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Masaryk University, Brno

Faculty of Arts
Department of English and American Studies










Let Love in Love Lyrics of Nick Cave
The Shift from Sexuality to Spirituality



(B.A. Thesis)














Petr Husseini

Supervisor: PhDr. Tom Pospil, Dr.


Brno 2007













































Declaration
I hereby declare that I have worked on this B.A. thesis independently, using only the primary
and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

Petr Husseini















































Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my supervisor, PhDr. Tom Pospil, Dr., for his kind help, support and
valuable advice.

Table of Contents

Introduction .....5
1. Nick Caves Lyrics The Background ..6
1.1 The Beginning .6
1.2 Berlin Years ....9
1.3 So PauloYears .13
2. The Sexual and Violent Lyrics...17
2.1 Introduction ..17
2.2 Female Clothing .......18
2.3 Murder and Love Within ....20
2.4 Sexuality and Darksome Love ....25
3. Spiritual Love Lyrics .30
3.1 Introduction ..30
3.2 Nick Caves Love Song ........30
3.3 The Boatmans Call ..33
3.4 No More Shall We Part 36
3.5 Nocturama 39
Conclusion ..42
Bibliography44
Appendix .....48













Introduction

Nick Cave is an artist who has a huge impact on popular music with his songs.
Starting in Australia in the late 1970s he has been one of the most visible artists during the so-
called post-punk era. Later in the 1980s as a musician, scriptwriter, and writer Cave became
famous all over the world. The theme of love is his constant preoccupation. Initially in the
1980s Nick Caves lyrics dealt primarily with sexuality, physical expression of love, male
power, and violence. Later in his career there appeared an alteration in his writing where he
did not change the subject of love but modified his approach to it. Since the 1990s Cave deals
mainly with the topic of spiritual love, often addressing God.
In my thesis I would like to discuss the shift from sexuality to spirituality in Nick
Caves lyrics. My aim is to find the purpose for the change in writing and particular musical
traditions that Cave follows. The work will show a detailed analysis of the main points
relating to the turn from the early sexual songs to the spiritual side of his work, that is from
the late 1970s until recent years. Although love is a very common feature in popular music
Cave deals with its subject in a different way. His lyrics where the topic of physical and
spiritual love is quite central can be regarded as a sophisticated piece of work because art
within music remains for Cave a very significant issue.
The work is divided into three chapters. The first one describes the background of
Nick Cave and his bands in Australia, his stay in Berlin, and in So Paulo. I will relate Nick
Caves lyrics to the punk and post-punk era, to blues music, and Latin America elements. The
second chapter deals mainly with the sexual and violent love lyrics and is divided into three
parts. Each one illustrates a special feature, namely roles of female clothing, murder, and
sexuality. The third one discusses the shift to spirituality and pure love and puts Caves early
songs in contrast with the more recent work.
1. Nick Caves Lyrics The Background
1.1 The Beginning
The popular music of the early 1980s in the English speaking world saw the rise of
bands and musicians who shared the legacy of the punk-rock era. This period of rock and roll
music mostly prominent in Great Britain with bands such as The Sex Pistols and The Clash
gave rise in the late 1970s and early 1980s to the so-called post-punk era. In the early 1980s
appeared many bands which tried to follow the punk music tradition. The age of revolt was
replaced by another one, maybe a gentler one. New talents grew up in Europe (e.g. U2,
Talking Heads, The Police) just as in the U.S.A. (e.g. R.E.M., Pixies). However, one of the
most visible artists of these days started his career outside Great Britain and the United States
Australia saw the musical birth of Nick Cave.
Australia stands physically outside the world of music of Great Britain and the United
States. Nevertheless the influences of the British and American punk bands were visible there
as Clinton Walker points out that much of the music would seem to have been inspired by
similar stirrings in England and America (7). The time of the late 1970s marked an epoch of
an Australian musical movement which moved rock and roll towards its own invention and
identity. Independence is one of the key words of punk music. That was also followed by the
Australian bands; they were not at the real centre of that significant movement, however the
new wave independently occurred in a number of countries around the world (Walker 7).
During the last years of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s Australian bands
underwent an important process of development from rather unknown musical groups to
popular ones. In particular, that set of changes can be symbolically demonstrated on Nick
Caves bands The Boys Next Door changed to The Birthday Party and moved from
Australia
1
. The Birthday Party was not the only band that moved from Australia to become
famous all over the world; however, they were probably the most prominent rock group
among them. To name some of the bands that changed Great Britain for Australia in the early
1980s: The Go-Betweens, The Triffids, and The Moodists (Hanson 45). In this period of time
we can already trace Nick Caves love, sex, and violence lyrics in The Birthday Partys songs.
However, without any sign of his later spiritual approach. The singer and his band went on a
tour through Europe and found a favourite place in Berlin which symbolizes Caves turbulent
time of his career night-life, alcohol, and drug addiction for instance.
In all of his bands Nick Cave as a member has been the leader and the exclusive author
of all the lyrics. Primarily, Caves early songs in The Birthday Party were dealing with topics
close to the ones presented in punk music. Fear of women and fear for women were one of the
examples of issues that concerned sexual matters in punk-rock during the 1970s and in Nick
Caves earlier production. Simon Reynolds in his article Flirting with the Void: Abjection in
Rock provides two remarkable topics of punk music, in particular abjection and maternal
horror. Stooges I Wanna Be Your Dog (song about lust-for-abasement (87)) and Sex
Pistols Submission and Bodies are instances for the subject of sexual issues in
punk-rock. Submission explores a mission into the mysterious depths of female sexuality
with the woman on the side of darkness, devouring men (88). The fear of women and female
power on one hand and their vulnerability on the other one are at the centre, just as in
Bodies for instance an anti-abortion song portraying the woman as a powerful killer of
her baby. Nick Caves writing might be illustrated with the example of the mysterious and
frightening side of female sexuality in Shes Hit a blues lament for womens
vulnerability, bemoaning the way theyre prone to liquefy into woman pie at the hands of
man (92). The meaning of the songs discussed in this paragraph might be explained

1
According to Walker. See pp. 7.
psychologically, namely that the woman stands for a mother and a partner as well. The man
like a child is weaker than her and scared of her possible fragility. The man puts himself
into a position of an inferior individual.
The lust-for-abasement can be traced in another Nick Caves writing as well. The
song Zoo-Music Girl from The Birthday Partys Prayers on Fire album offers an idea about
the concept:
My body is a monster driven insane
My Heart is a fish toasted with flames
I kiss the hem of her skirt
We spend our life in a box full of dirt. (Cave 28)
The character in the song is presented as a weak individual; that phenomenon in Zoo-
Music Girl is a so called self-loathing (Gladwell 147). It might be in fact compared with
Walkers lust-for-abasement in Stooges I Wanna Be Your Dog. Both categories deal
with a kind of gender domination feature. Gladwell claims:
Here a dilemma is clearly apparent. Self-loathing in the face of the females imminent
ruination seen as a theft of sorts and self-disgust at his own weakness as far as
she is concerned. More often than not, in Caves work the voice of reason/logic
inside spurns and also spurs violent reactions against the threat she presents to his
rationality as an opposite/obverse or even complement. (147-8)
The revolutionary genre of punk music followed the ambitions of young musicians of
the early 1980s. Consequently these songs Shes Hit and Zoo-Music Girl show that
namely Nick Cave as a representative of the post-punk era has followed popular issues of his
predecessors, punk-rock bands from Great Britain The Sex Pistols and the United States
The Stooges. Europe made Nick Cave famous and later put him in a position of a respected
musician who later underwent a number of changes regarding his work. Nick Cave proved to
develop from a singer of the post-punk band The Birthday Party of the early days to his later
and present position of one of the leading songwriters of his generation (Sturges)
2
.

