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The penultimate track on the Cure’s epic 1987 double album, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, is the closest the band get to their early post-punk sound. It’s a bitter and noisy rocker, sharply changing the mood from the slow previous track, “A Thousand Hours”.
Taken literally, “Shiver and Shake” appears to be a tirade directed at a current or past lover. However, the track is said to be directed towards the other band members' poor treatment of founding member and keyboard player Lol Tolhurst. Tolhurst, who around this time was struggling with excessive alcohol and drug abuse, was eventually fired from the band during the production of the band’s next album, Disintegration, and during this time the other members of the band would bully and ridicule him.
“I didn’t know who Tolhurst was any more and he didn’t know who he was either. I used to despair and scream at the others because it was fucking insane the way we were treating him.“
- Robert Smith, from the book, Never Enough: The Story of the Cure
Another interpretation is that it’s directed towards Tolhurst himself, for being unresponsive during studio sessions, although it wasn’t really until Disintegration that this became too much to handle.
Smith could also be directing this towards himself as a message of self-loathing. Perhaps it’s addressed to all of them: Smith, Tolhurst, Gallup, Williams and Thompson, with each line being directed towards a different party.
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