"The Walk" is a song by English rock band

The Cure The Cure are an English Rock music, rock band formed in 1978 in Crawley, Crawley, West Sussex. Throughout numerous lineup changes since the band's formation, guitarist, lead vocalist, and songwriter Robert Smith (musician), Robert Smith has re ...

, released as a stand-alone single in July 1983. It later appeared on the compilation album ''

Japanese Whispers ''Japanese Whispers'' is the second compilation album by British group The Cure. It was released in late 1983 by Fiction Records. It includes the singles "Let's Go to Bed", "The Walk" and "The Lovecats". The other tracks are the B-sides of thes ...

''. It was recorded when the band was briefly reduced to the two founding members Robert Smith and

Lol Tolhurst Laurence Andrew "Lol" Tolhurst (born 3 February 1959) is a founding member and the former drummer and keyboardist of English band The Cure - he left the Cure in 1989 and was later involved in the band Presence and his current project, Levinhurs ...

following the departure of bassist

Simon Gallup Simon Jonathon Gallup (born 1 June 1960) is an English musician and bassist with the alternative rock band The Cure. He is the second longest-serving member of the band after lead vocalist/guitarist Robert Smith. Early years Born in Duxhurst ...

following the end of the band's previous tour in support of the album Pornography Pornography (often shortened to porn or porno) is the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal. Primarily intended for adults,
. in May 1982. According to Lol Tolhurst, they chose producer

Steve Nye Steve Nye is an English music producer for several artists. Career Nye started out as a tape op at AIR Studios in London in 1971, where producer Rupert Hine discovered him. There he got into engineering (and later producing) many well-known a ...

at the time due to his work on the album ''Tin Drum'' by

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. Tolhurst later commented: "It was the first time we had worked with a 'proper' producer, as opposed to doing production with an engineer that we really liked. ��He was able to make electronic instruments sound more natural, and that's what we wanted."

Content

One of the three B-sides to the single is "Lament", which is a re-recording of a promo single released in late 1982 for the ''Flexipop'' magazine. Unlike the earlier version, which was garbled and experimental, the lyrics are understandable and the music has a different composition.

Release

Released as a single in July 1983, "The Walk" was something of a commercial breakthrough for the group with regard to their singles output, peaking at number 12 and giving them their first entry into the

UK top 20 The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

. It was also the first of their 17 consecutive Irish top 20 hits between 1983 and 1992. The Cure recorded a completely new version of "The Walk" for their

remix album A remix album is an album consisting of remixes or rerecorded versions of an artist's earlier released material. The first act who employed the format was American singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson (''Aerial Pandemonium Ballet'', 1971). As of 2007 ...

'' Mixed Up'', as the original master tapes could not be located. They later recorded an acoustic version for their ''

Greatest Hits A greatest hits album or best-of album is a type of compilation album that collects popular and commercially successful songs by a particular artist or band. While greatest hits albums are typically supported by the artist, they can also be crea ...

compilation.

Track listing

7" # "The Walk" # "The Dream" 12" # "The Upstairs Room” # "The Dream" # "The Walk" # "Lament" US mini-LP # "The Upstairs Room" # "Just One Kiss" # "The Dream" # "The Walk" # "Lament" # "Let's Go to Bed (Extended Version)" (only available on some later European releases)

Personnel

* Robert Smith – vocals, guitar, OB-8 *

– Oberheim DMX, DSX, OB-8

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Walk, The The Cure songs 1983 singles Songs written by Robert Smith (musician) 1983 songs Fiction Records singles Songs written by Lol Tolhurst