Hear The Cure’s 1990 “Cut” Demo From 30th Anniversary Wish Reissue

The Cure will soon release a 30th anniversary deluxe edition of 1992’s Wish, their most commercially successful album. (It’s the one that features “Friday I’m In Love,” and it arrived after a decade-plus of legacy-building within the “college rock” sphere, just as “alternative” rock was becoming a mainstream proposition.) The reissue includes 24 previously unreleased tracks, and one of them is out today.

“Cut,” according to Robert Smith, “was about a longstanding relationship I had that was suddenly and unexpectedly starting to fracture.” The version of the song that appeared on Wish is an intense six-minute epic. Today they’re sharing a 1990 demo version of “Cut” recorded at Farmyard Studios in the Cotswolds. It’s about half as long and not nearly as fast, though the core song still simmers with anguish. “You don’t care anymore,” Smith laments. “It’s all gone.”

Listen below.

The Wish reissue is out 11/25.