“A Forest” by The Cure

"A Forest" was released as a single from Seventeen Seconds, the Cure's second album, from 1980, and it's where the band's gloom found its shape. Mike Hedges co-produced it with Robert Smith, and the whole album, this song included, was recorded and mixed inside a week, which may explain its stark, unfussy chill.

Smith sings and plays electric guitar, a thin, echoing line that circles like someone lost among the trees, while Simon Gallup's bass throbs, Lol Tolhurst's drums tick with mechanical patience and Matthieu Hartley's keyboards hang in the air like mist. The music is credited to all four. It doesn't so much build as close in around you.

It was the band's first entry on the UK singles chart, reaching 31, and its video debuted on Top of the Pops that April. It stands as a model of the gothic rock the Cure made in the 1980s, and it has stayed in their live sets for years, turning up on several concert albums. In 1990 they recorded it again, and a remix of that new version became a single from Mixed Up.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.