A Forest

March 28, 1980

A Forest is a song by British New-Wave-/Dark-Wave-Band The Cure. The song was released as the first single in March 1980 in all German speaking countries and meant a commercial breakthrough for the band. In the UK, the publication drew the first appearance in the television show Top of the Pops after and made the band a wider audience nationally known.

Background

A Forest was created in late 1979 during the England tour of The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees, Robert Smith was at this time guitarist of both groups. The song was produced by Studio One Smith and Mike Hedges in the spring of 1980, during the ten-day recording of the album Seventeen Seconds at London's Morgan. The recorded for the album, nearly six-minute version was greatly reduced for the single release.

The Musikproduktuktion was characterized by the use of effects such as overdubs and loops and the contact microphones used for recording the drums. The timbre of the recordings is described as cold and sterile and is intended to underscore the gloomy mood of the entire album as well as of A Forest, according hedges:

" I really appreciated the musical direction - morose, athmospheric and very different to Three Imaginary Boys. We were not thinking about commercialism or potential popularity at all I pretty much Followed Robert's instructions. "

"I liked the musical direction very - morose, atmospheric and very different to Three Imaginary Boys. We did not thought of commercialization or potential popularity. "

A Forest ringing sound and lyrically as " dark phase " designated time of the Cure between 1980 and 1983, which they and other bands of the gothic rock genre and generally the Dark Wave flow to early musical representatives of the corresponding Gothic make subculture.

Publication and chart success

The single was released on 28 March 1980 and peaked in the UK charts, place 31 in the German charts no placement was noted.

Reception

Ned Raggett of Allmusic called A Forest as a " Cure - Cure Song of Songs" ("no -question -about -it Cure Cure song of songs, this is it ").

The song has been covered by, among others, on the Waltari album So Fine (1994 ), Carpathian Forest on the debut album Black Shining Leather ( 1995) and Nouvelle Vague on their self-titled debut ( 2004).