Album: Disintegration (1989)

Charted: 24 71

License This Song 

• I've been looking so long at these pictures of you
  That I almost believe that they're real
  I've been living so long with my pictures of you
  That I almost believe that the pictures are all I can feel
  
  Remembering you standing quiet in the rain
  As I ran to your heart to be near
  And we kissed as the sky fell in, holding you close
  How I always held close in your fear
  Remembering you running soft through the night
  You were bigger and brighter and whiter than snow
  You screamed at the make-believe, screamed at the sky
  And you finally found all your courage to let it all go
  
  Remembering you, fallen into my arms
  Crying for the death of your heart
  You were stone white, so delicate
  Lost in the cold
  You were always so lost in the dark
  Remembering you how you used to be
  Slow drowned, you were angels
  So much more than everything
  Hold for the last time then slip away quietly
  Open my eyes, but I never see anything
  
  If only I'd thought of the right words
  I could have held on to your heart
  If only I'd thought of the right words
  I wouldn't be breaking apart all my pictures of you
  
  Looking so long at these pictures of you
  I never hold on to your heart
  Looking so long for the words to be true
  But always just breaking apart
  My pictures of you
  
  There was nothing in the world that I ever wanted more
  Than to feel you deep in my heart
  There was nothing in the world that I ever wanted more
  Than to never feel the breaking apart
  My pictures of you Writer/s: Boris Williams, Laurence Andrew Tolhurst, Porl Thompson, Robert James Smith, Roger O'Donnell, Simon Gallup
  Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
  Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 29

• Mh from Rhondda, WalesThis is my song at the moment. My daughter suddenly dropped all contact and for seemingly no reason. I miss her dreadfully but really I miss her as a child growing up, when we had her. In reality she is no longer that same person
  
  Someone said on a YT comment that The Cure's music has the ability to make you feel sad and depressed at the same time. That's really true.
  
  While RS thinks he "sold out", he didn't. He actually held on to everyone that ever liked his music.
• Arthur George. from From UgandaI love this song, it takes me back to the time my girlfriend took my children away for what seemed like forever and all i had were pictures of them as babies. It was such a bad time in my life, i hated and loved the song for it spoke to me and had my words and drowned me in sorrow, i couldn't get enough of this song that was killing me. i made videos with the pictures i had and added this song, its the best thing i ever made. Afters years i got used to the sorrow, it kept me company and we became friends. 7years without seeing my children i later got them, we still listen to this song, they know i love it, however sad it is. And when am away from them it keeps me sane. Its gonna be my life's soundtrack. Peace n love y'all'
• Demontoker from EnglandA very I first heard the cure in 1985, the album was called 17 seconds, they're music appealed to instantly, I've just listening to they're music again and it's even better than I remembered, they're live performances are just as good as the recorded material.
  Favourite tracks are a picture of you and cut here.
  Absolutely brilliant
• Darcee Lysaka from CanadaI love this whole album and this song in particular. I lost my partner suddendly 2.5 yrs ago and the pain and sadness is overwhelming at times. I have pictures of us and Josh everywhere. The song is comforting and sad at the same time. I only came across this album when Josh's buddy left it at his grave.
• Melissamary from Germany This song is so penetratingly and beautifully melancholic. It gives you an immense sense of freeness, joy like you are a bird gliding high above humanity but at the same time you plummet and are tearing up inside missing someone so painfully that you have intensely loved. This longing for what was - a place or person in time that you will never be able to return to or to have again. A lost someone - a shadow of yourself - floating in space for eternity. A yearning so tragic but wider than that- maybe even like the moment of death. What a genius you are to have captured a complex feeling in music and lyrics. I bow in gratitude.
• Me from UsaWhere was the video filmed. I've always wanted to know. e-mail me at smartchick at gmx dot com if you know. thx
• Kimberly Kisinger from Pasadena Texas This song to me is very sad. I identify with it because my daughter's were removed from my life 12 years ago. I've not seen them in so long, and all I have are pictures and memories of them. And I've looked at the pictures for so long that they are my children in a sense. They are what I talk to, what I kiss, what I hug... I almost believe that they are real...
• Jack from SdThe riff is so catchy, the melody
• Steff from VaThis song to me is about letting the grief and pain out before you can ever move on from someone who meant the world to you. Never really wanting to move on but knowing deep down....it’s time. Wanting to trade every minute of the present for mere seconds of the past.
• Allison from NcReminds me of someone who broke my heart many years ago . . .
• Jerry from Los Angeles, CaI was going through my separation and divorce a couple years ago. Where Robert Smith sings "If only I thought of the right words,..." That part was so true for both of us at the time. To me its that part that are so true. Every time I hear that I am taken back and remember and regret some things.
• Grayson from Cleveland, Ohthis whole album flows so well. the first three songs are amazing when played together...
• Andy from Lake City, Flthe fire theory falls flat because robert is obsessing over "these" pictures. i believe maybe this could be about a close friend that overdosed. hear me out..."the sky fell in" "screamed at the make-believe" "you were stone white" "lost in the dark" robert could even be referring to himself...his own early romance with a drug that doesn't make him feel the same way now. but cure fans tend to get very angry at this kind of interpretation, just as seal's fans do.
• Matt from Anderson, ScI love this song. I spent 20+ years in the military and much of that time away from my beautiful wife. This song automatically runs many memories of her through my mind everytime I hear it. I'm away again and listening to this song puts a huge lump in my throat.
• Jan from Antwerp, --This is one of those rare songs that made me cry the very first time I heard it and up untill today, it still does sometimes.
  This is the song that turned me from a Cure-liker into a Cure fan.
  I especially like their nostalgic sounding songs like this one and Charlotte Sometimes, etc.
• Lllgfkf from Boston, Mauritiusthis song is about his house burning down and him going through and finding his pictures burned
• Jose from Brisbane, --Beautiful song, beautiful voice and a great band.
• Krysta from Yuma, MdI love The cure :]
  especially this Songg.
  it makes me Rememberr
  The Lostt Ones <3
  