1.2 Berlin Years
In 1982, as has been already mentioned above, Nick Cave and the Birthday Party
moved to Berlin. The year 1982 and the following one became the bands swan song
because the music groups career was finished. The Birthday Party was dead. On the other
hand for Cave started a new part of his career (Hanson 53). In the German capital, the rock
band became famous but also saw its end. The city of Berlin signifies an important age for
Caves work.
Berlin became very attractive for rock and roll musicians in the 1970s and 1980s.
Many of them recorded their albums here. There is a number of milestones for Caves career
during the 1980s in Germany. In Berlin, Nick Cave started to form his new band called The
Bad Seeds. Its name derives from The Birthday Partys EP The Bad Seed from 1982, a release
picked up at Hansa Studios where for instance David Bowie and Iggy Pop recorded several
albums (Johnston 121). Nick Caves creativity bloomed in Berlin; he tried to come up with a
new style of music. In fact, he was becoming increasingly bored with The Birthday Partys
music and the audiences reaction to it. Cave wanted to incorporate completely new genres to
his own production, such as western, blues, and epic sixties pop ballads (Johnston 123).
There have appeared new approaches in relation to his work in the early 1980s. Bible,
for instance, became the source of Caves writing during his Berlin years. He started
incorporating biblical language and features of Christian culture into his songs. The Bible
itself had been a very important source for his writing technique and a remarkable piece of
inspiration (Dax 71). The biblical/Christian imagery has been essential not only for his love

2
See Fiona Sturges Wild Rose.
<http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20040904/ai_n12807494>
lyrics but for his other work as well during the years in Berlin, exclusively for the novel And
the Ass Saw the Angel (the title itself is a quote from the Old Testament). Christianity proved
to be a crucial element of Caves later work. However, as we will see, the Christian
symbolism here the crucifixion has been apparently present already in the songs of the
early 1980s. We can find the example in Wild World from The Bad Seed EP, released in
February 1983:
Hold me up baby for I may fall
Hold my dish-rag body tall
Our bodies melt together (we are one)
Post crucifixion, and all undone. (Cave 56)
In Wild World the sexual connotation is linked to the crucifixion in a methaporical
way. Nick Cave wants his girlfriend to comfort him in a very remarkable way we can once
more observe a notion of Reynolds self-abasement with the powerless man pleading for the
womans help and care. Wild World is a creamy languish in the guise of spoken word and
is close to the Beat style poetry (Hanson 47). The oral presentation of the lyrics becomes now
as important as the whole songs concept.
Another element that appeared during the time spent in Berlin in Nick Caves work
was a stylization into a desperado, a renegade, who wants to escape punishment because he
has killed a beloved woman. This model which is highly popular in the western culture
became one of Nick Caves typical features. The rebel who stands between good and evil is
attractive for the popular culture. The message of the songs remains often in the space
between these borders of good and evil. The murder of a woman and the outlaw stylization
stay an important issue on many Bad Seeds albums just as its narrative style. The topic of
love appears in the murder-ballads as well; there is no contradiction (for instance, in 1988
in The Mercy Seat from the Tender Prey album). However for the first time in Nick Caves
songs, we can observe the search for new styles and genres on the Mutiny! EP, the last record
of The Birthday Party, which was made in November 1983 in the Hansa Records studios
3
. Let
us look closely at Swampland, a song about a flight of a murderer:
They cum with boots of blud
With pichfawk and with club
Chantin out mah name
Lucy, ahll love you till the end!
They hunt me like a dog
Down in a Sw-a-a-a-mp Land! (Cave 75).
The new genres of music that Cave wanted to embed in his work are apparent in this
song. The tradition of the country and blues music and the American south are central for this
piece. The Swampland is unmistakably the Mississippi Delta of William Faulkner. This place
is seen as a mythical birthplace of the blues music (Dax 73). The chasers hunt the character
a wanted man because he has killed his girl, Lucy: Lucy, ya made a sinner out of me /
Now ahm burnin like a saint (Cave 75). However, he confesses his love to Lucy (ahll love
you till the end (75)). That is a stylization into a rebel who stands between good and evil;
thus the character might be seen from a positive or negative point of view.
The Mississippi Delta is related to the blues music and consequently Cave becomes a
narrator as the traditional blues singers whose lyrics have been the main point of their songs.
As an author, Cave elevates himself to a position of a medium that knows how the world
works. His story has a message. That is also the central point of this kind of songs, just like
the blues singers stories of the early 20
th
century. Thus the meaning of the lyrics is more
important than the music (Dax 73). Consequently an significant issue is that Cave put a
number of autobiographical features into Swampland, namely himself as a rebel among the

3
See Hanson pp. 50.
musicians who stands out as an individual and the hunters who represent his critics and fans
(Johnston 132). We can trace once more that the form of the oral performation becomes
essential the singer is the narrator, a storyteller.
Nick Caves message in the course of the Berlin years followed the tradition of blues
and also of the songwriters. That was namely the legacy of the famous folk singer Bob Dylan
and the country singer Johnny Cash. During the 1980s Cave made covers of songs originally
recorded by these two musicians: Bob Dylans Wanted Man from the The Firstborn Is Dead
album and Johnny Cashs The Singer from the Kicking against the Pricks album. In
Wanted Man Cave has rearranged the lyrics by Bob Dylan for his own version. The
original is a long euphonic list of all the places the outlaw of the title, a bounty on his head,
can no longer dare show his face. Cave added a few extra lines and reworked the melody
together with Harvey, thus turning the song into a tragicomedy with biographical undertones
(Dax 92). The original song by Dylan is another instance of the issue of a rebel in the western
culture that has been incorporated into the popular music and later rearranged by Cave.
During the Berlin years, Cave reflected his own musical vision of the blues with
Christian imagery and became an acknowledged artist in the popular music and an author of
songs whose progress has continued years on
4
. The narrative side of his work has become
unique already in the 1980s. Moreover he is one of the poets among the musicians who have
been following a tradition of blues and songwriting. Like Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen,
Nick Cave has remained on of the few singers-songwriters whose lyrics need not to be read
with music but on their own (Nashawatty 47). Later I will discuss a specific parallel between
Cohen and Cave.



