Pictures Of You

"Pictures of You" featured by American Songwriter, article by Jim Beviglia - Behind the Song/Lyric of the Week May 19, 2013.

www.americansongwriter.com/2013/05/the-cure-pictures-of-you/

Go to link for full article including photo, video and lyrics. Text only is copied below:

Looking at old photographs is usually a happy occasion, reminding people of great memories and good times. Context is everything, however, and photos can sting if the person in the picture and the person viewing the picture are no longer part of each other’s big picture. That’s the set-up for The Cure’s “Pictures Of You,” an epic rendering of lost love and limitless regret.

By 1989, Cure lead singer and songwriter Robert Smith was a bit weary of his band’s gradual movement toward the pop charts away from their moody early work. He felt he needed to create something lasting, a coherent album-length artistic statement. So he slowed down the tempos, turned up the torment, and wrote the songs that would make up Disintegration, the band’s melancholy masterwork which contained “Pictures Of You.”

Smith explained his motivations for the album in a 1989 interview. “With Disintegration, I wanted to see if The Cure was still able to make a record which had a real substance and if we were able to express and share such deep feelings,” he said. “The kind of things you feel the first time somebody kisses you violently on the mouth. It’s this kind of intensity, when you’re young, that you must never forget with age. Never…”

That kind of intensity is suggested by the music of “Pictures Of You,” as Smith and fellow guitarist Porl Thompson weave in and out of each other’s lines in mesmerizing fashion while keyboardist Roger O’Donnell props them both up with stirring chord changes. The music, combined with Smith’s impassioned vocal, gives the effect of him desperately dashing to stop his lover from getting on a plane and leaving for good, only, unlike the movies, the plane leaves before he gets there.

Smith sets the tone immediately with a verse that suggests an obsession with the pictures of his former love: “I’ve been looking so long at these pictures of you/That I almost believe that they’re real/I’ve been living so long with my pictures of you/That I almost believe that the pictures are all I can feel.” Those pictures rocket the narrator into the past and a world full of falling skies, dying hearts, and screaming lovers. Extreme emotions sometimes call for extreme descriptions.

There is clearly some admiration on his part toward the girl for conquering her demons (“And you finally found all your courage/To let it all go.”) Yet her freedom also came at his expense, and at song’s end, Smith’s vocal quivers with emotion no longer restrained as he sums up the narrator’s pain: “There was nothing in the world that I ever wanted more/Than to feel you deep in my heart/There was nothing in the world that I ever wanted more/Than to never feel the breaking apart/All my pictures of you.”

You get the feeling that the narrator will be trying to piece those pictures back together for the rest of his weary existence. The Cure and Robert Smith at their peak captured immense, intense anguish better than anybody, and “Pictures Of You” is the ultimate manifestation of that ability.

Just been listening to Entreat again, are the lyrics switched in this live version? (I know they do it to a lot of their songs when performing live).

I'm really surprises that there aren't more responses to this thread. Pictures of you means everything to me as it sums up the whole painful experience if losing my beautiful daughter! She was 5 and the lyrics just somehow fit for the way I feel about her.
For example ...

I've been looking so long at these pictures of you (it's been 23 years and everyday I look at her picture)
That I almost believe that they're real
I've been living so long with my pictures of you
That I almost believe that the pictures
Are all I can feel (sometimes I really still feel like this)

Remembering you standing quiet in the rain
As I ran to your heart to be near
And we kissed as the sky fell in
Holding you close
How I always held close in your fear ( I remember this time we got caught outside in this storm and she was mesmerized by it and she was autistic and mute her expressions will never leave me)

Remembering you running soft through the night (well this is about only one line that doesn't apply as I never let her run through the night)
You were bigger and brighter and wider than snow (this how I see my angel)
And screamed at the make-believe
Screamed at the sky (being autistic she used to make these funny scream noises)
And you finally found all your courage
To let it all go

Remembering you fallen into my arms
Crying for the death of your heart (when she lost her favourite Peter Rabbit toy)
You were stone white
So delicate (she was like a porcelain doll)
Lost in the cold
You were always so lost in the dark (she was really afraid of the dark)

Remembering you how you used to be
Slow drowned
You were angels
So much more than everything (always will be)
Hold for the last time then slip away quietly
Open my eyes
But I never see anything (she's gone)
If only I'd thought of the right words
I could have held on to your heart
If only I'd thought of the right words
I wouldn't be breaking apart (if I hadn't have argued with her dad that night.... if only I had found a way to calm him down....)
All my pictures of you
Looking so long at these pictures of you
But I never hold on to your heart
Looking so long for the words to be true
But always just breaking apart
My pictures of you
There was nothing in the world
That I ever wanted more
Than to feel you deep in my heart
There was nothing in the world
That I ever wanted more
Than to never feel the breaking apart
All my pictures of you

I'm not expecting this to make sense to anyone but me but this song is my journey through grief and even the end is like my heart stopping beating and the twinkle bell sounds that cut in now and again are like happy memories that remind me how lucky I was just to know her even just for a while) xxx

Beautiful song..