Top 25 Songs of 1987

From CoS:

04. The Cure - Just Like Heaven

With “Just Like Heaven”, The Cure became a band for everyone. Granted, the gothic overtones that had initially haunted Robert Smith and co. admittedly began to dissipate with their 1982 single “Let’s Go to Bed”, but “Just Like Heaven” was the crossover hit they desperately needed. For starters, the song works on every level — from the shower of synths to the ditzy piano notes to the surfing guitar line that sounds like Dick Dale on LSD — but really it’s all about the message. “You’re just like a dream,” Smith croons, connecting to every single person who has ever walked away from someone and thought, I might just die without them. Suddenly, everything that made The Cure so relatable to the “freaks” and “creeps” for all those years made sense to everyone else who either ignored them or looked in from outside. And has there ever been a better opening line? Good lord, the song really is just like a dream, one that you never want to leave, which is why it’s best heard again and again and again. That is, until you’re back to square one, which is why Smith went on to make Disintegration. –Michael Roffman