For a discography as long and deep as The Cure’s, there’s surely going to be some missed gems but I’m quite surprised I’d never heard their 2001 single, “Cut Here” before it showed up in my algorithm recently. Okay, maybe not that shocking – I can’t say that I was paying much attention to The Cure in 2001.

Having rung in the new century with 2000’s Bloodflowers, the band followed up with the Greatest Hits. It seemed a bit redundant, considering their Galore compilation had just come out a few years earlier in 1997, but one could argue that that was a companion to their 1986 Standing On A Beach collection and collectively covered the band’s first 20 years. Hits, on the other hand was a single jewel case (albeit double disc) career-spanning dopamine hit and oh yeah, it was a contractual obligation for the band to close out their career with Fiction records.

To make it interesting for the band and fans who already owned all the material, Robert Smith was allowed to choose all the songs that would appear and the release came with a companion album of acoustic versions of all 18 songs. And, as was the custom at the time, the compilation included two new songs which were released as singles. “Just Say Yes”, which featured Saffron from Republica, was pretty forgettable but the other – “Cut Here” – offered pretty much everything I would want from a Cure single.

Written in tribute to the late Billy MacKenzie of The Associates, it’s got all the hallmarks of a Cure classic – upbeat music built on rich synths and melodic basslines, narratively rich downbeat lyrics and hooks aplenty. Considering it came in an era when the band’s albums weren’t yielding any radio-friendly singles, it’s a standout track but perhaps with the general antipathy for that era of the band, it was destined to be lost. It didn’t even make the Connect The Dots B-side box set in 2004, perhaps because it was technically an A-side.

In any case, it came with a video because these were the days when television airtime was still a necessity. It also got a handful of live airings at the time of release, and was most recently unearthed for their 2014 appearance at Colorado’s Riot Fest.