Robert Smith has made a career from singing about his bitterness and misery, qualities that will doubtless be on show during the band’s headlining set at Glastonbury on Sunday. But when it came to writing one of The Cure’s happiest and most popular tracks, 1992’s “Friday I’m in Love”, he had a tough time. “Genuinely dumb pop lyrics are much more difficult to write than my usual outpourings through the heart,” Smith told Spin Magazine in an interview published a few months after the release of Wish, the album on which the hit appears. It was the goth-rock band’s first collection of new material in the 1990s, and it marked the departure of long-time member Lol Tolhurst due to substance abuse.
Although “Friday” is much brighter than the sombre post-punk songs of the band’s formative years, there are traces of gloom alongside the giddiness. Smith slightly raised the tempo and key while listening back on one of the band’s recording sessions, forgetting to turn the settings back to normal for when he was set to lay down the vocal track. This accident ended up rendering the music more upbeat and luminous than before.
The song’s concept is whimsical, and so is its back story. Heading to meet his bandmates at a pub near the studio one Friday afternoon, Smith began to wonder why there were so few pop songs about the days of the week, prompting him to draft some lines during the car journey.
Essentially functioning as choruses, the verses in “Friday” all follow the same lyrical conceit, with Smith describing how each day of the week makes him feel all different sorts of awful, except for Friday. Smith basks in his sadness to his advantage, since doing so magnifies each joyful exclamation on the romance brought along by Friday.
The song turns more personal during the bridge section. It’s been reported that one line is based on Smith seeing his wife Mary Poole in their kitchen late at night: “Spinning round and round / Always take a big bite / It’s such a gorgeous sight / To see you eat in the middle of the night.” It’s a memorable encounter that adds levity and specificity to the track. Smith caps the bridge by delivering the title at his most cheerful-sounding: “It’s Friday, I’m in love!”
“Friday” does a succinct, catchy job of expressing the splendour of being in love, which is why it has appealed to so many artists across genre lines, from mainstream to indie acts. There was an abundance of covers in 2015. In February, on one of the final episodes of the television series Glee, Spencer goes around his high school’s hallways singing a shortened version of the track. Later that year, the classical/pop music project Cinematic Pop put a Disney-esque spin on “Friday”, reinterpreting it with 100-piece orchestra and choir. In the same year, Natalie Imbruglia featured a folk-punk take on her 2015 covers album Male.
The more intimate covers have come from lesser-known artists. Indie-rock trio Yo La Tengo recorded an acoustic version on their 2015 album Stuff Like That There. It’s spare and easy-going, and these qualities are in contrast to the accompanying music video, which sees band-member Georgia Hubley singing “Friday” in the midst of a meteor shower. Singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers recorded a similarly minimal rendition in 2018, exclusively for Spotify. Stripped down to a piano and reverb-baked guitar, her cover trades Smith’s heightened elation for calm. Whenever she croons the title, it sounds frank and matter-of-fact.
Earlier this year, during his speech inducting The Cure into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s class of 2019 (40 years after the release of their first album), Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor celebrated Smith’s dynamic vocal style: “That voice is capable of such a range of emotion, [expressing] rage, sorrow, and despair to beauty, frailty, and joy.” What Reznor described is clear on “Friday I’m In Love”, and it’s not just there in Smith’s voice but his lyrics, too. This love song has endured because of the rich emotional interplay — in which moments of despair enhance the overarching joy — that stems from Smith and company’s signature gothic dread.
What are your memories of ‘Friday I’m In Love’? Let us know in the comments section below.
‘The Life of a Song Volume 2: The fascinating stories behind 50 more of the world’s best-loved songs’, edited by David Cheal and Jan Dalley, is published by Brewer’s.
Music credits: Polydor Records; Polydor Records; Cinematic Pop; Masterworks; Matador
Picture credit: Paul Harris/Getty Images