The Cure: Disintegration Meaning
Disintegration Lyrics
The shameless kiss of vanity
The soft and the black and the velvety
Up tight against the side of me
And mouth and eyes and heart all bleed
And run in thickening streams of greed
As bit by bit it...
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This is about engaging in a toxic and emotionally abusive relationship, addicted to the euphoria felt in the make-up phase and creating drama, treachery, duplicity, and manipulation in order to heighten the feeling of aliveness because it is the only way you know how to feel. When the newness wears off and the poison of the toxic behavior begins to take its toll, you begin to look over their shoulder for something new to start over - the desire for fresh meat. Whether or not the idea of actually cheating is literal or just a desire and yearning experienced is up for interpretation, there is definitely guilt felt for the thoughts and feelings of wanting to find younger, fresher, more innocent and pure meat to corrupt. The addiction of new love is intoxicating beyond control.
The line about it being easier for him to get into heaven than to ever feel whole again is actually a play on a Bible verse that says that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, which means that the likelihood for a rich man to enter heaven is so impossible that it's actually more likely to be able to fit a camel through the hole of a needle. In the case of the song, it's so impossible for him to ever be whole again that it's actually more likely for him, a self proclaimed wretched, despicable, horrible, unworthy person, to get into heaven - though he knows that is unlikely, either. When your relationship is so toxic, codependent, and enmeshed, you become entangled in each other, so when the inevitable destruction happens, not only are you shattered, but you literally lose parts of yourself to the other person leaving gaping wounds in your heart and everywhere. There's no getting those pieces back, so you can literally never be whole again.
Even though he knows these caustic behavior patterns and cycles that repeat over and over like a hellish merry-go-round of pain and pleasure can only end in mutual destruction, he cannot stop until nothing is left of the relationship, and each other, but shattered ruins.
It profoundly expresses the real grief, sadness, hopelessness, self-loathing, anger, and bitterness of dysfunctional youthful love and coming to terms with the idea of growing up, being responsible, and letting go of the harmful, yet fun, behaviors of youth, realizing that you cannot sustain that yet still wanting to believe that you can be that way forever, refusing to give it up. It's a real emotional rite of passage that everyone experiences at that pivotal age when your twenties come to an end and the responsibilities of adulthood drop on you like ten tons of bricks when you turn thirty. There is a real grief you experience at the loss of an important part of yourself - the fun, youthful, carefree part of you. All of the youthful indescretions begin to add up and the guilt becomes too heavy to bear leaving you feeling even older and worn. This song is such a beautiful description of disintegration and destruction as everything unravels all at once. -
It's about a person who is cheating on their partner with a younger person. The partner finds out and leaves. So the cheating partner is left all alone and now is whining about it.
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I think this song is actually about facing the reality of growing old. He talks about being younger and feeling closer to Heaven than to feel whole again (he gets closer to heaven aka death each day, yet longs for the wholesomeness of childhood). Robert wrote this song when he was 29, going on 30. As someone who is in my mid 20’s currently, I completely relate to that feeling of missing your childhood and family members as you grow older
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One of the most powerful songs. As has been said, this song about a painful end of a relationship and the accompanying feelings that go with that. Swirling through the Shock, Withdrawal, Internalization, Rage and Lifting (SWIRL) as Susan Anderson describes in the breakup process. He goes over and over these feelings trying to put together the pieces of a puzzle that can’t be put together and finally realizes that there’s nothing more than to accept that the end is just the end.
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In my opinion, the song is about infidelity and heartbreak. As another person above said, Robert Smith sings about how he misses the younger days of his relationship. He misses the dangerous and fierce kisses, the earlier days where they used to fuck every day and every night, and that part makes me think heartbreak. He sings about how it's not like it used to be, and because of that, he begins to feel more attracted to younger women. "The addiction of duplicities"
Obviously, he refers to sexual intercourse. Another way of saying that they used to "go at it like bunnies" -
That it could be about the end of a relationship is obvious but I think it could be about an artist leaving the stage too. Specially the 2nd half of the song.
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i believe that the song is about a realationship that has fallen apart an because of that his whole world has broken into pieces so he feels the desire to die because he does not see worth in living anymoree
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i actually can see a lilttle bit of a suicidal desire in the song , i belive that the song is about a relationship that has fallen appart and because of that his whole world has broken into pieces and he does not see the worth on living anymore
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It seems to me, to be about a relationship that has lost its love. He sings about missing the dangerous kisses they used to enjoy, and how he cannot help but be attracted to lots more women because he isn't getting any love from his existing relationship. They both know that it isn't working, but he knows that when it ends, it will end like all his relationships - painful and bitter. He sings about going round and around again- all his romance fails and he knows eventually he will leave her too, even though it will break them both and probably push him over the edge.
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It's about an affair with a younger person, who gives validation to it because of their obsession with the band and their popularity.
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Even though he misses and yearns the love he once knew that felt good with all of the trappings in a relationship finally turned inward on it's self in the hope to stop the pain of sin, while dissintragating slowly in the feeling of falling without hitting the bottom of the void and continually being sucked slowly by the black hole of the mind.
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I think that the song is about him having a child and how he cannot accept the next chapter of his life.
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I think it's about how there is always that one special person will leave you bleeding for them.
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