Staring at the Sea

The Cure : Killing an Arab (Peel Session)

[Purchase]

On December 4, 1978 The Cure recorded their first session for BBC1's John Peel show. The set, featuring "Killing an Arab", "Boys Don't Cry", "10:15 Saturday Night" and "Fire in Cairo", was released years later as an EP ( with a running time just barely over 12 minutes). Signed to Chris Parry's Fiction label, The Cure would release "Killing an Arab" as their first single on December 21. Fans say "Killing An Arab" is the most misunderstood song and one Robert Smith would spend the rest of his career defending--tThat it's actually a distillation of Albert Camus' The Stranger and not an irresponsibly racist song. Smith would say "It's not really racist. It's bot a call kill to kill Arabs".  The song features the lyrics "staring at the sea", which would be the title of one of their best selling singles compilations.

This is a month the band spent touring, opening for the likes of Wire and Generation X. 

In fact, the night before the Peel session, drummer Lol Tolhurst stumbled into a bathroom where Billy Idol was 'introducing himself" to a female fan.

He relates the "toilet incident" in his book Cured: The Tale of Two Imaginary Boys.

A guttural sound passed from my throat, which might have been recognized as ‘Hello, Billy’ were I in a more sober mood, but it just sounded like a low grunt after that much alcohol. 
The young lady looked somewhat startled by the fact that there was another musician in the vicinity of their love nest, so the ever chivalrous Mr Idol tried to calm her down with a valiant, ‘Don’t be nervous, love,’ or something to that effect, while she anxiously eyed the toilet door. 
Unfortunately, by this time I had reached the point of no return and a stream of urine shot outwards to the porcelain bowl next to Billy. Regrettably for me (as well as Billy and his date), my aim was not improved terribly with the consumption of so much cheap lager and, as I looked down towards where I assumed the urinal was, I realized that I was in fact urinating on Billy’s leg. Pissing on the Idol! 
He gave me one of his trademark sneers and I hastily zipped up and hightailed it out of there in a flurry of drunken apologies. On the drive home, as I sobered up, I had already perceived that this event might not be seen in the ‘jolly japes, all lads together’ kind of way one might hope. However, I thought, not unreasonably, that someone who was bathed in spittle every night wouldn’t find much wrong with a little urine on his strides as he was caught in flagrante delicto with a local lass. It might even be seen as ‘punk camaraderie’ of sorts. Right? How wrong I was on that count.