Robert Smith has taken part in a 24-hour charity livestream, recording new versions of three songs from The Cure’s 1981 album ‘Faith’.

The online event raised many for Poverty Alleviation Charities’ Letters To Santa initiative, which fulfils the wishlists of families in need with food, clothes, computers and $10,000 (£7,414).

During the livestream, which was broadcast yesterday (December 22), Smith performed new versions of ‘The Holy Hour’, ‘The Funeral Party’ and ‘The Drowning Man’.

“Hello, this is Robert from The Cure,” he introduced his segment. “Very happy to be part of the Letters To Santa marathon and I’m going to play you three songs from our ‘Faith’ album, which is about to be 40 years old. I hope you enjoy this.” Watch Smith’s performance below now.

Among the other stars to take part in the 24-hour livestream were Mary Timony, Kim Gordon, Sleaford Mods, Bill Callahan, Jeff Tweedy and Bonnie “Prince” Billy.

At the time of writing, the stream has raised $20,733 (£15,372). You can donate to the cause here.

The Letters To Santa livestream is the second charity event Smith has taken part in so far this month. Previously, he appeared on the Nine Lessons And Carols For Curious People 24-hour charity livestream, playing three songs from The Cure’s ‘Seventeen Seconds’ album.

In September, the band’s frontman said he had spent much of 2020 “finishing off” a new album from the group as well as a solo record.

Smith made the comments during an appearance on BBC 6 Music to talk about ‘Strange Timez’, his collaboration with Gorillaz. That track was sent to him by Damon Albarn while Smith was “in the middle of finishing off the big song at the end of The Cure album”, which he described as “10 minutes of intense doom and gloom”.

Of how the pandemic had affected his work, the musician said: “Our whole idea for this year was really finishing off the album we started last year, me finishing off the solo album and also, finishing digitising decades of stuff in order to make this film with Tim Pope about the history of the band. So, it’s actually benefited me because there have been no other distractions, so I’ve actually got a lot of what I wanted to do, done.”