Nick Cave/Bad Seeds

[joethfc]

Despite knowing of his work for a while I'm finally starting to get into his work after seeing him on a Leonard Cohen docu and playing at glasto on tv

I like the slow paced wordy songs which will often have a brief refrain much in the style of Leonard Cohen mixed with some intriquite backing

[Henry P]

Nick Cave is very good indeed. I like Into my Arms the best, but others are great as well, like Mercy Seat. Very powerful , tuneful, thought-provoking and very grown-up.

[BenJohnson]

I have yet to find a Nick Cave song I didn't like, even the duet with Kylie was great.

[joethfc]

i think some music requires a level of maturity and thats probably why i took no notice when i first saw him on jools holland at the age of 12 i think; at that time i had a more aesthetic relationship with music and i was into stuff like queen and led zep; when i hit teens i got into the moody innovative stuff

getting back on topic, some of the stuff i like from the tip of the iceberg ive heard is red right hand, nobody's baby now, hallelujah (another great song with that titlle)

also from watching interviews i can relate to many of his songwriting frustrations

[BenJohnson]

I was lucky in that my brother-in-law was a big Nick Cave fan, I hadn't heard of him before that and found I enjoyed his mixture of biblical references, gloom and distinctive singing style.

[joethfc]

On the first day of May I took to the road
I'd been staring out the window most of the morning
I'd watched the rain claw at the glass
And a vicious wind blew hard and fast
I should have taken it as a warning
As a warning As a warning
As a warning

I'd given my nurse the weekend off
My meals were ill prepared
My typewriter had turned mute as a tomb
And my piano crouched in the corner of my room
With all its teeth bared
All its teeth bared All its teeth bared
All its teeth bared.

Hallelujah Hallelujah
Hallelujah Hallelujah

I left my house without my coat
Something my nurse would not have allowed
And I took the small roads out of town
And I passed a cow and the cow was brown
And my pyjamas clung to me like a shroud
Like a shroud Like a shroud
Like a shroud

There rose before me a little house
With all hope and dreams kept within
A woman's voice close to my ear
Said, "Why don't you come in here?"
"You looked soaked to the skin"
Soaked to the skin Soaked to the skin
Soaked to the skin

Hallelujah Hallelujah
Hallelujah Hallelujah

I turned to the woman and the woman was young
I extended a hearty salutation
But I knew if my nurse had been here
She would never in a thousand years
Permit me to accept that invitation
Invitation That invitation
That invitation

Now, you might think it wise to risk it all
Throw caution to the reckless wind
But with her hot cocoa and her medication
My nurse had been my one salvation
So I turned back home
I turned back home I turned back home
Singing my song

Hallelujah
The tears are welling in my eyes again
Hallelujah
I need twenty big buckets to catch them in
Hallelujah
And twenty pretty girls to carry
them down
Hallelujah
And twenty deep holes to bury them in

[sadpoems]

nick cave is cool he has lots of sad poems. but i dont like his new albums it`s just doesnt sounds like his early work. it`s too noisey for me. i love the quiet darkness more

[joethfc]

nick cave is cool he has lots of sad poems. but i dont like his new albums it`s just doesnt sounds like his early work. it`s too noisey for me. i love the quiet darkness more

wasnt he noisy quiet then noisey again though? i do prefer the mellower stuff or the stuff in between like "let love in"

[joethfc]

how's this for a word-fest, i love this song; i think it could be about the question of free will in general

I am tall and I am thin
Of an enviable height
And I've been known to be quite handsome
From a certain angle and a certain light

Well I entered into O'Malley's
Said, "O'Malley I have a thirst"
O'Malley merely smiled at me
said "You wouldn't be the first"

I knocked on the bar and pointed
To a bottle on the shelf
And as O'Malley poured me out a drink
I sniffed and crossed myself

My hand decided that the time was nigh
And for a moment it slipped from view
And when it returned, it fairly burned
With confidence anew

Well the thunder from my steely fist
Made all the glasses jangle
When I shot him, I was so handsome
It was the light, it was the angle

Huh! Hmmmmm

"Neighbours!" I cried, "Friends!" I screamed
I banged my fist upon the bar
"I bear no grudge against you!"
And my dick felt long and hard
"I am the man for which no God waits
And for which the whole world yearns
I'm marked by darkness and by blood
And one thousand powder-burns"

Well, you know those fish with swollen lips
That clean the ocean floor?
When I looked at poor O'Malley's wife
That is exactly what I saw

I jammed the barrel under her chin
And her face looked raw and vicious
Her head it landed in the sink
With all the dirty dishes

