“Why Can’t I Be You?” by the Cure

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A Cure track that isn’t quite rock, isn’t quite pop, but gets you out of your chair all the same.

When I wrote about the Cure’s “Friday I’m in Love“ on ’s Substack (which is terrific and you should subscribe if you haven’t already), I talked about how seeing the Cure live in 2023, along with finally immersing myself in their incredible studio discography, made me a born-again superfan. Here’s what I said about the group’s overall appeal:

“From the near-perfect synth-pop of Head on the Door to the dark, dreamy soundscapes of Disintegration*, you’d be hard-pressed to find a group whose catalog has aged as gracefully as the Cure’s. In part, that’s because, buried under the grand emotional overtures and goth/emo aesthetic, is a brilliant pop songwriter in Robert Smith. For me, he’s the engine that drives the Cure’s appeal […]”*

That reasoning holds for “Why Can’t I Be You?” Released as the lead single for 1987’s Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, it’s a true oddball of a song. It doesn’t present as the same pop-rock as “Just Like Heaven,” the album’s best-known track. Nor does it align with the band’s darker, more atmospheric work that’s etched their name on goth’s Mount Rushmore. It has much more in common with teen-centric pop music from the mid-80s, with the central riff bearing more than a passing resemblance to Wham’s “Young Guns (Go For It!).” Of all the Cure hits that have endured for three-plus decades, this one may be the most unabashedly ridiculous.

Still, its bouncy, shameless nature is nothing short of infectious. Smith’s soaring vocal performance elevates the simplistic lyrics that frame the protagonist as so hopelessly head-over-heels for their crush that they’ll “run around in circles until [they] run out of breath.” Tonally, this single is of a piece with the rest of Kiss Me, which is certainly the messiest and most scattershot of the Cure’s core LPs released during their heyday. But, like the Smith’s “This Charming Man,” who can resist a rock earworm as solid as this one?

A final note: I’m purposely not sharing the music video that aired on MTV at the time because of prominent blackface. Instead, please enjoy the following live clip.