4
Nick Cave has been appreciated by rock and roll musicians. He has received a rare accolade by Bob Dylan in
being authorised to make changes to compositions by him. (See Dax pp. 92.)
1.3 So Paulo Years
The last decade of the 20
th
century presented new topics into Caves songs again. After
the turbulent years and the drug addiction in Berlin Cave found new places to stay. Although
the singer visited many places on tours with The Bad Seeds all over the world there was a
location that inspired his writing in an extraordinary way So Paulo.
After a storm comes serenity. Symbolically storm in Nick Caves life can mean his
stay in Berlin. There he became addicted to drugs, wrote songs of violence and depraved
sexuality. Cave left Berlin for good. The actual effect then was a detoxification at a facility in
Weston-Super-Mare in the South of England; the singer left West Berlin which has been his
home for six years and returned to London (Dax 124). In Berlin and in London as well Cave
was at the centre of media. Nevertheless he looked for anonymity. This fact actually guided
him to Brazil (one of the places on bands tour) where he found his partner, mother of his first
son fashion designer Viviane Carneiro. They met on one of The Bad Seeds concerts and
Cave had fallen in love with her
5
. Later they made up their home in So Paulo together. Brazil
has been unexplored by The Bad Seeds recently and Cave himself was not one of the most
famous artists there.
With his move to Brazil Nick Cave embarked on a new direction in his life and, for the
first time ever, started to live in a semblance of an ordered existence. [...] But in the
anonymity of this colossal city that spoke Portuguese and not English and where rock
music hadnt become the kind of ersatz religion it had in England, Cave didnt feel at
all impinged upon by the interest Brazil showed in him (Dax 128).
The genius loci or the spirit of a place made contribution to his work. In
comparison to his previous life Cave became more temperate and that had also effect on his
songs. Viviane Carneiro became a new source of inspiration for him. The change of

5
See Johnston pp. 258.
surroundings gave Cave a wholly new perspective. Everywhere you looked, he enthused,
there was something strange and wonderful and magical, and the songs he was now writing
would reflect that dynamism (Hanson 74). Last but not least, the singer started to use
Portuguese as one of the flavours of his lyrics.
In So Paulo in 1990 Cave recorded his new album The Good Son which is musically
calmer and which incorporates the New Testament, the person of Jesus Christ, and God in the
lyrics. There is a certain number of romantic ballads like The Ship Song for instance. What
represents mainly Nick Caves work of the 1990s the spirituality in love songs has been
started off in Brazil. The core of the religious subject matter in lyrics lies therefore in
relationship with the years spent in So Paulo. It is no secret that Christian faith plays a key
role in the Brazilian culture. The opening song of the album Foi na Cruz is a love
chant of how two people missed a golden opportunity to fall in love (Dax 129). The song
possesses a reverential hush to remain within terms of Christian culture (Hanson 81). The
imagery of Jesus Christ is quite central; in addition, a traditional Portuguese anthem has been
used for the chorus:
Foi na cruz, foi na cruz
Que um dia
Meus pecados castigados em Jesus
Foi na cruz
Que um dia
Foi na cruz. (Cave 163)
The translation from the Portuguese: He hung on the cross / One day / Jesus was
punished for our sins (Dax 129). The central idea of the song is the unrequited love:
Love comes a-knocking
Comes a-knocking upon our door
But you, you and me, love
We dont live here anymore. (Cave 163)
It seems the former complexity of Caves love songs was gone and now the
straightforward lyrics tell the story. Songs like Foi na Cruz were at that moment more
fascinating because of the simplicity, loose associations, and secrets in comparison to his
earlier work full of complicated and hidden answers (Dax 129); (e.g. the complicated issue of
self-abasement in Zoo-Music Girl). Foi na Cruz is a perfect example of how Cave began
inserting folk elements of Latin America just as previously features of blues during the Berlin
years. That involved not only the text components on The Good Son album but particularly
the musical ones as well. The Latin America swing on the album replaces the former rock and
roll sound for instance in Lament and The Weeping Song. Together with the
instrumentation and rather gentler rhytms the album is completely different in relation to
previous Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds releases (Hanson 81). Thus the personal relationship
has not been the only change that had its effect on his records. The Brazilian culture changed
Caves music as well. The unfulfilled love that is present in Foi na Cruz stays a pattern for
many songs that should follow on later Nick Caves recordings.
Furthermore the Christian imagery that started to be essential for his further work is
not purpose-built. Modern pop rock songwriting is full of it, but it is usually used for its
aesthetic, rather than religious, potency. Caves use of Christian imagery is different in that he
is a believer (Bartlett)
6
. We can assert that what we hear from Nick Cave is forthright and
that there is no clich in the lyrics concerning the cross-reference to Bible and Christianity
in particular, spirituality and Christian symbolics play for him a key role; they are the
fundaments of his writing since the last decade of the 20
th
century. Thus The Good Son is
probably a turning-point album for Cave because of a completely new experience of Latin

6
See Thomas Bartletts The resurrection of Nick Cave.
<http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/feature/2004/11/18/cave/index.html>
America which inspired him vigorously regarding his love lyrics and romantic ballads. In
Brazil Cave found his new identity in relation with his age of maturity. His partner and the
whole culture brought new insights to his work. On the whole Cave became inspired by the
people of So Paulo; hence The Good Son was less an album for fans, but an album for its
author himself (Hanson 81).
The first chapter pointed up Nick Caves shifts in writing from the late 1970s to early
1990s in relation with the individual and cultural background. During this time span Cave has
experienced a number of changes in life characterised by movings from Australia to Europe
first to London, second to Berlin and from Europe to rather anonymous Brazil. This period
of approximately 15 years had a remarkable effect on his work. From the representative of the
post-punk era Cave has developed into a musician who follows the songwriter tradition of
Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan. Later as the author of romantic ballads he has become
a reverential love songwriter (Hanson 73). Prior to the early 1990s Caves lyrics evolved
and reached a turning point in Brazil with The Good Son. Of course the transformation of the
love theme was not finished then. The alteration in writing got only started with a new life
style, new culture, and new partner. Similar topics as on the Brazilian album occurred on
the following ones as well (Henrys Dream (1992) and Let Love In (1994)). There were
however more romantic ballads on The Bad Seeds releases since the So Paulo years. The
issue of spirituality in love plays a major role mainly on two records: The Boatmans Call
(1997) and No More Shall We Part (2001). The next chapters will depict particular songs with
the topic of love at its centre in detail.




