dont Cry
Bird Mad Girl
Programme 2:
Never Enough
The Caterpillar
The Upstairs Room
Programme 3:
Hot, Hot, Hot
Plastic Passion
Programme 4:
Disintegration
10-15 Saturday Night
Programme 5:
Round And Round and Round
Why Cant I Be You (Kate)
To Wish Impossible Things (Kate)
Programme 6:
More Than This
Just Like Heaven
Programme 7:
Seventeen Seconds
The Hanging Garden
Programme 8:
Short Term Effect
Close to Me
Programme 9:
Friday I'm In Love
Lets Go to Bed
How Beautiful You Are
Jumping Someone Else's Train
Programme 10:
The Walk
In Between Days
Programme 11:
Killing An Arab
Bananafishbones
Programme 12:
A Night Like This
Charlotte Sometimes
Fire In Cairo
You're So Happy
Three Imaginary Boys
Lullaby
Comment number 1.
At 00:26 27th Jun 2010, Laura wrote:Ha ha love it! A Forest is both an immense & apt track! Fox like cunning, at best I got Three....
Complain about this comment (Comment number 1)
Comment number 2.
At 14:08 27th Jun 2010, greysquirrelsrock wrote:Only spotted 12! Arrgghhh - and I thought I was still a Goth girl at heart. Oh well, roll on Autumnwatch - should be fun to see what Mr P comes up with next :-)
Complain about this comment (Comment number 2)
Comment number 3.
At 17:12 29th Jun 2010, ashley353 wrote:Great stuff!
My challenge to Mr Packham is to incorporate Carter USM titles into Autumnwatch...
Complain about this comment (Comment number 3)
Comment number 4.
At 10:30 30th Jun 2010, hedden786 wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 4)
Comment number 5.
At 16:33 30th Jun 2010, theSteB wrote:Imagine the fun you could have with the titles of songs from the Cocteau Twins. There are even some pukka natural history terms, of course nicely mixed up with the great Liz Fraser's wordplay.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 5)
Comment number 6.
At 16:44 30th Jun 2010, theSteB wrote:Just to show what a great theme Cocteau Twins tracks would be, take "Melonella" from the 2 EP's put together for an album Tiny Dynamine/Echoes in a Shallow Bay". The lyrics for Melonella consist of a list of 32 systematic names for families of Lepidoptera, both butterflies and moths. Take a listen to this track and you will notice that every word spoken ends in "dae".
Complain about this comment (Comment number 6)