Ahead of ' Wild God,' Nick Cave's first studio effort since 2021, revisit 10 of of the singer's most essential tracks from his prolific 45-year career.
"Article published in Grammy.com . Author: Jon O'Brien."
"There is never a master plan when we make a record," Nick Cave recently said about creating Wild God, his upcoming 18th studio effort with longtime backing band the Bad Seeds. "The records rather reflect back the emotional state of the writers and musicians who played them. Listening to this, I don’t know, it seems we're happy."
Happiness is not an emotional state you'd typically associate with an artist renowned for his ghostly demeanor, baritone vocal delivery which sits somewhere between unholy preacher and gothic overlord, and slightly unnatural obsession with the inherently morbid side of life. He was once characterized as the leader of "the most violent live band in the world."
But Cave's macabre disposition has served him well. Since arriving on the scene with post-punk cult heroes the Birthday Party in the early 1980s, the Australian has gradually developed a cult following willing to hang on his every darkly poetic word. Alongside his day job, he's enjoyed huge critical acclaim as part of side-project Grinderman, as a novelist, and as a Hollywood composer and screenwriter (most notably pulling double duty on 2006 western The Proposition).
His work has been covered by artists as eclectic as Snoop Dogg, Arctic Monkeys and Johnny Cash. In fact, Cave is now so ingrained in the establishment that he was on the guest list for King Charles III's coronation.
With Cave's first studio effort since 2021's Warren Ellis collaboration, Carnage, about to hit the shelves, here's a look back at 10 of the most important songs from his prolific — and GRAMMY-nominated —45-year career.
"Tupelo" ('The Firstborn Is Dead,' 1985)
Although recorded in Berlin by an Australian who'd lived in London for three years, Cave's sophomore The Firstborn Is Dead continued to showcase his fascination with the American South. None more so than on its opening number, a typically morbid, tornado-stricken reimagining of the night Elvis Presley was brought into the world.
Co-written by Barry Adamson of post-punk outfit Magazine, "Tupelo" correlates the apocalyptic weather conditions with the birth of a demonic presence, reimagining the King of Rock and Roll as the King of Darkness. "Well Saturday gives what Sunday steals /And a child is born on his brothers heels/Come Sunday morn the first-born dead," Cave croons, inferring that Elvis' still-born twin Jesse was his first sacrificial lamb. You can't imagine it blaring over the speakers at Graceland, but this is the murder balladeer at his fire and brimstone best.
"The Mercy Seat" ('Tender Pray,' 1988)
Cave has often been dismissive of his band's fifth LP Tender Prey ("I hear bad production and I hear bad performances as well"). And yet it birthed what many consider to be his macabre masterpiece: A seven-minute soliloquy delivered by a death row prisoner who becomes more unhinged the closer he gets to the electric chair. In fact, he repeats its biblical chorus ("And in a way I'm yearning/To be done with all this measuring of proof/Of an eye for an eye/And a tooth for a tooth") a remarkable 14 times before being put out of his delusional, deranged misery.
As always, Cave inhabits his deplorable creation with an emotional intensity that's both compelling and deeply unsettling, while Mick Harvey's slithering, unnerving bass — apparently recorded by hitting the strings with a drumstick — only adds to the sense of malevolence. Little wonder, then, that despite Cave's misgivings about its parent album, "The Mercy Seat" has remained a setlist ever-present.
"The Ship Song" ('Good Son,' 1990)
Cave risked alienating his cult fan base in 1990 when he showed a much softer side on Good Son, a record inspired by both his post-rehab clarity and relationship with Brazilian reporter Viviane Carneiro. But "The Ship Song" proved that the gothic crooner could tackle the universal theme of undying devotion without descending into schmaltz.
The tender piano ballad doesn't exactly provide a happy ending, with a deeply smitten Cave essentially acknowledging the old adage, "if you love someone, set them free." ("Your face has fallen sad now/For you know the time is nigh/When I must remove your wings/And you, you must try to fly"). Cave laterexpressed doubts about whether his concerted attempt to write a classic love song truly connected. The plethora of cover versions, including anall-star rendition promoting the Sydney Opera House, shows his concerns are unfounded.
"Red Right Hand" ('Let Love In,' 1994)
The Cave song that's arguably penetrated the mainstream more than any other, "Red Right Hand" has been a regular fixture of the Scream franchise, been covered by not just one but two former girlfriends (Anita Lane, PJ Harvey), and, most notably, served as the theme to everyone's favorite flat-capped period drama "Peaky Blinders."
Inspired by a line from John Milton's Paradise Lost, the centerpiece of eighth LP Let Love In focuses on a cash-grabbing, chameleonic figure ("He's a ghost, he's a god/He's a man, he's a guru") who causes all kinds of bloody havoc in a "reconstructed" version of Cave's Wangaratta hometown. Haunted house organs, brooding basslines, and a doom-laden tolling bell heighten the sense of menace on a track which once again proves few other artists are as effective at chilling to the bone.
