Unfailingly, regardless of where I am, what I’m doing, or who I’m with, the Cure’s “Lovesong” reminds me a half-lit apartment on the Northwest side, beleagured light sneaking in through miserly blinds; the tollway late at night, jaundiced lights diffused in the haze; driving down West Gray, the clean black and white trim, the tasteful neon, the displaced palm trees trying to hitch rides with passersby; dark, grubby hardwoods and yellowed walls; an empty studio in the heights, self-doubt echoing off the concrete floors beneath the tracklighting.
When I was young I thought “Lovesong” was a song about love, about all the ways you can feel about someone, all the ways love transcends everything else about the world.
Now I know it’s a song about breaking up, about all the ways love never changes even though it has.
It’s still one of my favorite songs. I rarely hear it, though.