Week Seventy-Four: The Cure - "A Letter to Elise" - Wish

Surely you must have been thinking to yourself all week: "Where are the books?!?!? She's got to have books on The Cure!!!" Of course I have books on The Cure. What respectable Dark Wave/New Wave-loving former literature teacher would be caught dead without books on The Cure?!?!?  Ummmmmm, not this one!!!! :-D

What I actually possess are two different books of their lyrics. It's so easy to locate most of their lyrics online; so what I am going to share with you instead are some of the super-rare photos. I will include the cover of each book and then the corresponding photos from that particular book:

Book One

Book Two

I selected "A Letter to Elise" to close out this week because I am fairly convinced that I am one of the only individuals on this planet who sincerely misses the art of letter writing...damn you, email!!!

Growing up, I always had a penpal. My very first penpal just so happened to share my name, and she lived in Omaha, Nebraska. My elementary school somehow managed to connect with her elementary school, and she and I remained penpals from the time I was in the 4th grade until the time I was in the 7th grade. My second penpal was named Lucy, and she lived in England. One of the music magazines to which I subscribed had a section for penpals. I submitted a request and was sent Lucy's information. Lucy and I were penpals from the time I was in the 8th grade until about my junior year in high school.

Just recently, I had the pleasure of exchanging written letters with my mother's cousin who lived in South Carolina and who was dying of cancer. She passed away last Easter, and I so dearly miss both her and the five-page minimum letters she would write to me on pink legal paper.

Oh well, maybe I'll eventually find someone else who will write letters to me... letters like the one Robert wrote to Elise. ;-)

I'll include another favorite that I listen to when I need to lift my spirits called "Doing the Unstuck"...

Oh Elise it doesn't matter what you say

I just can't stay here every yesterday

Like keep on acting out the same

The way we act out

Every way to smile

Forget

And make-believe we never needed

Any more than this

Any more than this

Oh Elise it doesn't matter what you do

I know I'll never really get inside of you

To make your eyes catch fire

The way they should

The way the blue could pull me in

If they only would

If they only would

At least I'd lose this sense of sensing something else

That hides away

From me and you

There're worlds to part

With aching looks and breaking hearts

And all the prayers your hands you make

Oh I just take as much as you can throw

And then throw it all away

Oh I throw it all away

Like throwing faces at the sky

Like throwing arms round

Yesterday

I stood and stared

Wide-eyed in front of you

And the face I saw looked back

The way I wanted to

But I just can't hold my tears away

The way you do

Elise believe I never wanted this

I thought this time I'd keep all of my promises

I thought you were the girl I always dreamed about

But I let the dream go

And the promises broke

And the make-believe ran out...

So Elise

It doesn't matter what you say

I just can't stay here every yesterday

Like keep on acting out the same

The way we act out

Every way to smile

Forget

And make-believe we never needed

Any more than this

Any more than this

And every time I try to pick it up

Like falling sand

As fast as I pick it up

It runs away through my clutching hands

But there's nothing else I can really do

There's nothing else I can really do

There's nothing else

I can really do

At all...