"Where The Wild Roses Grow" ('Murder Ballads,' 1995)
The man dubbed the Gothic Lord of Darkness sings a deeply sinister duet inspired by an Appalachian murder ballad with the pop princess who'd shot to fame with a cover of "The Loco-Motion?" On paper, UK Top 20 hit "Where The Wild Roses Grow" sounds like the stuff of fever dreams. Yet somehow, Cave and fellow Antipodean Kylie Minogue (then very much in her transitional pop to indie phase) made for an unlikely dream team.
Cave wrote the tune especially for Minogue, whom he freely admitted to quietly obsessing over, and was always going to convince on such a grotesque fairytale. Minogue more than holds her own as the tragic heroine whose inherent beauty compels her psychotic date to end their third date in bloodshed ("And the last thing I heard was a muttered word/As he knelt above me with a rock in his fist").
"Into My Arms" ('The Boatman's Call,' 1997)
"Into My Arms" was written while Cave was undergoing rehab, and specifically during one of the church trips patients were allowed each Sunday. Could divine intervention have played a part? After all, the highlight from tenth album The Boatman's Call finds the one-time cathedral choirboy desperately trying to find solace in a God that he doesn't quite believe in.
No matter how the alternative hymn was derived, though, it remains one of Cave's most affecting spirituals, a brutally honest meditation on the relationship between love and faith reportedly inspired by two former girlfriends, Carneiro and Harvey. "Into My Arms" has been cited by Cave as the song he's proudest of, with his performance at the funeral of close friend Michael Hutchence (he's godfather to the late singer's daughter) later that same year lending it an extra poignancy.
"Get Ready For Love" ('Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus,' 2004)
Taken from the double album which cleverly separated Cave's split personalities — the abrasive post-punk provocateur and darkly melancholic troubadour — "Get Ready For Love" kicks things off with one almighty bang. Hinting at the ferociousness that would define side project Grinderman's debut three years later, the punkish gospel practically bursts out of the speakers, with Cave audibly relishing another opportunity to play the evangelical feverishly spreading the word.
"Praise Him till you've forgotten what you're praising Him for/Then praise Him a little more," he barks in a manner which sits somewhere between The Henry Rollins Band and "The Righteous Gemstones." It's his most acerbic take on organized religion in a discography dominated by the subject, and following the disappointingly muted Nocturama, a clear sign that he was still able to thrill and disturb in equal measure.
"Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!" ('Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!' 2008)
The title track from Cave's return-to-form LP premiered on Christmas Day, but its 21st century take on Lazarus's resurrection wasn't interested in spreading any festive cheer. In fact, by reimagining the biblical figure as a bumbling idiot named Larry who immerses himself in a life of sex, drugs, and criminality ("He feasted on their lovely bodies like a lunatic/And wrapped himself up in their soft yellow hair"), "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!" was more likely to leave conservatives choking on their turkey dinner.
Combining the rock and roll swagger of Link Wray with the stream-of-consciousness melodies ofTalking Heads, the track which originated from a Grinderman demo could never be accused of taking itself too seriously, though. Indeed, when he utters the final line, "Oh, poor Larry," with a camp shriek, Cave sounds more like a Carry On cast member than a harbinger of doom.
"Jubilee Street" ('Push the Sky Away,' 2016)
Following the departure of founding Bad Seed Mick Harvey, Cave and company appeared to hit the reset button for 2013's Push The Sky Away, a sobering, stripped-back affair inspired by the “significant events, momentary fads, and mystically-tinged absurdities” derived from the world wide web. Its second single "Jubilee Street" certainly leans into the latter.
Told from the perspective of a man who may well have murdered the prostitute blackmailing him, the song has something of a literary true crime quality. Meanwhile, the shimmering violins which sound like they're being beamed in from another planet, and the transcendent coda in which the protagonist claims he's both beyond recriminations and now moving to a higher plane ("Curtains are shut, the furniture is gone/I'm transforming, I'm vibrating, I'm glowing") heighten the otherworldly feel. Cave was so entranced by its enigma that he felt compelled to pen a meta song, "Finishing Jubilee Street," about its inception.
"Ghosteen" ('Ghosteen,' 2019)
Following the tragic accidental death of his teenage twin son Arthur three years earlier, Cave's 17th studio effort was understandably consumed by themes of loss, grief, and, as on this beautifully haunting 12-minute meditation, human existence.
One of several tracks based on metaphysical conversations he shared with his joint-youngest, "Ghosteen" is unlikely to leave a dry eye in the house, with "There is nothing wrong with loving something/You can't hold in your hand" proving that Cave could speak from the heart with a masterful simplicity. There's also a heavenly, dreamlike quality to its production, which drifts from Leonard Cohen-esque chanson to ambient prog in a comforting slow-motion pace befitting of its subject matter. An emotionally devastating but truly spellbinding display of catharsis, the title track adds to the argument that Ghosteen is Cave's latter day opus.
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