Today marks the monumental release of “Alone,” The Cure’s first new song in 16 years, which premiered on Mary Anne Hobbs’s BBC Radio 6 Music show. The track serves as the lead single from their eagerly awaited album, Songs of a Lost World, and has been met with fervent excitement, especially after a 30-second teaser was shared last week via the band’s Songs of a Lost World website and their WhatsApp channel.
“Alone” clocks in at nearly seven minutes, and it feels more like a deep cut designed for diehard Cure fans than a radio-friendly single. With its ghostly textures slowly unraveling before Robert Smith’s unmistakable voice enters around the halfway mark, delivering the haunting line the band has long been teasing: “This is the end of every song that we sing.” The track evokes the mood of Lost Wishes and the haunting elegance of Disintegration, leaning into The Cure’s more cinematic and atmospheric side. Enveloped in a brooding, slow-burning atmosphere, “Alone” conjures a sense of introspection, carried by mournful keys, a crawling tempo, and the band’s signature, melancholic guitar tones.
Smith revealed in a statement, “It’s the track that unlocked the record; as soon as we had that piece of music recorded, I knew it was the opening song, and I felt the whole album come into focus.” He added, “I had been struggling to find the right opening line for a while, working with the simple idea of ‘being alone,’ always in the back of my mind this nagging feeling that I already knew what the opening line should be.”
That clarity came after a sudden memory of the poem Dregs by the English poet Ernest Dowson, which Smith credits for bringing the song—and the entire album—into sharp focus: “As soon as we finished recording, I remembered the poem, and that was the moment I knew the song—and the album—were real.”
Listen to “Alone” below:
The anticipation surrounding “Alone”—and indeed the album itself—has been building since The Cure’s 2022-2023 tour, where they performed the song live to sold-out audiences eager for the new material. The song served as the opener for those shows, casting a melancholic spell from the start, its crawling tempo and symphonic weight only heightening the air of anticipation. That Smith chose to lead with “Alone” during those performances feels significant; it’s an invitation back into The Cure’s world, where loss, longing, and memory intertwine in endless, mournful loops.
The band has also confirmed that their 14th studio album, Songs of a Lost World, will be released on November 1st, with the full tracklisting and more details to be unveiled via their website and social media channels in the coming weeks.
The album is now available for pre-order here.
Lyrically, “Alone” touches on themes of finality and loss with devastating poignancy. The Cure’s signature existential despair is at its peak here, as Smith sings:
“This is the end of every song that we sing
The fire burned out to ash
And the stars grown dim with tears
Cold and afraid
The ghosts of all that we’ve been
We toast with bitter dregs
To our emptiness.”
The song’s lyrics reflect a somber reckoning with the passage of time, unfulfilled dreams, and the inevitable end of everything, themes that have long been woven into The Cure’s music, but perhaps never with such palpable gravity.
As the anticipation continues to build for Songs of a Lost World, “Alone” serves as both a powerful introduction to the new era and a reminder that The Cure, even after decades in the game, can still craft songs with immense emotional weight.
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