The Hanging Garden (song)

"The Hanging Garden" is a song by English rock band the Cure, released as the sole single from their fourth studio album, Pornography. The release is sometimes referred to as A Single. The single reached No. 34 on the UK Singles Chart.[2]

"The Hanging Garden"
Single by The Cure
from the album Pornography
B-side"Killing an Arab"
Released12 July 1982 (1982-07-12)
GenreGothic rock[1]
LabelFiction
Songwriter(s)Robert Smith, Simon Gallup and Lol Tolhurst
Producer(s)
The Cure singles chronology
"Charlotte Sometimes"
(1981)		 "The Hanging Garden"
(1982)		 "Let's Go to Bed"
(1982)

Release

In addition to being issued as a 7" single with The Cure’s earlier single "Killing an Arab" on the B-side, "The Hanging Garden" was also released in a deluxe edition known as A Single, formatted both as a gatefold double pack of 7" singles with a total of four tracks, and also as a 10” EP including a live recording of “Killing An Arab” and the studio version of "A Forest" from the band’s second album.[3]

Music video

The video shows the band playing in the York House Gardens in London, England. The band also wears masks, which is similar to the concept of the Pornography album. Robert Smith recalled: "For the 'Hanging Garden' video we got two people who did Madness videos but it was a really awful video. They wanted to make us look serious and we wanted them to make us look like Madness".[4] The video was directed by Chris Gabrin.[5][6]

Reception

At the time of its release, NME writer Adrian Thrills was not impressed with the single, writing, "The Cure have drifted disappointingly and indulgently from the idyllic pop invention of their younger days".[3] BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel went on to include the song at No. 25 in his Festive Fifty list for 1982.[7]

In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Stewart Mason wrote that the song was heavily influenced by Siouxsie and the Banshees. "The urgent, thundering drums that underpin "The Hanging Garden" are clearly some sort of homage to Budgie, who provided very similar drum patterns to years' worth of Siouxsie & the Banshees songs. Similarly, Simon Gallup's bass borrows something from Steven Severin's insistent throb, and Smith's own guitar is primarily used for drones and ornamentation, much as it was in the Banshees".[8]

Track listing
  1. "The Hanging Garden"
  2. "Killing an Arab" (live)

Double pack

Side A
  1. "The Hanging Garden"
  2. "One Hundred Years"
Side B – recorded April 27, 1982, at the Manchester Apollo
  1. "A Forest" (live)
  2. "Killing an Arab" (live)

Personnel

References
  1. Andi Harrima (2022-10-31). "The 50 Best Goth Songs of All Time". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2022-11-05.
  2. "Cure / Artist / Official Charts". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  3. Apter, Jeff (1 March 2006). Never Enough: The Story of the Cure. Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-1844498277.
  4. Apter, Jeff (1 March 2006). Never Enough: The Story of the Cure. Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-1844498277.
  5. "The Cure — Hanging Garden — video clip". Universal Music Group. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  6. "The Cure — Hanging Garden (1982)". IMVDb. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  7. "BBC — Radio 1 - Keeping It Peel — Festive 50s - 1982". BBC. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
  8. Mason, Stewart. The Hanging Garden at AllMusic. Retrieved 11 October 2014.
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