2. The Sexual and Violent Lyrics
2.1 Introduction
The previous chapter has shown a general description of the background of the
creation of Nick Caves songs. The second section of the thesis will be a more detailed look
upon the individual lyrics where the theme of love is linked to such expressions as sexuality,
violence, and murder in particular. Presently I will not strictly follow the chronological order.
I am going to look for instances of rather physical attraction in Caves lyrics during the whole
1980s and 1990s. The chapter is divided into three special units regarding distinctive
categories in songs 1) female clothing, 2) love and murder, and 3) sexuality and darksome
love. As a consequence each division of the chapter will deal with particular songs. The last
point sexuality in Nick Caves work comes intentionally as the final crucial theme of the
second section because the analysis and the results will than be put in relation to the third part
of the thesis which will explore the shift to romantic ballads and spiritual tendencies mainly in
the later work.
The female sexuality and fascination for physical love appears already in the earliest
songs by Nick Cave. Although the subject of love sadness, girls, professions of love in the
rock and roll music is often a clich and has a notion of purposeless contemplation, the songs
by Cave have a different concept concerning its subject matter; namely in the artistic
principles Cave considers his music and lyrics unique regarding his own muse which is in
no competition with anybody. He stands outside the world of glittering prizes (Nick-
cave.com). It has been already mentioned above that his lyrics tend to be read without music
as poetry
7
. Cave is not a usual singer and musician; he is one of the representatives of poets
among them. Moreover Nick Cave tries to tell a story and pursues the songwriters tradition

7
Nick Caves lyrics have been oficially published also as two collections of poetry: King Ink and King Ink II.
of the generation before. The following parts of the second chapter will point up three
particular categories in the sexual and violent love songs.

2.2 Female Clothing
The female clothing and the particular colour of womans clothes and principally
dresses is a feature that is to a certain extent repeated in Nick Caves lyrics. The significance
of the clothing imagery in relation with sexuality is usual in popular music. Some of the early
songs by Cave are a perfect example of how the music is linked to a very interesting
symbolism of dresses, their red colour, and sexual matters. In Caves songs the symbolic red
dress is the female sexuality in a wretched state. The colour signals some dark issues in
most cases relates to murder, obsession, self-abasement etc. The singer pays particularly
fethishistic tradition to the significance of the red colour (Gladwell 135-7). That assertion
leads us to the particular Birthday Partys songs where the womans dress is a central element:
1) Zoo-Music Girl and 2) Kewpie Doll. The former ones fethishistic elements are related
to the noticeable fact of murder which will be explored later on:
I murder her dress till it hurts
I murder her dress and she loves it
If there is one thing I desire in the world
Is to make love to my Zoo-Music Girl. (Cave 28)
Here the sexual undertone is quite apparent. Cave puts two elements together:
1) making love by murdering her dress maybe undressing her, 2) murder that hurts but/and
feels good (she loves it). The sexuality is thus closely related to violence, male power, and
fetishism. A similar feature, particularly a fascination of dressing and undressing, is present in
Kewpie Doll:

Well I love the kewpie doll
Yeah I bought her in a show
I dressed her up in a cheap red cotton dress
But everything was either fished-out or spat-out. (Cave 45)
The doll might symbolize a woman or a virgin whose future lies in the mans
hands. The red dress stands here for the sexual attraction and the female sexuality in a
wretched state. Cave sees and adores the significance and meaning of the dress, namely the
complete and unchaste sexuality (Gladwell 148).
One of Nick Caves songs From Her to Eternity from the same called 1984 Bad
Seeds debut album shows a fascination with bare feet. The piece is a chant of a depraved
character who longs for a girl who lives in a flat above him, in the Room 29. The record
became one of Bad Seeds first hits. Few years later, in 1988, German director Wim Wenders
used the song as one of the central musical constituents of the film Wings of Desire
8
. The
song is above all a tale of emotional voyeurism (Reynolds 29).
Ah wanna tell you bout a girl
You know she lives in Room 29
Why thats the one right up top a mine
Ah start to cry, ah start to cry-y
O ah hear her walkin
Walkin barefoot cross the floor-boards
All through this lonesome night
And hear her crying too
Hot tears come splashing down
Leaking through the cracks

8
Wings of Desire featured Nick Cave in one of the supporting roles, starring himself.
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093191/>
Down upon my face, ah catch em in my mouth! (Cave 84)
It seems that the character is obsessed by the image of the girl. It is interesting that he
can not know for sure that she is barefoot; however, he declares the she has got no shoes on.
The sexual undertone of her bare feet is to be associated with nakedness. She becomes the
centre of his dreams and the floor is the only thing dividing him from the girl herself. It is by
all means a fethishistic attraction again that is present here just as comparably the red dress
magnetism discussed above. This desirability for her and the voyeurism are thus cases of
depraved sexuality in Nick Caves early lyrics. From Her to Eternity is a love song
(regardless of the unrequitted feelings), just free from any conventional clichs. Hence the
role of clothing plays a major part as a feature of sexuality and physical obsession.

2.3 Murder and Love Within
Murder ballads have a special status in Nick Caves work. They appear both in the
1980s and in the 1990s. We can trace several patterns in these songs 1) a murderer kills his
beloved woman and as an outlaw waits for his punishment; 2) the lover lusts after his
female object desperately; nevertheless, he can not reach her the longing after her is
overruled by the desire to take her life; 3) the lover is a violator and the woman is just a
defenceless and vulnerable prey. Let us dicover the relation between the lover and the
murderer rolled into one in 1) The Mercy Seat, 2) From Her to Eternity, and 3) Where
the Wild Roses Grow. They might be viewed as love records because they explore in their
way that line between love, hate, and murder might be very thin.
The feature of a rebel-murderer has been already discussed in the first chapter. Cave
works with this popular cultural issue just as Johnny Cash before him for instance
9
. The
Mercy Seat was originally released on the Tender Prey album (1988). The record was, as a

9
The country singer sang also about criminals, for instance on his At Folsom Prison album.
whole, very well received publicly and by the press; The Mercy Seat became one of the
classics by Nick Cave
10
. Besides, the song has been covered years later by Johnny Cash. On
the album Cave reflects his own musical vision of the blues and the American South. The
Bibles imagery is still present (Hanson 72). The character is a prisoner who waits in the death
row for the execution; his life should end on the mercy seat, on the electric chair. His
thoughts are full of feelings of guilt and resignation. The prisoner contemplates his sins before
the execution. The lyrics have a rich Biblical imagery: e.g. In Heaven His throne is made of
gold / The ark of His testament is stowed (Cave 136). However in this case the key point lies
in the message of love:
My kill-hand is called E. V. I. L.
Wears a wedding band thats G. O. O. D.
Tis a long-suffering shackle
Collaring all the rebel blood. (Cave 136)
The whole lyrics are sixteen verses long. Yet these four lines unravel the convicts
crime. The meaning of this fragment is present in the contradiction between good and evil
the same hand that wore the wedding ring also commited the murderous crime. In other words
the one who can be devoted to a woman and love her might take her life as well. The wanted
man is placed between good and evil and might be viewed from different perspectives.
Therefore the line between love and hate or black or white is pictured as a very thin one.
Let us get across to another song now. There is a remarkable pattern that I would like
to explore in From Her to Eternity again, namely a suggestion that longing after a beloved
person might be fatal and more important than a requitted love. To love also means to possess
in a sense. In particular, a supreme moment of power over somebody is attractive. Death via

