Although Smith wrote most of the lyrics for "Seventeen Seconds", many were also rewritten by the group during the recording of the album itself. Dempsey's replacement Simon Gallup described the collective writing process to "Sounds" in 1980: Lol Tolhurst later stated that he, Gallup and Smith all wrote lyrics for The Cure's early albums, and that the group dynamic only changed after their 1982 album "Pornography": Tolhurst claimed to have written the lyrics for "All Cats Are Grey" from the 1981 album "Faith", which he later re-recorded with his own project, Levinhurst. In contrast to Tolhurst's recollection of their songwriting as a group effort until after 'Pornography', in 1982 Smith claimed to have written "90 per cent of the 'Pornography' album", and that he therefore couldn't leave The Cure, because it wouldn't be The Cure without him.