A Letter to Elise
A Letter to Elise is a song by the English rock band the Cure. It was released on October 5, 1992, as the third and final single from their ninth album, Wish. The track lasts 5 minutes and 12 seconds and was released by Fiction Records. It was written by Robert Smith, Porl Thompson, Simon Gallup, Perry Bamonte, and Boris Williams, and produced by David Allen and the Cure. The B-side is "The Big Hand"; in 1993 it was decided not to release it as an A-side, with Boris Williams preferring it as a B-side. The song is in the alternative rock style.
In 2010, Pitchfork ranked it number 184 on their list of The Top 200 Tracks of the 1990s. The song was first performed on MTV’s Cure “Unplugged” in 1991, though the early version had different lyrics. Robert Smith has said that Kafka’s Letters to Felice influenced the lyrics.
The B-side, "The Big Hand," has been played live only rarely. It was first performed in 1991, then a few times during the Wish Tour in 1992, revived at Ultra Music Festival in 2007, and occasionally during the band’s 4Tour in 2007–08. A promo version includes a longer unreleased mix with a phaser on Smith’s voice, and there is also an instrumental version on cassette.
"A Letter to Elise" was revived in 2005 after a long period of sparing performances. It has been covered by Aaron Sprinkle for his Really Something EP, Blink-182 for MTV Icon (2004) honoring the Cure, and Sense Field for their 2003 album Living Outside.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 02:47 (CET).