10
See Hanson pp. 72-3.
an amorous murder runs from Marquis de Sade and Romantic poets to lyrics by Iggy Pop and
Nick Cave. From Her to Eternity is a song of devotion and devastation (Reynolds 31-2).
The character is a peeper who is fascinated by a girl living in a flat above him.
Actually the lyrics are a monologue of a man who, pacing up and down in his apartment,
sees in the woman upstairs at number 29 the fulfillment of all his dreams (Dax 86). He
becomes allured by everything she does and tries to get hold of all that is associated with her
daily life: Ah read her diary on her sheets / Scrutinizin evry lil piece of dirt / Tore out a page
n stufft it inside my shirt (Cave 84). He is scared of the state she is in and listens to every
sob she makes: But ah can hear the most melancholy sound / Ah ever heard / Walk n cry!
Kneel n cry! (84-5). All he wants is to own her; nevertheless the desire to have her is
stronger than anything else. Therefore he decides to kill her because he is afraid of the
possibility of possessing her. That would mean not to crave for her anymore. The only way
out is to steal into her apartment and to take the girls life eventually:
This desire to possess her is a wound
And its naggin at me like a shrew
But ah know that to possess her
Is therefore not to desire her
O, O, O then ya know, that lil girl would just have to go!
Go! Go-o-o! From her to eternity! (85)
The affection of the songs character for the woman is another instance of depraved
emotionality. It is one of the examples of the wicked side of affection in Caves lyrics. Love
and desire here turn into lust and murder. We can notice as a result that the line between love
and hate is in reality as previously depicted thin.
Further words will be dedicated to Where the Wild Roses Grow from the Murder
Ballads, a concept album from 1996
11
. The song contains examples of murder and love
within. It became probably the comercially most famous record Nick Cave ever made. The
songs share features in common; the release is planned as a whole the indivudual tracks are
about morbidity, murder, and insane killers. Cave planned to make a concept album, not
individual hits
12
. Nevertheless the record became the best sold album of The Bad Seeds.
There are two traditionals among others Stagger Lee and Henry Lee and a cover of
Bob Dylans Death Is Not the End. Cave reached the peak of issues of violence and
sexuality with this collection; subsequently there occurred a sharp break from the era of
sexual and violent matters to the preoccupation with spirituality and pure love on The
Boatmans Call and following albums.
Where the Wild Roses Grow is a duet featuring the Australian pop star Kylie
Minogue. There are in fact six verses and a chorus which opens the song and is sung by the
woman, Elisa Day:
They call me The Wild Rose
But my name is Elisa Day
Why they call me it I do not know
For my name was Elisa Day. (Cave 242)
The chorus is followed by two verses throughout the song, each one sung either by
Minogue or Cave on their own. The record portrays three days; it is a story of a young girl
who falls in love with a stranger. Every two verses of eight lines altogether represent a day,
first sung by Cave, second by Minogue:

11
Concept albums were nothing new in rock and roll music by the time of Murder Ballads. To name some of the
preceding well known ones: Pink Floyds The Wall, David Bowies Diamond Dogs, Genesis Selling England
by the Pound, The Whos Tommy, E.L.O. s Eldorado, Jethro Tulls Aqualung etc.
12
The record was intended to kind of cut the wheat from the chaff, Cave insisted. I thought our popularity
was kind of getting a bit out of control with Let Love In. I dont want to be very popular. Basically, we tried to
make an extremely difficult record, which would turn a lot of pepole off us. We tried to make kind of like a Bob
Dylans Self Portrait But of course it didnt happen that way. (Hanson 107)
From the first day I saw her I knew she was the one
As she stared in my eyes and smiled
For her lips were the colour of the roses
That grew down the river, all bloody and wild
When he knocked on my door and entered the room
My trembling subsided in his sure embrace
He would be my first man, and with a careful hand
He wiped at the tears that ran down my face. (242)
The story follows kind of a Beauty and the Beast pattern where the girl is innocent
and young and on the other hand the man is strange, mysterious, and older than her. She
falls in love with him and lets him do anything he wants. On the second day he brings her a
rose and tells her to go to the place where the wild roses grow. The last day becomes the
climax of the song; the man reveals himself as a murderer:
On the third day he took me to the river
He showed me the roses and we kissed
And the last thing I heard was a muttered word
As he stood above me with a rock in his fist
On the last day I took her where the wild roses grow
And she lay on the bank, the wind light as a thief
As I kissed her goodbye, I said, All beauty must die
And lent down and planted a rose between her teeth. (243)
Cave shows here again the personification of good and evil in one man. Although
The Mercy Seat and From Her to Eternity that have been explored recently are different
types of songs (featuring a renegade and a peeper), they both follow a pattern of the thin line
between love and fondness on the one hand and sinister emotions on the other.
All of the three instances in this section illustrate the murder theme in love lyrics
which has been significant for Nick Cave during the 1980s and 1990s. The author
demonstrates the closeness between love and hate and life and death. The violence in the
lyrics is not purpose-built. The authors notion of desire and affection is simply intimately
near danger and destruction. That concept became one of the characteristic signs of his
writing. Cave presents passion and desire in a remarkable way, namely in relation with agony,
pain, and fury. These shocking features are in a sense central for Caves unique work
(Gray)
13
.

2.4 Sexuality and Darksome Love
Sexual attraction and to a certain extent murky side of love lyrics is another category
of Caves work. We can observe physical magnetism and personification of sexuality and
affection on some of the albums by him. I am going to look at three particular songs where the
theme of sex is apparent 1) Hard on for Love, 2) Loverman, and 3) I Let Love In.
These records with issues of sexual attraction stand on the bridge to the shift to spirituality
and rather mental emotionality in his later work of the 1990s.
The first example, Hard on for Love
14
, shows Caves ability to picture sexual desire.
The songs character is a sexually disturbed man who feels a great deal of attraction for a
female object. The piece contains also features discussed above, i.e. red colour, female
clothing, and violence. Nevertheless the sexual craving connects all of them together:
I am the fiend hid in her skirts
And its hot as hell in here
Coming at her as I am from above

