The genesis of a short circuit

The Cure are usually pigeonholed in a monolithic way, as a band leaning towards darkness if not outright sadness. Yet their catalogue - right from the early 1980s - has never lacked bright, breezy moments, from "The Lovecats" to "In Between Days". Of course, all of it was framed within a rather melancholic, crepuscular atmosphere, where euphoria was always, in some way, kept on a leash.

On one occasion, though, the band decisively burst its banks and plunged into the most carefree joy. It was a Friday, and that song, "Friday I'm In Love", was destined to become a joyous anomaly in their catalogue, a source of doubt and uncertainty but also of huge success. A song that took shape instinctively and in no time at all, yet would later be endlessly second-guessed, as if its very immediacy were, paradoxically, a problem.

The idea strikes Robert Smith at an ordinary moment: a Friday afternoon, on his way back home. "I was in the car, ready to take the weekend off, and this amazing chord sequence came into my head," he would recall. "I was twenty minutes from the studio, so I turned back. Everyone was still there and we recorded it that very evening." The first demo is simply titled "Friday". It's a lightning-fast genesis, in stark contrast to the painstaking work that often defines the English band's process.

When it comes time to write the lyrics, Smith decides to stay true to that initial feeling: the anticipation of Friday as a kind of emotional suspension, a relief shared by anyone who experiences the week as a string of obligations. The theme is deliberately everyday, almost banal in its universality, and it's precisely here that the first difficulties emerge. "Writing really simple pop lyrics is much harder than writing the usual, more heartfelt stuff," Smith would admit. "I filled hundreds of pages. I had to find something direct, but not ridiculous. There's a kind of stupidity to it that actually works. We've always written pop songs, sometimes just a bit too sad." In the end, then, the song's "lightness" turns out to be the result of a long process of subtraction.

At the same time, another, even more unsettling doubt creeps into the mind of the Cure frontman: the feeling that this chord progression is "too perfect" to be original. Smith becomes convinced he must have unconsciously lifted it from another song. He hums it down the phone to friends and acquaintances, seeking reassurance everywhere, terrified of plagiarism. No one recognises anything familiar, and only then does he accept that the idea really is his own. Even so, some clear affinities remain: the bassline and vocal melody recall New Order's "All The Way", while the structure echoes "Just Like Heaven" from "Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me" - a sign, if nothing else, of an inner continuity that puts Smith's mind at ease.

Musically too, the song goes through a phase of transformation. Originally it's slower, less sparkling. Only later is it sped up, gaining that sunny momentum that will make it instantly recognisable. During the recording of "Wish", the Cure even try to make it stranger still, tinkering with the tape's speed and pitch. In the end they decide to stick with the base version, but a technical mistake leaves a decisive mark: Smith forgets to switch off the pitch control, throwing the tuning off by a quarter tone. "It was a lucky accident. I forgot to turn off the pitch control and the whole mood of the song changed," its author would explain. "It's the only track on the album not in standard tuning, and it really sounds different. After months of work, hearing something a quarter-tone out of tune really throws you."

Despite its obvious potential, the band hesitates to use the song as the lead single. It's too far removed from the group's established image, too bright. That's why it's preceded by "High", in an attempt to lay the groundwork and avoid disorienting fans. When "Friday I'm In Love" comes out, on 15 May 1992, the response is immediate: number six on the UK charts, an entry on the US Billboard Hot 100 and, over time, an almost definitive status as the definitive Friday anthem. It will also be the last Cure single to crack the Top 40.

The music video, directed by Tim Pope, reinforces this playful, self-aware quality. Set on an unstable, chaotic stage, amid costumes, props and extras who end up wrecking the set, it shows a band that seems to take itself none too seriously. Pope himself appears at the start in a deliberately absurd cameo, while the closing shot delivers an image that has since become iconic: Simon Gallup crouched down, wearing a bridal veil and clutching a pint of beer. A playful, slightly deranged atmosphere that winks at the phantasmagoria of Georges Méliès' silent cinema, and which, deep down, isn't so far removed from the band's true spirit. The video would go on to win the European Viewer's Choice award at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards.

Smith's relationship with "Friday I'm In Love", however, would remain an uneasy one. When the time came to perform it on Top Of The Pops, he was struck by "terrible stomach cramps" and pulled out of the appearance. For a while he avoided playing it live, unsettled by its overflowing euphoria and the weight of its popularity. At one point he even came to see it as a kind of betrayal. But over time that distance has eased, and today the song marks one of the most eagerly awaited moments of Cure concerts. Even so, for a band that has often made gloom its trademark, being identified by the wider public with a song like "Friday I'm in Love" remains a glaring contradiction - but also confirmation of a far more multifaceted nature than the one usually attributed to them. And Robert Smith's recent pop-flavoured duet with Olivia Rodrigo is just the latest proof of that.

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18/03/2026