Back in the 1980s, who would have put money on The Cure being the band to come up with one of the the ultimate Friday feelgood songs?
Friday I’m In Love has over time become the most widely popular song that The Cure ever put out – not just becoming a worldwide hit in 1992, but also a song that radio never forgot, frequently used in TV shows and movies ever since. It has also become a catchphrase that will forever be associated with the band.
The song is part of the band’s ninth studio album Wish, released in April 1992. Interestingly, it was not picked as a single from the album. That honour went to the track High, which certainly wasn’t a bad choice – #42 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #8 in the UK. When Friday I’m In Love was released as a single on 18 May 1992 it would however improve on that, hitting #18 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #6 in the UK. Both songs enjoyed a 4-week stint at the top of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart as well.
Robert Smith, the song’s principal writer (five people have a writing credit), described it in 1992 as both a “throw your hands in the air, ‘let’s get happy’-kind of record” and “a very naïve, happy type of pop song.”
The song does come across as a very simple expression of joy and happiness, but Smith was quick to balk at any suggestion that he had now become (gasp!) happy. “Say ‘happier.’ I’m still miserable overall,” he insisted to Spin Magazine right after Wish’s release. “I think, words-wise, there are only two songs on the new album that are miserable, so I guess I can’t be that miserable at the moment – but I am, really. It’s that same core of despair that never goes away.”
Perhaps it’s only fitting that the Cure’s next album would be titled Wild Mood Swings. Still, Smith is by all means quick to embrace the lighter moments in his band’s catalogue:
“The pop hits have allowed us to be successful,” Smith said to NME in 2008. “That was always our intention, I suppose, to draw people in and then smother them. There is a small part of what we do that is quite dark in contemporary music terms, [and] I love that side of what we do, but I’ve always been aware enough to know you’ve got to sugar the pill a little bit, but not in a banal way. Friday, I’m In Love is not a work of genius, it was almost a calculated song.”
During the writing process, Smith became convinced that he had inadvertently stolen the chord progression from somewhere, and this led him to a state of paranoia where he called everyone he could think of and played the song for them, asking if they had heard it before. None of them had, and Smith realised that the melody was indeed his.
“It’s a really good chord progression,” he said, “and I couldn’t believe no-one else had used it. I asked so many people at the time – I was getting drug paranoia anyway – thinking ‘I must have stolen this from somewhere, I can’t possibly have come up with this.’ I asked everyone I knew, everyone. I’d phone people up and sing it and go, ‘Have you heard this before? What’s it called?’ They would insist they had never heard it.“
The song was written to be a slower number than its upbeat final rendition. The demo was recorded in the key of D major, but the version on record was inadvertently sped up by a quarter tone. “That was an accident,” Smith admitted to Guitar Player in September 1992, “albeit a happy one. I was playing with the pitch control and forgot to turn it off.” Luckily, he liked the effect that resulted. “The whole feel changed, and the fact that it’s the only song on Wish that’s not in concert pitch really lifts it out and makes it sound different. After working on the record for months, hearing something a quarter tone off makes your brain take a step backwards.”
The music video of the song has also become iconic. It features the band performing the song in front of various backdrops on a soundstage, in homage to French silent filmmaker Georges Méliès.
Throughout the video, the band play around with various props and costumes while several extras wander about, causing chaos and ultimately trashing the set. The final shot is of bassist Simon Gallup crouching and peering into the camera while wearing a bridal veil and holding some champagne. The video won the award for European Viewer’s Choice for Best Music Video at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards.
Friday I’m In Love is the band’s last American Top 40 hit to date. The song’s legacy has grown since its initial release, with numerous usages in TV shows and films, and (especially) becoming a recurring social media feature on Fridays during the Facebook years.
Robert Smith has expressed mixed emotions about the song’s mass appeal. While the song broadened their audience, Smith has at times denounced the new devotees it has brought in. “The people who like Friday I’m in Love aren’t actually fans of the Cure,” he told Musikexpress in 2000. “They’re not the ones who buy my records.”
However, in lighter moments Smith has stated that he is fine with this being the Cure song that most people seem to remember, and even favour. “On the same album there were songs which I’d slaved over and I thought at the time were infinitely better, but Friday is probably the song off the Wish album that’s THE song.” Going even further, numerous times he has also referred to it as “one of my three favourite Cure singles ever”. But that must clearly have been said in a moment of madness.
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