13
See Louise Grays Nick Cave Being a Musician with a Passionate and Shocking Talent.
<http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JQP/is_321/ai_30301683>
14
Released on the Your Funeral My Trial album; recorded in Berlin, 1986. See Hanson pp. 64.
Hard on for love. Hard on for love. (Cave 127)
The lyrics intention goes truly straightforward towards its purpose. Besides Cave uses
the Old Testament depiction to draw the image of the woman:
Well I swear I seen that girl before
Like she walked straight outa the book of Leviticus
But they can stone me with stones I dont care
Just as long as I can get to kiss
Those Gypsy lips! Gypsy lips!
My aim is to hit this Miss. (127)
As a result the Biblical subject matter stays close to sexuality throughout the entire
song: And Im movin in (Im moving in) / Comin at her like Lazarus from above (127) and
I am his sceptre and shaft / And she is Heaven and Hell / At whose gates I aint been
delivered (127). The lyrics as a whole treat the woman as an object: Just when Im about to
get my hands on her / Her breasts rise and fall (128). Cave delivers these lyrics of lust and
desire with an outstanding vigour. Such a diction and tone overpower the later Loverman
(Hanson 65). Once again the song contains a feature of possessing a woman. Together with
the subject of sadistic pleasure is the song comparable with From Her to Eternity.
The next record comes from the publicly very well received Let Love In album
15

Loverman from 1994. Nick Cave presents once more a dangerous, lustful, and ruthless
lover for whom the woman represents just a sexual object and a centre of erotic desire.
Besides to correspond with the fierce lyrics, the band performs a sound of rock and roll and
one of the 1990s loudest Bad Seeds songs
16
. The loverman himself is portrayed as the devil
(Theres a Devil waiting outside your door / Hes weak with evil and broken by the world /

15
Recorded at Townhouse Studios in London, 1993; released in 1994; See Hanson pp. 98-9.
16
Loverman became one of the covers on the Garage Inc. album (released in 1998) by the legendary thrash-
metal band Metallica. <http://www.metallica.com/Media/Albums/albums.asp?album_id=9>
Hes shouting your name and asking for more (Cave 214)) and the song contains issues of
sexual yearning regarding the woman as an object:
Take off that dress, Im coming down
Im your Loverman
[..]
Theres a devil crawling along your floor
With a trembling heart, hes coming through your door
With his straining sex in his jumping paw
[..]
Ill be your Loverman! I got a masterplan
To take off your dress and be your man. (214-5)
Nevertheless what makes the song attractive is the narrative part between verses. The
lyrics finally reached fruition with the addition of two spoken passages in which Cave would
literally spell out the theme of the song (Johnston 298-9). Yet again the audience can
perceive the lusty, sexual subject loom ahead from each line:
L is for LOVE baby
O is for ONLY you that I do
V is for loving VIRTUALLY everything that you are
E is for loving almost EVERYTHING that you do
R is for RAPE me
M is for MURDER me
A is for ANSWERING all of my prayers
N is for KNOWING your Lovermans going to be
the answer to all of yours. (214)
The lyrics central theme lies again in sexuality and seduction and the topics of
obsession and violence (rape, murder, forced undressing, straining sex etc.). The meaning of
the song derives thus from the physical sexual matters. Its directness is very similar to
Hard on for Love, namely in the bodily attraction. Although they were both written at
different times they follow the same pattern of a woman as an object.
I Let Love In is in fact almost the title track from the Let Love In album. The song
has two main similarities with the ones discussed above in this part of the chapter. Namely
1) its dark feeling associated with love and sexuality and 2) one person as an object of
physical interest. There is nevertheless a different view for the reason that the object is not a
woman but a man. That does not change its purpose. Cave presents three siblings: Love,
Despair, and Deception.
Despair and Deception, Loves ugly little twins
Came a-knocking on my door, I let them in
Darling, youre the punishment for all my former sins
I let love in
[..]
Well, Ive been bound and gagged and Ive been terrorized
And Ive been castrated and Ive been lobotomized
But never has my tormentor come in such a cunning disguise
I let love in
[..]
So if youre sitting all alone and hear a knocking at your door
And the air is full of promises, well buddy, youve been
warned
Far worse to be Loves lover than the lover that Love has
scorned
I let love in. (Cave 221)
Caves lyrics show here that one may not be aware of the dangers of love. The
metaphorical issue points out that love may have different faces. The character first did not
recognize the diverse sides of love which may have a pleasant face and a sinister one. It is
probably no surprise that for him the punishment was a physical one, namely regarding the
sexual matter castration, although it is meant metaphorically. The bodily interest remains a
key element which is common for the three featured songs. The fact that the object is a man
becomes thus the only distinction.
The second chapter was dealing with violence and sexual attraction in Nick Caves
work. There are two main points that the issues have all in common: 1) depraved emotions of
the characters and 2) a thin line between good and evil. Two main stages of Caves career
stand out regarding both categories: specifically, first prior to The Good Son and second from
this album to Murder Ballads. The topics of love and murder, love and sexuality appear in
both periods; however, since The Good Son emerge more romantic ballads on female beauty
and love. Subsequently sexuality and subjects of violence and murder did not disappear from
the lyrics; its extent has become nevertheless smaller. When regarding love in the production
of Nick Cave of the 1980s one has to trace it in relation with the darksome issues discussed in
this chapter. The poetic issues that have started to appear in a greater extent in the early 1990s
have initiated the shift from sexuality to spirituality in the songs by Cave. As a result then, the
author has not changed his constant preoccupation but altered his approach towards it by
viewing love from a different perspective, probably from a more milder one the shocking
features of murder and violence simply disappeared and were replaced by images of pure
emotionality. The last chapter will deal with spiritual topics in love songs during a third era
after Murder Ballads that provided the climax of the sexual and violent lyrics.
3. Spiritual Love Lyrics
3.1 Introduction
The last part of the thesis will discuss the spiritual, romantic, and emotional issues of
Nick Caves love songs. The first aim of this chapter is to describe the main elements that
represented the shift from the earlier work to such a sort of love lyrics that had predominantly
appeared since the recording and working on The Boatmans Call album, released in 1997.
This collection presented not just a different approach to music with the piano as the lead
musical instrument; it had to offer a reaction to the last two records Murder Ballads and Let
Love In which brought Cave and the Bad Seeds a remarkable commercial success. The
chapters second target is to confront the spiritual love lyrics to the preceding ones and to find
reasons for that change.
There are four sections in the third chapter apart from the introduction. The first one
will illustrate Nick Caves own opinions on love songs, namely its characteristics and its
uniqueness. Each one of the following divisions then will discuss particular albums. Presently,
chronological order will be followed. The first part will be dealing with The Boatmans Call,
the second one with No More Shall We Part, and the last one with Nocturama. The aim of this
specific division is to trace the process of songwriting after the shift to spirituality in a
compact way; I will attempt to analyse the development of specific patterns that characterised
each release. As a result, regarding Caves lyrics on these three records, the last part of the
thesis will be dealing with the work published from 1997 to 2003 when Nocturama was
released.

