A Forest

Infobox Single
Name = A Forest


Artist = The Cure
from Album = Seventeen Seconds
Released = April 8, 1980 (UK)
Format = 7", 12"
Recorded =
Genre = Gothic rock, Post-punk
Length = 5:55
Label = Fiction Records
Producer = Mike Hedges
Robert Smith
Last single = "Jumping Someone Else's Train"
(1979)
This single = "A Forest"
(1980)
Next single = "Primary"
(1981)

"A Forest" is a song by British rock band The Cure. It was released as a single on April 8, 1980, and was the only single from their second album "Seventeen Seconds". It was also their first chart single in the UK, reaching #34.

History

The lyrics tell a vague story about a man looking for a girl in a forest. He hears her calling for him, and as he chases her, he suddenly stops and realizes that he is lost and that the girl is not there. The song is fairly upbeat compared to the other material on the album, and Lol Tolhurst's machine-like steady beat together with Simon Gallup's minimalistic bassline gives this nervous chase more depth and keeps the song on the edge of a frantic groove until the end.

Though not their biggest hit, it is regarded by many fans and critics as one of the best examples of The Cure's sound. The song is also notable for securing the band its first slot on BBC's "Top of the Pops".

The track has been re-recorded a number of times by The Cure. In 1990 the track was re-recorded and remixed as the "Tree mix" on the band's "Mixed Up" album. It was redone for the second time on the "Join the Dots" box set this time remixed by Mark Plati and featuring Earl Slick on guitar. Robert Smith supplied vocals for a Blank & Jones cover version in 2003. The song has also been covered by Nouvelle Vague on their first album "Nouvelle Vague" and by Carpathian Forest on their debut album "Black Shining Leather". The song "Dead Disco" by the Canadian rock group Metric borrows heavily from the songFact|date=October 2007. Many have said this is in reference to the group and the genre.

1981 "Robert Palmer" version

The most notorious performance of this song is the so-called "Robert Palmer" version, performed at the Werchter Festival in Belgium, July 5, 1981. Everything was late at the festival, and the crowd was mostly there to see artists that were at the time bigger than The Cure, like Dire Straits and Robert Palmer, of whom the latter happened to be the next on stage after The Cure. After twelve songs, Palmer's roadies said that if The Cure didn't stop playing soon, they would pull the plug. They reached a compromise that they would play one song before they left, opting for "A Forest", which they decided to play a lot longer than what was normal at the time (almost ten minutes), with Robert Smith adding some lyrics improvised on the spot (including the words: "Such a long end" repeated several times). When the band finally finished, bass player Simon Gallup yelled into the microphone: "Fuck Robert Palmer, and fuck rock 'n' roll!" Palmer's roadies responded by throwing the Cure's gear off the back of the stage.

References in popular culture

This track is featured in the video game "", released for the PlayStation Portable and Playstation 2 consoles. The song can be heard on Wave 103 while driving. It also appeared on "Trigger Happy TV".

Track listing

7" Single
# "A Forest" "- single version"
# "Another Journey by Train"

12" single
# "A Forest" "- album version"
# "Another Journey by Train"

Personnel

* Robert Smith - Voice, Guitar
* Simon Gallup - Bass
* Matthieu Hartley - Keyboards
* Lol Tolhurst - Drums

External links

* [http://www.musicfanclubs.org/cure/lyrics/forest.html Lyrics for "A Forest"]
* [http://youtube.com/watch?v=GquE0zt47m4 Video performance of "A Forest" from the Werchter Festival]