Back in the mid-80’s when the Cure could seemingly do no wrong, they released the song Lullaby. It’s a lovely, sinister tune that fit perfectly into Robert Smith’s oeuvre.
The meaning of the song is open to several different interpretations: some suggest that it’s about drug addiction, other suggest that it’s based on Mary Howitt’s classic poem The Spider and the Fly. I personally always thought it was about child molestation. However, it’s creepy no matter how you slice it.
There’s some information about the facts about the song at Wikipedia, as well as arguments and interpretations at SongFacts and SongMeanings
And of course, the lyrics:
on candystripe legs the spiderman comes
softly through the shadow of the evening sun
stealing past the windows of the blissfully dead
looking for the victim shivering in bed
searching out fear in the gathering gloom and
suddenly!
a movement in the corner of the room!
and there is nothing i can do
when i realize with fright
that the spiderman is having me for dinner tonight!
quietly he laughs and shaking his head
creeps closer now
closer to the foot of the bed
and softer than shadow and quicker than flies
his arms are all around me and his tongue in my eyes
“be still be calm be quiet now my precious boy
don’t struggle like that or i will only love you more
for it’s much too late to get away or turn on the light
the spiderman is having you for dinner tonight”
and i feel like i’m being eaten
by a thousand million shivering furry holes
and i know that in the morning i will wake up
in the shivering cold
and the spiderman is always hungry…
“Come into my parlour”, said the spider to the fly… “I have something here for you”
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