  the Cure is the bestest.<3
• Annie from New York, NyIt makes me cry every time for the brother i lost to suicide, for the daughter i lost in late pregnancy, and the man i love who i still have pictures of. This song lets me cry it out, when i need to. It touches me so much
  Annie, NY
• Edal from Baltimore, MdFirst of all very cool website. I hope that I will remember it. This song is haunting. Its a direct memory conduit. I don't know whether its the powerful instrumentals, Robert's tone, or the lyrics themselves, but this song is powerful. I was 17. I had a few beers, I was trying to go to sleep, I was thinking of my girlfriend, with whom I was obsessed at the time. I fell asleep, but I still remember this song digging its way into my history. Wow!
• Connie from Palatine, IlMy son recently died as a result of suicide. In his memory, I created a Powerpoint presentation showing pictures of his life and played "Pictures of You" at his memorial service. The song means something different to everyone - sign of a great song writer that can make the lyrics obscure enough that each person finds their own experience in the words. Now I only have pictures and memories of my son, so this song is very poignant to me.
• Ali from Wine, CaThis song...is the only thing i know of that makes a friend of mine cry. Id actually laugh if sometime she read this, because shes the one who showed me this website.... anyway, i always find it funny, some of robert's songs, because he always writes from expiriences, or certain things...and the song ends up being changd and turns out to sound like a pretty much completly normal love/breakup song. So that when you actually find out what the songs are about, youre just...amazed.
  i think that this song, with the first verses and certain parts, could be about just...looking at pictures and remembering certain things about your "lover" hee hee, and things like that. but...as it says in my favorite part, "If only I'd thought of the right words
  I could have held on to your heart
  If only I'd thought of the right words
  I wouldn't be breaking apart
  All my pictures of you" its saying that he obviously lost the person he loved. he couldve fixed it...maybe if hed tried harder...but didnt. kind of like in Cut Here, which i totally love for that sad factor in an up-beat song.
• Weird-freak from Antwerp, BelgiumI heard this song was based on the experience of walking into a burned down house( don't know for sure if it was his house) and to find half burned pictures he realy liked.
• John from Seattle, WaNo disrepect to Joe from Ulaanbaatar, but "Pictures of You" also was used in an HP printer commercial about a year before "Picture Book" by the Kinks.
• Alberto from Carpi, ItalyAn amazing song that reminds me a certain person... a distant person of which I have only some pictures left, and few other things. For this reason I'm so attached to it. Verses like the first two seem to be written for this story.
• Joe from Ulaanbaatar, OtherJust to clarifiy Picturebook by the Kinks was used in the HP Commercial
• Florencia from Buenos Aires, Argentinawell, first of all, I want to excuse my english, I'm from argentina and I'm very young.
  I read somewhere in the net a coment from Robert that said that it was a song that he wrote after being in a fire in a pub. When he arrived to his home he took the first pictures that he took with his wife and then...he wrote this song, for her, in someway. Of course then he add some poetic things, like "the girl who left'him'"(obviously, because mary never left him ^^).
• Minael from Quincy, Main this song i feel like the person is torn between keeping the pictures and forgetting them, finding what lead him to this point and how these pictures have been reminders of what has become...if he had only found the right things to say he could have found closure or even have kept the relationship going, this song is one of my first favorite songs in my interest in songs
• Suzi from Charleston , Scbeautiful instrumentation

More Songfacts:

HelloAdele

Adele's "Hello" was the first song to sell over a million downloads in a week.

Time In A BottleJim Croce

Jim Croce was killed in a plane crash on September 30, 1973. A few weeks later, his song "Time In A Bottle" hit #1.

Ants MarchingDave Matthews Band

The definitive Dave Matthews Band song, "Ants Marching" is a look at monotony, something they avoid by improvising at concerts and mixing up their setlists.

China GroveThe Doobie Brothers

There really is a China Grove (in Texas), but Tom Johnston didn't know about it when he wrote the Doobie Brothers song.

I Love ItIcona Pop

Icona Pop consider "I Love It" a kiss-off to their boyfriends. "We just wanted to get the song out and get the pigs to hear it," group member Jawo said.

(Don't Fear) The ReaperBlue Öyster Cult

Buck Dharma of Blue Oyster Cult wrote "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" after he was diagnosed with a heart condition and started thinking about his own mortality.

Editor's Picks

David Bowie Leads the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Long-Haired MenSong Writing

Bowie's "activist" days of 1964 led to Ziggy Stardust.

Harry Wayne Casey of KC and The Sunshine BandSongwriter Interviews

Harry Wayne Casey tells the stories behind KC and The Sunshine Band hits like "Get Down Tonight," "That's The Way (I Like It)," and "Give It Up."

Don DokkenSongwriter Interviews

Dokken frontman Don Dokken explains what broke up the band at the height of their success in the late '80s, and talks about the botched surgery that paralyzed his right arm.

Modern A Cappella with Peder Karlsson of The Real GroupSong Writing

The leader of the Modern A Cappella movement talks about the genre.

Steven Tyler of AerosmithSongwriter Interviews

Tyler talks about his true love: songwriting. How he identifies the beauty in a melody and turns sorrow into art.

Joan ArmatradingSongwriter Interviews

The revered singer-songwriter talks inspiration and explains why she put a mahout in "Drop the Pilot."