Velvets Fan

Just finished reading Nick Cave bio by Ian Johnston (Goodreads is down, so entering my thoughts here). Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds have been probably the hardest music for me to grok over the years, that I felt I should've grokked before now. I remember buying a Best of Nick Cave CD a number of years ago, and actually being so shocked by the dark lyrics and discordant sounds that I returned it. I very rarely return CDs, so it really must've turned me off back then. Even so, I've always felt Nick Cave had some beautiful songs (Into My Arms has been a favorite of mine for a long time). It's just that I struggled to grok his music overall. Until I read this bio and bought some of his older records, starting with The Birthday Party. I also downloaded a live show and documentary (The Road to God Knows Where) recently, which I've been watching before I sleep over the past week or so.

The bio does a good job of putting Cave's work in context, explaining how he rose from an arty punk band (Boys Next Door, which morphed into The Birthday Party) into a music artist that can't be classified into any genre. His music can be crashingly discordant, or achingly romantic, and everything in-between. His lyrics are probably the most difficult to 'feel,' as they are particularly dark - he wrote a whole album called 'Murder Ballads,' which about sums the shape of his lyrics up. But it's the passion and intensity - and real stark emotion - behind the lyrics that I finally began to grok over the past couple of weeks. Couple that with his intense live performances, and I now appreciate what Nick Cave is all about.

One example is his live performance of From Her to Eternity (which I will try to find a copy of on YouTube and post here). The title of the song is one of the most romantic phrases a poet musician could think of. However the song itself is a loud, crashing often discordant maelstrom of music. The lyrics are real dark too. But when you watch Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds perform this live, you get pulled into the passion and intensity of the performance - and fall in love with the song. Blixa Bargeld's lead guitar is evocative of The Velvet Underground's slashing jarring sound. Mick Harvey's guitar buzzes. The piano plink-plonks frantically. And Nick Cave himself veers from wildly leaping and stomping around the stage, his mane of black hair shoved back with his hand every 30 seconds or so, to kneeling on the floor beseeching the audience to "listen, liiiisten" in a quiet melodic whisper, and then he jumps up again and thrashes his head up and down, screaming "From heeeer to eteeeernity," as the guitars start their cacophony again. It's an electrifying performance, and the song is powerful and passionate.

I'm still in the process of discovering Cave's back catalog, and I'm still not entirely reconciled with the dark lyrics and some of the discordant sounds. But I feel like I grok his music more now and I very much appreciate his realness and soul.

I also think this is a great example of how some music only becomes 'ready' for you when you reach a certain stage in life. I only just discovered the bulk of Neil Young's work last year. And I have a feeling I just wasn't ready for Nick Cave when I bought that Best Of those years back. But now I'm ready.