Her little daughter Siobhan
Pulled beers from dusk till dawn
And amongst the townfolk, she was a bit of a joke
But she pulled the best beers in town

I swooped magnificent upon her
As she sat shivering in her grief
Like the Madonna painted on the church-house wall
In whale's blood and banana leaf

Her throat it crumbled in my fist
And I spun heroically around
To see Caffrey rising from his seat
I shot that motherfucker down

Mmmmmmmmm Yeah Yeah Yeah

"I have no free will," I sang
As I flew about the murder
Mrs. Richard Holmes, she screamed
You really should have heard her
I sang and I laughed, I howled and I wept
I panted like a pup
I blew a hole in Mrs. Richard Holmes
And her husband he stood up

And he screamed, "You are an evil man"
And I paused a while to wonder
"If I have no free will then how could I
Be morally culpable, I wonder"

I shot Richard Holmes in the stomach
And gingerly he sat down
And he whispered weirdly, "No offense"
And lay upon the ground

"None taken," I replied to him
With which he gave a little cough
With blazing wings I neatly aimed
And blew his head completely off

I've lived in this town for thirty years
And to no-one I am a stranger
And I put new bullets in my gun
Chamber upon chamber

And when I turned my gun on the bird-like Mr. Brookes
I thought of Saint Francis and his sparrows
And as I shot down the youthful Richardson
It was Sebastian I thought of, and his arrows

Hhhhhhhhhhhh Mmmmmmmmm

I said, "I want to introduce myself
And I'm glad that you all came"
And I leapt upon the bar
And shouted out my name

Well Jerry Bellows, he hugged his stool
Closed his eyes and shrugged and laughed
And with an ashtray as big as a fucking big brick
I split his head in half

His blood spilled across the bar
Like a streaming scarlet brook
And I knelt at it's edge on the counter
Wiped the tears away and looked

Well, the light in there was blinding
Full of God and ghosts and truth
I smiled at Henry Davenport
Who made an attempt to move

Well, from the position I was standing
The strangest thing I ever saw
The bullet entered through the top of his chest
And blew his bowels out on the floor

Well I floated down the counter
Showing no remorse
I shot a hole in Kathleen Carpenter
Recently divorced

But remorse I felt and remorse I had
It clung to everything
From the raven hair upon my head
To the feathers on my wings

Then I squeezed my hand in it's fraudulent claw
With it's golden hairless chest
And I glided through the bodies
And killed the fat man Vincent West

Who sat quietly in his chair
A man become a child
And I raised the gun up to his head
Executioner-style

He made no attempt to resist
So fat and dull and lazy
"Do you know I lived in your street?" I cried
And he looked at me as though I was crazy

"O", he said, "I had no idea"
And he grew as quiet as a mouse
And the roar of the pistol when it went off
Near blew the hat right off the house

Well, I caught my eye in the mirror
And gave it a long and loving inspection
"There stands some kind of man", I roared
And there did, in the reflection

My hair combed back like a raven's wing
My muscles hard and tight
And curling from he business end of my gun
Was a query-mark of cordite

Well I spun to the left, I spun to the right
And I spun to the left again
"Fear me! Fear me!"
But no one did cause they were all dead

Huh! Hmmmmmmmm
And then there were the police sirens wailing
And a bull-horn squelched and blared
"Drop your weapons and come out
With your hands held in the air"

Well, I checked the chambers of my gun
Saw I had one final bullet left
My hand, it looked almost human
As I help it to my head

"Drop your weapon and come out!
Keep you hands above your head!"
Well, I had one long hard think about dying
And did exactly what they said

There must have been fifty cops out there
In a circle around O'Malley's bar
"Don't shoot", I cried "I'm a man unarmed!"
So they put me in their car

And they sped me away from that terrible scene
And I glanced out of the window
Saw O'Malley's bar, saw the cops and the cars
And started counting on my fingers

Aaaaaaaaah One Aaaaaaaah Two Aaaaaah Three Aaaah Four
O'Malley's bar O'Malley's bar

[Smokehouse]

Nick Cave is a truly beautiful lyricist. 'Into my Arms' is fabulous, but I also love 'The Ship Song' (sentimentally as much as for its lyrics) and 'The Curse of Millhaven'

By the way, I'm Jack, I'm new, and I can't find the proper Introductions thread for new members. Could anyone please direct me? :)

[S.Tehrani]

Huge fan, especially Murder Ballads. "O'Malley's Bar" and "The Curse of Millhaven" are classic.