(purchase Tender Prey)
First, a free-association when I think of Nick
Cave.
Blood. Carcuses. Riverbanks. Trials. Bones. Hard rain.
Dirty. Grins. Yellow Teeth. Whistling trains. Hammers. Whale dick. Run. Breath.
The Road. Devil. Imps. Bodies floating. The circus. Lard. Murder. Church. Black
birds.
Since his days with the Birthday Party and throughout his
career with the Bad Seeds, Nick Cave has had a flare for haunting, gruesome
storytelling. Actually, it feels better to say he spins yarns, often bloody
ones. His characters pulse and ooze color: preachers on soapboxes, icky
carnies, criminals on the run, slime balls in seersucker suits wielding knives
and chewing toothpicks, worming along riverbanks and lingering in their own
smoke. Cave’s subjects suffer and dish out suffering. A good many kill and die.
It’s no secret that Cave is one of the best narrative songwriters
of our time: his imagery and metaphor is wild and his handle of sound device is
bold and deft. He is Australian but his settings and characters feel American
Gothic with possible influences like Sam Shepard, Flannery O’Connor, Toni
Morrison, delta blues and Elvis mythology.
“The Mercy Seat” (the opening number from 1988’s Tender Prey) is a confounding, harrowing
take on an execution after a prison sentence of unknown length.
Strap yourself in. It shocks, scares, and twists.
The players warm up like a team of executioners: a guitar
rumble, a violin scrape, a sledgehammering drum and a finalizing, decisive
chord on the piano which repeats throughout the song as if to say to the
subject: “Wipe away that shit-eating grin because this is final you sad son of
a bitch.” Cave’s criminal/victim's first words are wry mumble in a low baritone,
“It began when they took me from my home
and put me on dead row/Of which I am nearly wholly innocent, you know.”
“nearly wholly innocent, you
know”? You can see the sad and doomed s.o.b winking at his guilt through sooty
crow’s feet. Then the drums whip into a march, and he reflects on his final
meal.
The face of Jesus in
my soup
Those sinister dinner
deals
The meal trolley’s
wicked wheels
A hooked bone rising
from my food
All things either good
or ungood.
Over seven minutes long, “The Mercy Seat” is minimalist in
structure and more spoken-word poetry--assaulted with instrumentation--than
song. Cave’s collaboration with Einsturzende Neubauten’s Blixa Bargeld peaks on
“The Mercy Seat”, with frightening industrial impact at the start and guitar
hovering and shrieking like wraiths throughout.
Cave foresees a dizzying, seering finish to death. In a
chorus that repeats itself over ten times.
And the mercy seat is
waiting
And I think my head is
burning
And in a way I’m
yearning
To be done with all
this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
A tooth for a tooth
And anyway I told the
truth
And I’m not afraid to
die.
The violin abandoned earlier comes back raising the stakes
and the wattage. Our subject’s pitch rises, and he is choked into some
semblance of sincerity as he discards his earlier wry tone for steely resolve.
And the Mercy Seat is
waiting
And I think my head is
burning.
And the guilt that seemed a sure bet earlier through his
cockiness is now somehow up for doubt with a cynical, exhausted comment on the
justice system and its link to the Old Testament.
And in a way I’m
hoping to be done
with all this weighing
of the truth
an eye for an eye a
truth for a truth
and any way I told the
truth
The line “and anyway I
told the truth” is replaced with “and
anyway there was no proof”, “and “I’ve
got nothing left to lose.” In the
end, however, the replacement is a stunner: “and I’m afraid I told a lie”. And then our subject is finally bereft
of words, his body succumbs, the choked keyboard rises and we have a dead man
in a chair. Guilty
Is this final line the subject’s way of reaching out for a
last-ditch attempt at Christ’s forgiveness--of whom he is so cynical
earlier--or is out of respect for whoever has been listening this whole time
and their right to know the truth? It’s a hell of an exit and I imagine this
doubt is what is left at the end of any execution. I wish I had seen Cave when
he decided on this finish. Having played in bands and knowing how little band
mates listen to the vocalist’s lyrics, I wonder how long it took the Bad Seeds
(Mick Harvey, Bargeld, Kid Congo Powers, Rowland Howard) to realize what Cave
had done in that final line.
Nick Cave had a huge impact on my own writing when I was in
college. Through his own audacious character sketches, he taught me to shoot
for the most extreme imagery possible, no apologies necessary. In one of my
favorite college poems I wrote, the reverence of Cave is unquestionable and a
little embarrassing: “His skin pealing/not appealing/his lungs wheezing like
Billy Ray’s Hammond organ/singing notes that are squealing like a neglected red
balloon preaching the lord’s good word: ‘Have
another drink’”. There was a guy I worshiped in college who worshiped Cave.
Kevin was long and wiry like Cave and walked around in black suit jackets,
always with a book tucked under his arm. He wore shiny black boots and a constant
sneer because he knew he was smarter than most everybody around him.
I saw Cave once or twice. The first time was in 1991 when I
took a train back from Prague to see him in Berlin. One ticket was the same
price as three days in Prague (room and board and beer). I struck up a
conversation with a German kid my age on the train.
Him: Why are you going to Berlin?
Me: To see Nick Cave at the Hippodrome.
Him: Ah you got a ticket?
Me: No, I’ll just pick one up there.
Me: No, I’ll just pick one up there.
Him: (laughing) This isn’t America.
I did see the show. From outside the huge tent for two hours
I jumped up and down on old sneakers to catch tiny glimpses of Cave careening
and plunging forward. It was worth it, one of the better shows I’d seen. And I
recall him singing Johnny Cash’s (who actually covered "Mercy Seat" a few years later) “The Legend of John Henry’s Hammer.”, which
drew the disbelief and jealousy of Kevin three months later.
I’m still unsure if I told a lie.
The second time I saw Cave was Lollapalooza in Milwaukee in
1994 on the Henry’s Dream tour. It was daylight and
the crowd was only 30% full. Cave destroyed the Midwestern audience that wasn’t
ready for or didn’t really understand him. Later on MTV I remember him being
interviewed about his Lollapalooza experience.
VJ: What’s it like to be playing with such a plethora of
performers?
Cave: What do you mean ‘plethora’?
VJ: Diverse…
Cave: I know what it means. I just wanted to know if you knew.
VJ: Yeah. Huh.
Cave: I’m glad I didn’t bring my son. He’d be embarrassed by
these crowds.
I never was sure what Cave meant by this. Playing in
stadiums to huge crowds (assuming Milwaukee attendance was an anomaly); playing
in front of empty daylight crowds like Milwaukee; or crowds that simply didn’t
get him.