3.2 Nick Caves Love Song
Although the subject of faith in relation to love has always been a key element that
flows through a great number of songs by Nick Cave, its importance has become increasingly
essential since the second half of the 1990s. Let us present a number of Caves thoughts on
the love song and its relation to faith.
Nick Cave is dealing with the love song throughout his whole career. An explanation
for that occupation may be given on the release of a two-lecture-CD with an address The
Secret Life of the Love Song
17
. The record has been originally presented in 1999 as a lecture,
delivered at the South Bank Centre in London. Cave in the role of a teacher introduces
theories of writing love songs. He acknowledges that his artistic life has been centred on the
need to articulate feelings of loss and longing that have occurred in his personal life. He
claims that a majority of his two hundred songs are considered to be love songs. Consequently
regarding popular music, love does not contain only the clich of holding hands and
happiness. What is more important is that Cave tries to follow artistic methods and creativity
by writing lyrics: Here our creative impulses lie in ambush at the side of our lives ready to
leap forth and kick holes in it holes through which inspiration can rise. Hence Caves
motivation for writing love lyrics derives from the need to express notions via songs whose
central theme is love as the argument for creativity.
Spiritual matters and addressing God become key elements of his love song-writing.
God and Jesus Christ are on the same level as love itself. The spirituality and Christian
imagery have been incorporated into lyrics since the Berlin years and later intensified as
concepts of the love songs in the 1990s. Writing allowed me direct access to my imagination,
to inspiration and, ultimately, to God. I found that through the use of language I was writing
God into existence. [...] The actualizing of God through the medium of the Love Song
remains my prime motivation as an artist. Therefore it proves that the issue of faith stays in
relation to love throughout a major part of his career: let us name for instance two love songs
a) Bless His Ever Loving Heart and b) There Is a Kingdom where the author directly

17
The original title of the record is The Secret Life of the Love Song. The Flesh Made Word: Two Lectures by
Nick Cave; the album was released in 2000. For details see <http://www.nick-cave.com>.
actualizes Gods presence: ad a) Bless his ever loving heart / Only He knows who you are
(Cave 335), and ad b) There is a king / And He lives without / And He lives within (271).
Let us carry on with the mood of the love songs; Nick Cave defines the ambience
which marks the feeling of individual records that are to a certain extent dark, sinister, and
gloomy no matter at what time he wrote them. That has to do with his attitude towards the
lyrics:
I believe the Love Song to be a sad song. It is the noise of sorrow itself. [...] Those
songs that speak of love, without having within their lines an ache or a sigh, are not
Love Songs at all, but rather Hate Songs disguised as Love Songs and are not to be
trusted. These songs deny us our human-ness and our God-given right to be sad, and
the airwaves are littered with them.
According to the theory that a love song has to be sad, there may be no doubt why all
the violence, sadness, despair, and painful longing occurs in the work; it has to be depressing
in some way. Regarding the lyrics mood, there are two main terms for Cave: saudade and
duende. As the author explains both of them have to be the core of a real Love Song.
We all experience within us what the Portuguese call saudade, which translates as an
inexplicable longing, an unnamed and enigmatic yearning of the soul, and it is this feeling that
lives in the realms of imagination and inspiration and is the breeding ground for the sad song,
for the Love Song. The latter term duende (which comes from Spanish and has been
originally described in a lecture by Federico Garca Lorca) Cave explains as an inexplicable
sadness.
All things considered, Cave does explicitly express the development of the love song-
writing which has to imply sorrowful characteristics and has to contain spiritual issues,
namely God and faith. These were also indiscerptible elements of his earlier songs (The
Mercy Seat, Hard on for Love, etc.). Nevertheless the shift only confirms the claim that
Cave did not change the key subject of his writing but regards love from a different point of
view, which is a more moderate one the unexlicable longing and sadness seem to be the
crucial features of his songs. They have appeared in the past already and both remain in more
recent lyrics. The characters of From Her to Eternity and Loverman are driven by sexual
desires and later, songs like Brompton Oratory and And No More Shall We Part are
remarkable for its unique professions of love. In other words Nick Caves writing changed in
its form but the actual subject matter the longing for love still continues to occur. The
following sections will throw more light on particular albums.

3.3 The Boatmans Call
The album was released in 1997 and became a sharp break in Caves writing. After an
era which mingled romantic ballads with songs of violence and murder came a completely
new age of pure expression of love and spirituality. The first step towards that shift began
with The Good Sons Foi na Cruz and the process of change was completed with the tracks
on The Boatmans Call. I am going to discuss three songs in particular: 1) Into My Arms,
2) Lime Tree Arbour, and 3) Brompton Oratory. I would like to point out what they have
in common and why they represent the whole collection as a marking point of Caves work.
The lyrics are full of sadness and unfullfilled love. They are according to Cave
perfect examples of love songs. The author was inspired by authentic events from his personal
life
18
. The Christian motives are apparent in a number of them. First, let us look upon Into
My Arms. The author confronts his ideas with his beloved ones, namely on faith:
I dont believe in an interventionist God
But I know, darling that you do

18
Dax claims that the singer had looked within himself and now started to regard the world and his relationship
to women in a more introspective way (149) and Gray maintains that the album is an intensly moving account
of the collapse of his relationship with singer PJ Harvey. See Grays Nick Cave Being a Musician with a
Passionate and Shocking talent.
<http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JQP/is_321/ai_30301683>
But if I did I would kneel down and ask Him
Not to intervene when it came to you
[..]
And if he felt He had to direct you
Then direct you into my arms. (Cave 265)
Cave continues and compares the woman with an angel (And I dont believe in the
existence of angels / But looking at you I wonder if thats true (265)). The brutality of the
earlier lyrics has vanished and now a completely new approach is present tenderness, care,
and senistivity. The message of the song lies in the final verse:
But I believe in Love
And I know darling that you do too
And I believe in some kind of path
That we can walk down me and you. (265)
Cave expresses his belief in love. It is very interesting because in the previous verses
he claims he had not trusted in angels or an interventionist God in contrast to his beloved
woman. When we compare the earlier lyrics to Into My Arms, we can watch the main
change in considering the woman not as an object. Hence the approach is different but the
message of love stays actually the same.
Another song from the album is Lime-Tree Arbour. There is a noticable feature of a
protective hand which can in fact belong to a woman or to God (or to both of them).
According to Hanson, one of his loveliest compositions (127) is quite short only four
verses and a chorus. I will display two verses and the chorus:
The wind in the trees is whispering
Whispering low that I love her
She puts her hand over mine
Down in the lime-tree arbour. (Cave 267)
Actually these lines may not contain anything extraordinary; however the image of the
hand goes through the whole song; for instance in another verse:
There will always be suffering
It flows through life like water
I put my hand over hers
Down in the lime-tree arbour. (267)
Finally, the chorus (which finishes the record) restates the lyrics meaning once again:
Through every word that I speak
And every thing I know
There is a hand that protects me
And I do love her so. (267)
The chorus opens a question whether the protecting hand belongs to God or to a
woman. Nevertheless the lyrics show that the spiritual imagery is again very close to the
professions of love just as in Into My Arms. Both songs message of love comes along with
the final lines. The concept of the album is constant the beloved person and God appear in
the lyrics. Caves theory of duende is as well continual since the sorrow is present.
Finally, the last piece from The Boatmans Call I would like to discuss is Brompton
Oratory. The song, just as the previous ones in this section, has a reverential mood according
to the text and the singers civil performance. At this point Nick Cave praises
womans beauty:
And I wish that I was made of stone
So that I would not have to see
A beauty impossible to define
A beauty impossible to believe
[..]
No God up in the sky
No Devil beneath the sea
Could do the job that you did
Of bringing me to my knees. (Cave 270)
The power of womans love and beauty and its relation with God is present in these
lyrics again. That concept is very close to the image of a woman and an interventionist God of
Into My Arms and the protecting hand of Lime-Tree Arbour. Actually, Cave combines
the earthly and heavenly power on The Boatmans Call with a poetic art. Gray describes the
intention of the last four lines of Brompton Oratory as a facility with which he moves
between sacred and secular
19
.
The Christian and Biblical imagery has appeared for the first time already in the
1980s; however, on this album Cave shifted to the New Testament completely. It is necessary
to mention that the entire spiritual imagery is in relation to love and adoration. The songs have
a pure emotionality towards a woman (not a female object!) and God in common. That
albums mood has been something completely different in comparison to Caves earlier work.
Namely, there is no sign of any violence, abjection, sadistic pleasure, male power etc. The
process of the shift from sexuality to spirituality has begun during the So Paulo years and as
a whole was finished in 1997. The form has changed but the preoccupation with love has
remained. Hence The Boatmans Call has marked a new stage of his career.

