Robert Smith Feared He Stole The Melody For Friday I’m In Love
During the writing of “Friday I’m In Love,” The Cure frontman Robert Smith grew nearly paranoid, convinced he had accidentally stolen the chord progression from an existing song. Smith played the track for everyone he could imagine to ask if they had heard the melody before. No one had, leading Smith to realize the chords were genuinely his own.
While the band built a career on bitter and sombre post-punk songs, Smith struggled to write the pop lyrics for what became one of their happiest hits.
Studio Accident Sparked Upbeat Tone
An accidental studio setting helped shape the song’s bright sound.
The song’s concept emerged during a car journey. Heading to meet bandmates at a pub near the studio one Friday afternoon, Smith began wondering why so few pop songs focused on the days of the week, drafting lines on the drive. The verses follow a lyrical conceit where Smith describes how each day of the week makes him feel awful, except for Friday, which magnifies his romantic joy.
Kitchen Inspiration Behind Bridge Lyrics
The bridge section of the track turns personal, featuring a line based on Smith seeing his wife, Mary Poole, in their kitchen late at night. The lyric—Spinning round and round / Always take a big bite / It’s such a gorgeous sight / To see you eat in the middle of the night
—adds specificity to the track before Smith delivers the title: It’s Friday, I’m in love!
Film director Tim Pope directed the accompanying music video. The band performs the song against various artistic backgrounds on a soundstage, playing with props and costumes while extras wander around, cause chaos, and eventually destroy the set. Pope himself appears at the beginning of the video, riding a hobby horse and shouting directions through a megaphone.
Artists Reinterpret Track Across Various Musical Genres
The enduring popularity of the track led to numerous covers across mainstream and indie acts over the years. In February 2015, the television series Glee featured a version sung by the character Spencer. Later that year, the classical-pop project Cinematic Pop reinterpreted the song with a 100-piece orchestra and choir, while Natalie Imbruglia recorded a folk-punk take for her covers album Male.
Indie-rock trio Yo La Tengo released an acoustic version on their 2015 album Stuff Like That There, accompanied by a video of member Georgia Hubley singing amid a meteor shower.
Worth a look