What literature has inspired Robert's songwriting?

Born near the Liverpool docks, Patten attended Sefton Park School in the Smithdown Road area of Liverpool, where he was noted for his essays and greatly encouraged in his work by Harry Sutcliffe, his form teacher.

Patten's style is generally lyrical and his subjects are primarily love and relationships. His 1981 collection Love Poems draws together his best work in this area from the previous sixteen years. Tribunehas described Patten as "the master poet of his genre, taking on the intricacies of love and beauty with a totally new approach, new for him and for contemporary poetry." 

One of the most emblematic songs of The Cure 's Disintegration , this song is inspired by the poem by writer Brian Patten who in his writings uses the lyrical genre.

 

Party Piece 

He said:

'Let's stay here

Now this place has emptied

And make gentle pornography with one another,

While the partygoers go out

And the dawn creeps in,

Like a stranger.

Let us not hesitate

Over what we know

Or over how cold this place has become,

But let's unclip our minds

And let tumble free

The mad, mangled crocodile of love.'

So they did,

There among the woodbines and guinness stains,

And later he caught a bus and she a train

And all there was between them then

was rain. 

Disintegration 

Oh, I miss the kiss of treachery
The shameless kiss of vanity
The soft and the black and the velvety
Up tight against the side of me

And mouth and eyes and heart all bleed
And run in thickening streams of greed
As bit by bit it starts the need
To just let go my party piece

I miss the kiss of treachery
The aching kiss before I feed
The stench of a love for a younger meat
And the sound that it makes when it cuts in deep
The holding up on bended knees
The addiction of duplicities

As bit by bit it starts the need
To just let go my party piece

But I never said I would stay to the end
So I leave you with babies and hoping for frequency
Screaming like this in the hope of the secrecy
Screaming me over and over and over
I leave you with photographs, pictures of trickery
Stains on the carpet and stains on the scenery
Songs about happiness murmured in dreams
When we both of us knew how the ending would be

So it's all come back round to breaking apart again
Breaking apart like I'm made up of glass again
Making it up behind my back again
Holding my breath for the fear of sleep again
Holding it up behind my head again
Cut in deep to the heart of the bone again
Round and round and round and it's coming apart again

Over and over and over

And now that I know that I'm breaking to pieces
I'll pull out my heart and I'll feed it to anyone
I'm crying for sympathy, crocodiles cry
For the love of the crowd
And the three cheers from everyone
Dropping through sky
Through the glass of the roof
Through the roof of your mouth
Through the mouth of your eye
Through the eye of the needle
It's easier for me to get closer to Heaven
Than ever feel whole again

But I never said I would stay to the end
I knew I would leave you and fame isn't everything
Screaming like this in the hope of sincerity
Screaming it's over and over and over
I leave you with photographs, pictures of trickery
Stains on the carpet and stains on the memory
Songs about happiness murmured in dreams
When we both of us knew how the end always is

How the end always is

How the end always is

How the end always is

How the end always is

How the end always is