Songfacts®:

• In an interview with Select magazine, Cure vocalist and primary songwriter Robert Smith said: "I was thinking of Bourbon Street in New Orleans when I wrote it - I was getting ready to go there and I thought: what the f--k do I think I'm going to find? It's about the incredulity that I could still be fooled into looking for a perfect moment."
  
  In the early 20th century, Bourbon street was famous for its popular restaurants and for being a major location of the emerging jazz scene. It is now widely known for its bars and strip clubs.
• "Fascination Street" is a fan favorite, but it was released as a single only in the United States.
• This was featured on the soundtrack to the 1989 movie Lost Angels. Adam Horovitz from the Beastie Boys was in the film. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Richard - Alva, OK
• This is one of the most structurally peculiar of The Cure's songs, notable for long instrumental sections, broken up by a single verse and two choruses. The instrumental intro is 1:20; on an extended mix of the song the intro is 4 minutes long.
  
  While recording the Disintegration album, Robert Smith created a strange restriction: He wouldn't speak during the sessions. To communicate, he passed notes to his bandmates, sometimes when they were in the middle of playing. He was trying to foster a kind of nonverbal communication.
• The track reached #1 on the Billboard's newly created Modern Rock Tracks chart.
• Founding member Lol Tolhurst received a credit on this track (and the rest of the album) for playing "other instruments." He was suffering from severe alcohol problems during the recording session, and his bandmates have revealed that despite the credit he in fact did not play on the album at all. The band subsequently gave Smith an ultimatum to fire Tolhurst or they would quit. Tolhurst was fired in 1989, but rejoined the band in 2011.
• The Seattle grunge band Temple Of The Dog performed this as part of an extended encore during their 25th anniversary concerts in 2016.
• Although the music video's circulation on MTV helped boost interest in the single, Robert Smith thought it missed the mark. It was shot by The Cure's frequent director Tim Pope and features plenty of close-ups of the band performing on a dark street.
  
  Smith told Select Magazine the clip was "awful." He elaborated: "The original idea was a Doctor Who video, that's why there's a phone box and a clock, with rooms within rooms, done very tackily. But it was done on a low budget. Normally Elektra and Polydor both give us money, but this was only for America, so only Elektra did. The fantasy got lost."