Welcome back to #MusicMondays, where I talk about music that inspires my “Shadowdance” action urban fantasy saga! This week it’s all about setting a mood with The Cure and their song, “Burn,” off the soundtrack to Brandon Lee’s The Crow.
Who are the Cure?
The Cure began with Robert Smith minus his distinctive hair waaaaaaaaay back in the late seventies in the UK.
Smith and some friends went through a couple of bands prior with names like Malice and Easy Cure, eventually settling on just the Cure.
Their sound fell into the camp with Elvis Costello and a punk-sounding Beatles, no doubt influenced by the burgeoning UK punk scene of the time.
But then Smith fell into a gig playing guitar for Siouxsie and the Banshees (another group I may feature). That group had a dark, Gothic pop sound that Smith came to love.
In 1982, after some in-band drama, Smith took a pause from the band to work with the Banshees. But the band’s record label, Polydor, wasn’t about to let the cash cow slip away.
Circa 1984, Polydor scout Chris Parry, who had brought Smith and the band to the label back in the late seventies, set out to create a new sound for the Cure. They left behind the nihilistic Goth and became psychedelic, a genre that worked for just one album.
Over the next six years, the band cranked out more albums, culminating in their 1987 double album, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. It earned their highest place on the charts yet and delivered one of their most recognizable tracks, “Just Like Heaven.”
The Cure settled into their groove of big hair, makeup, and Goth pop tunes the kids could dance to.
Origins of “Burn” and The Crow
The Crow began as a comic book back in 1989. Writer and artist James O’Barr lost his fiancée to a drunk driver. The comic was his way of exorcising his grief.
O’Barr, by chance, is a fan of the Cure. He adapted Smith’s look, combining it with rock star Iggy Pop, to make the look of the book’s protagonist Eric Draven.
Fitting, then, that the movie adaptation of his work should have a song written specifically for it by the character’s inspiration.
The Crow – All about the vibes
Back in 1994, I read X-Men, Batman, and G.I. Joe comic books. Music wise I was listening to Prince, Nine Inch Nails, and the occasional pop song to dance to.
I was also playing the Vampire: The Masquerade role-playing game, so I knew something about Gothic-punk atmosphere.
I had read The Crow comic book, so I was familiar with the aesthetic.
The story is as basic as it gets. Man and fiancée die. Man comes back as the Crow to get revenge against colorful characters. Man rejoins fiancée in death. The end.
The Crow should have been a crappy B-movie… kind of how the sequels turned out.
But between director Alex Proyas’s visuals, Graeme Revell’s haunting score, and Brandon Lee’s soulful performance?
Mind. Blown.
The Crow works because it’s all about the atmosphere. You can feel the pathos dripping from the screen.
“Burn” fed directly into this pathos while maintaining the Cure’s poppy side of Goth. I mean, those lyrics!
“Oh don’t talk of love” the shadows purr
Lyrics from “Burn”
Murmuring me away from you
“Don’t talk of worlds that never were
The end is all that’s ever true
That’s the pathos I want in my Shadowdance action urban fantasy saga.
And those driving guitar riffs, tribal drum beats, and thudding bass line make you wanna sit in the chair and get to writing that action scene.
Gothic punk and the Shadowdance
Adriana Dupre is all pathos and action. The woman gets duped into becoming a vampire assassin, further duped in the targets she murdered. Sister corrupted and turned against her as a weapon.
Seeking redemption in a world set against you aligns with Eric Draven’s plight. Instead of romantic love, Adriana seeks the love of family, both by blood and found family.
Adriana also meets her share of colorful characters: werewolves in the forests of Berlin in By Virtue Fall (coming soon, I promise!); Yuppie sorcerers in Paris in Two Sisters (available now on Amazon@); Japanese vampires in Hong Kong in By Virtue Fall.
Inspired by the Cure, influenced by The Crow, the Shadowdance saga will elicit pathos while delivering incredible action, all set in a world of Gothic horror.
Here’s the Cure playing “Burn” at the Glastonbury 2019 Festival. And yes, that is a pan flute (or something) to simulate the crow sound.
