Killing an Arab

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"Killing an Arab"

Single by The Cure
from the album Boys Don't Cry
Released	December 1978 (UK) February 1979 (UK reissue)
Format	7" single
Recorded	1978
Genre	Post-punk
Length	2:21
Label	Small Wonder (1978) SMALL1 Fiction Records (1979) FICS001
Producer(s)	Chris Parry
The Cure singles chronology
	"Killing an Arab" (1978)	"Boys Don't Cry" (1979)

"Killing an Arab" was the first single by The Cure. It was recorded at the same time as their UK debut LP Three Imaginary Boys (1979) but not included on the album; however it was later released on the band's US debut Boys Don't Cry (1980).

[edit] History

Composer Robert Smith has said that the song "was a short poetic attempt at condensing my impression of the key moments in L'Étranger (The foreigner') by Albert Camus" (Cure News number 11, October 1991). The lyrics describe a shooting on a beach, in which the Arab of the title is killed by the song's narrator; in Camus' story the main character, Meursault, shoots an Arab standing on a beach after staring out at the sea and overwhelmingly blinded by the sun, reflected on the sea, the sand and the knife the Arab was holding.

The track has a history of controversy, since it has often been viewed as promoting violence against Arabs. In the US, The Cure's first compilation of singles, Standing on a Beach (1986), was packaged with a sticker advising against racist usage of the song). It saw controversy again during the Persian Gulf War and following September 11th [1]. "Killing an Arab" was the only single from the Three Imaginary Boys era not to be included on that album's remaster (2004) or Greatest Hits (2001).

The song was revived in 2005, when the band performed the song at several European festivals. The lyrics, however, were changed from "Killing an Arab" to "Kissing an Arab." When performed at their Royal Albert Hall show on April 1, 2006, the lyrics were changed to "Killing Another." Smith also sang a whole new opening verse for the song.

This song lends two of its lines to the titles of one of The Cure's compilation albums, Standing on a Beach, and to its CD/video counterpart Staring at the Sea.

"Killing an Arab" was covered in 2003 by Sydney rockers Turpentine as a protest against the American invasion of Iraq.

It was also covered by Frodus on the 1995 Radiopaque compilation Give Me The Cure, and in 2004 by Henry Smithson known as DJ Riton.