Breathe

I've been a fan of The Cure since 1986 or so. It took a few listens to get into them, but by summer of 1987 I was pretty much hooked. I had the joy of seeing them live twice in the early summer of 1989 on the AMAZING "Prayer Tour" for the epic album "Disintegration", which to me is as close to a 100% perfect album as they have ever come. I used to listen to it on repeat for hours.

When the band released the album "Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me" and their 1987 single "The Catch", the B-side track was an achingly beautiful song called "Breathe". Later it was used as the B-side to the American versions of the single for "Just Like Heaven". It was the latter format that allowed me to hear it for the first time, in May of 1988 while on leave from the Army in between Military Police School and reporting to my unit in Germany. I met this delightful local girl named Bonnie who lived a few blocks away from my parents and we had a brief romance cut short by my having to report for duty overseas. We're still friends to this day, I'm happy to say.

While in Germany, I bought the vinyl single for "The Catch" and still have it in my collection. And "Breathe" is still one of my all time favorite Cure songs. The song is really only two members of the band performing; Roger O'Donnell's deeply lush orchestral keyboard arrangements layered upon layer, and the unmistakable voice of Robert Smith. This was only my second attempt at making a video, and for this one I reached into my personal archive of Cure photos on my hard drive to make it. Looking back, I see I made a few mistakes on it in the fades and in using one picture twice. Oh well; we learn from our mistakes.

Written on the grounds of Miraval, the remote French studio where the "Kiss Me" album was recorded, Robert had this to say about the song: "It's a song that means a lot to me. Lyrically it deals with a recurring Cure theme, that hopeless wanting for what has been, knowing that it is gone forever. Musically it's trying to capture the feel of late night Miraval... a beautiful world of stars and sighs."

Breathe
Breathe on me
Be like you used to be
Breathe on me

Move in me
Be like you used to be
Move in me
Move in me

Be with me
Be like you used to be
With me
With me