About The Song
“Just Like Heaven” is a song by British alternative rock band the Cure. The group wrote most of the song during recording sessions in southern France in 1987. The lyrics were written by their frontman Robert Smith, who drew inspiration from a past trip to the sea shore with his future wife. Smith’s memories of the trip formed the basis for the song’s accompanying music video. Before Smith had completed the lyrics, an instrumental version of the song was used as the theme for the French television show Les Enfants du Rock.
“Just Like Heaven” was the third single released from their 1987 album Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. The song became the Cure’s first American hit and reached number 40 on the Billboard charts in 1988. It has been praised by critics and covered by artists such as Dinosaur Jr. and Katie Melua. Smith has said he considers “Just Like Heaven” to be one of the band’s strongest songs.
In order to develop material for Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Smith forced himself to write music for 15 days of each month. During this regimen, he developed the chords and melody which form the basis of “Just Like Heaven”. Structurally, Smith found what he had written was similar to the Only Ones’s 1979 hit “Another Girl, Another Planet”. When he brought an instrumental demo of the song to the album recording sessions in Southern France, Cure drummer Boris Williams increased the tempo and added an opening drum fill which inspired Smith to introduce each instrument singularly and in sequence.
When the French TV show Les Enfants du Rock asked the Cure to provide a theme song, Smith offered the instrumental version. As he explained, “It meant the music would be familiar to millions of Europeans even before it was released”. He completed the lyrics when the group moved the sessions to Studio Miraval, located in Le Val, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur. The band completed the song quickly, and at the time Smith considered it to be the most obvious potential single from the songs the band had recorded during their two-week stay at Miraval.
Video
Lyrics
Show me, show me, show me, how you do that trick
The one that makes me scream, she said
The one that makes me laugh, she said
Threw her arms around my neck
Show me how you do it, and I promise you
I promise that I’ll run away with you
I’ll run away with you
Spinning on that dizzy edge
I kissed her face and kissed her head
Dreamed of all the different ways
I had to make her glow
Why are you so far away?, she said
Why won’t you ever know that I’m in love with you?
That I’m in love with you?
You
Soft and only
You
Lost and lonely
You
Strange as angels
Dancing in the deepest oceans
Twisting in the water
You’re just like a dream
Just like a dream
Daylight licked me into shape
I must have been asleep for days
And moving lips to breathe her name
I opened up my eyes
And found myself alone
Alone
Alone above a raging sea
That stole the only girl I loved
And drowned her deep inside of me
You
Soft and only
You
Lost and lonely
You
Just like heaven