The Cure – The Snakepit | Seven Minutes Down the Darkest Rabbit Hole

The Cure – “The Snakepit” Released in 1987 on The Cure’s gloriously overstuffed double album Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me , “The Snakepit” is nearly seven minutes of the band apparently deciding that verse-chorus-verse was far too cheerful and wandering into a psychedelic fog instead. The official album version runs 6.56 with Robert Smith on lead vocals, guitar, keyboards and recorder, Porl Thompson on guitar and keyboards; Simon Gallup on bass; Lol Tolhurst on keyboards; Boris Williams on drums and percussion. No additional featured musician is credited on the track. Smith wrote the lyrics, while the music was credited jointly to Smith, Gallup, Thompson, Tolhurst and Williams . That collective credit reflected a change in approach: Smith allowed the other members considerably more input into the writing, something he said helped account for the album’s wildly different musical styles. So one moment you get “Just Like Heaven”; another moment you fall head-first into “The Snakepit”. Same band, considerably fewer emergency exits. The album was produced by Robert Smith and David M. Allen with major sessions taking place at Studio Miraval in Provence . In a contemporary 1987 interview, Smith explained that the band chose Miraval partly because it offered accommodation away from the city and — an obviously vital piece of studio equipment — its own vineyard with free wine . The Cure arrived with around 100 songs, demoed 25 and spent roughly ten weeks developing the 18 tracks that made the album. “The Snakepit” sits perfectly at the murkier end of an album deliberately designed to show almost everything The Cure could do. Robert Smith later described the recording period as fast and relatively unfussy, recalling that songs could emerge quickly without excessive production tinkering. The result here is less conventional rock song and more slow descent into a particularly well-decorated gothic basement — hypnotic bass, swirling keyboards, guitar textures and Smith sounding entirely at home somewhere sensible people would probably avoid after dark. 🎧 Let us know your favourite track in the comments. 👍 Like, subscribe, and hit the bell for more in-depth explorations. #JukeboxCuts #TheCure #TheSnakepit