Just like heaven

Okay, so I’m back again I think, or at least I think I want to be. I mean I still have so many of these pairs to do. Sorry if anyone was super into this thing, or you know, at least liked to use it to kill a few minutes here and there. I didn’t really mean to bail on it. That’s just kind of what happened.

So this time I’m going to compare the Cure’s Just like Heaven to Dinosaur Jr.’s cover.

Just like heaven was the third single on the Cure’s 1987 album Kiss me, Kiss me, Kiss me. It was their first American hit and reached number 40 on the Billboard charts. It was written by Cure frontman Robert Smith who considers it the Cure’s strongest song.

Dinosaur Jr. covered it in the late 80s. It was released in the UK in 1989 and, 1990 in the US. Apparently Robert Smith really digs this cover. He is quoted as saying, "J. Mascis [of Dinosaur Jr.] sent me a cassette, and it was so passionate. It was fantastic. I've never had such a visceral reaction to a cover version before or since." He was also quoted as saying that it "influenced how we play it live." Wow, that’s pretty good praise right? I first heard it on a special edition of the 1987 album You’re living all over me that included the single, but it did not originally appear as a track on the album.

The Cure:

Dinosaur Jr.:

This is a case where it had been a while since I had listened to either version. I really came into it not being sure who would come out the winner. It’s pretty close for me, but I’m going to have to agree with Smith and give this one to Dinosaur Jr. Yeah, it cuts off in kind of a weird, awkward way at the end, but its other aspects are just so good you kind of forgive it, and just wish that it had kept going. Either that, or you think something went wrong and listen to it again, or go online and look up if was supposed to cut off that way. Man, imagine all the people in 1989 or 1990 who didn’t have the internet and were just like, “what’s going on