Robert Smith breaks down the tracks on Songs Of A Lost World, our Album of the Month

Record Store Day is over the moon to introduce a brand-new, year-round feature, our Album of the Month.

That’s not all! 

In the words of Robert Smith here’s his very own Track by Track run down: 
 
1. Alone 

I’ve got a telescope, and I love being outside and looking at the sky, usually there’s a fire going, when the fire dies down and the stars blink out and dawn arrives and there’s a feeling of, aw, the nights gone. For most people it’s the sun comes up, for me it’s the stars are disappearing. I wanted to capture that feeling of feeling very solitary. Theres a moment when that happens, when you suddenly realise it’s getting light, and you feel incredibly vulnerable and alone. 

2. And Nothing is Forever 

This is about a promise I made to someone who was very ill that I would be with them when they died. It’s that simple. And I wasn’t, and because I wasn’t, I wrote this song. It’s a small compensation from me. It’s not good to break promises. 

3. A Fragile Thing 

It's about love. How love is the most enduring of emotions. It’s the most powerful emotion and its incredibly resilient and at the same time incredibly fragile. That’s paradoxical, I know. You feel in danger of destroying something, and yet, you know it can’t be destroyed. 

4. Warsong 

It’s a generalised song about how we’re born to war. Sadly, as I’ve grown older, I’ve started to believe it more. I was brought up to believe in the best, to believe that people are generally good unless proved otherwise, it’s hard to maintain that as you grow old as there’s so much evidence that points in the opposite direction. People are always fighting each other for absolutely nothing, it’s so ridiculous. In my mind, the most dismal song on the album, great guitar solo, though 

5. Drone:NoDrone 

Someone sent a drone over our house, and it really upset me. It really pissed me off, (The song) ended up being me coming to terms with my reaction to it, of how I’m becoming an old grouch, it’s very easy to tip over into fond memories of a world that is rapidly disappearing or has already. Thankfully, I’m aware my reactions to the modern world are a bit extreme. Drone:NoDrone was about me coming to terms with the end of a chaotic life, at times. Do I have the drive and the persistence to continue, can I step back out and continue doing this? I can, I will, I do. But there are moments I just want to leave the front door shut and go back upstairs. 

6. I Can Never Say Goodbye 

When my older brother, Richard, died, obviously it affected me a lot. He brought me up, he taught me everything when I was younger. There was an enormous outpour of emotion. I needed to get what I was feeling out of me. (This song is) a very simple narrative of what happened on the night that he died. It allowed me to deal with it all.

7. All I Ever Am 

It's the hardest song to explain (…) It’s a strange feeling of disassociation from myself and it was that I was trying to put in the song. It’s an odd song, it took the longest for me to be happy with it. 

8. Endsong 

It was me looking back at the moon landings, and thinking where did it all go? I feel the same looking up at the moon as I did when I was 10, but I’m not the same, and yet, I kind of am. The moon’s pretty much the same.