3.4 No More Shall We Part
The album followed the preceding one after four years; that is in 2001. Let us explore
the mood of the lyrics and point out what has been new after the breaking point of The

19
See Louise Grays Nick Cave Being a Musician with a Passionate and Shocking Talent.
<http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JQP/is_321/ai_30301683>
Boatmans Call and which patterns have remained. I will ilustrate the release with two songs:
1) And No More Shall We Part and 2) Love Letter.
If the previous album has been a break-up record, No More Shall We Part has to be
described as a wedding one. Whereas the earlier set cast Cave as the budding or spurned
lover, this was very much his Wedding Album, with the celebratory tone of that description
marred only by Caves apparent reaction to marriage (Hanson 130). However it does not
mean that the individual pieces are somewhat happier. The duende and saudade is again
omnipresent. Nick Cave is weaving the essence of Leonard Cohen on the album. The songs
flow as a pure poetry just as in the work of the Canadian poet/singer Cohen (Hanson 130)
20
.
The title of the song And No More Shall We Part reveals that the track is dealing
with the topic of union (marriage, at this point). Actually Cave married model Susie Bick and
settled in England (Hanson 127). Hence the song (and the whole album) corresponds with
reality in its essence:
No more will I say, dear heart
I am alone and she has left me
And no more shall we part
The contracts are drawn up, the ring is locked upon the finger
[..]
All the hatchets have been buried now
And the birds will sing to your beautiful heart
[..]
And no more shall we part
Your chain of commands has been silenced now. (Cave 305)

20
There are more similarities between Cave and Cohen. Although we can find a number of break-up records for
instance, let us name The Songs of Leonard Cohen from 1967, a famous album containing the topic of breaking-
up (see Nadel, pp. 86-8).
There are a number of marriage symbols in the lyrics. By some means the singer
makes comments on the actual state of being, which in fact is a kind of putting up with the
reality that has its authentic grounds in Nick Caves life. The author follows a style of a calm
melancholic delivery just as on The Boatmans Call. Whereas the previous title record was
dealing with separation of lovers, the actual tracks occupation is based upon a union before
God. Such a claim only confirms that actual features from Caves life have changed his
artistic approach and shifted the lyrics towards romantic and spiritual side.
The song Love Letter
21
is not actually a love letter but rather contemplation about
writing it. The musical characteristics consistently follows a fairly calmer production with the
pianos accompaniment. The initial verse:
I hold this letter in my hand
A plea, a petition, a kind of prayer
I hope it does as I have planned
Losing her again is more than I can bear
I kiss the cold white envelope
I press my lips against her name
Two hundred words. We live in hope
The sky hangs heavy with rain. (Cave 309)
The author stays within the subject of pure professions of love and emotionality. The
difference to the three discussed songs from The Boatmans Call is above all no reference to
God, who is replaced by the natures elements (i.e. rain, wind, and storm). At this moment
Nick Caves maturity seems to have a major effect on his writing. Whereas formerly the
singers delivery and lyrics were often wild (e.g. Loverman), now mostly calm, mild lyrics
are the core of his love songs. This is Nick Cave as a poet, not only as a songwriter.

21
Cave makes comments on love letters in The Secret Life of the Love Song. He compares them with love
songs. The singer claims that both hold within them a permanence and power that the spoken word does not.
The No More Shall We Part collection put forward Nick Caves love songwriting. The
matter of God and faith remained key aspects of the lyrics. The theme of spirituality and pure
expression of love and beauty developed also in accordance with the music. Previous records
before the shift were mostly unthinkable without an electric guitar; however, piano has later
frequently become a solo instrument. The mood as a whole regards Caves theory of duende
and saudade; the songs continue to be grieving, nevertheless with a sense of equanimity.
The singers marriage proved to have its effects.

3.5 Nocturama
The album completes a triptych of the records after the change in songwriting.
Although the previous two releases were mostly praised by critics, this collection was not
received very well by the press
22
. Let us present the whole title initially with two love songs
representing Nocturama namely 1) Wonderful Life and 2) Still in Love.
In contrast to the mood of the two preceding records which were distinguished by a
gentle voice and a rather calm musical accompaniment, Nocturama provided two faces: songs
coming back to Nick Caves punk-rock roots (e.g. Bring it On, Dead Man in My Bed, and
Babe, Im on Fire) and melancholic pieces that followed the path of The Boatmans Call
and No More Shall We Part. That was an interesting mixture, generally speaking.
I will discuss the albums soother side and try to find the points characteristic for the
balladical era of the second half of the 1990s. Wonderful Life is the opening track of the
whole album. The song contains a typical feature of the last recordings the singer openly
addresses his beloved one:
Come in, babe
Across these purple fields

22
All Music Guide considered Nocturama Caves worst record title ever. See Hanson pp. 139.
The sun sunk behind you
Across these purple fields
[..]
There will be nothing between us, baby
But the air that we breathe. (Cave, Nocturama Booklet 3)
The lyrics show their emotional side which is fairly characteristic for Caves later
style. There is once more no sign of anything close to the picture of physical expression of
love in his earlier work; the authors poetic, emotional, and sorrowful spirit prevails.
Subsequently, the elements of nature seem to replace God Plunge your hands into the
water / And drown it into sea (3) but the melancholic and sad mood remains. However the
chorus leads to the titles optimistic message: Its a wonderful life that you bring / Its a
wonderful, wonderful, wonderful thing (4).
The title of the song Still in Love is characteristic for Nocturama. To put it in a
different way Cave is always preoccupied with love in his lyrics. The chorus symbolizes on
the one hand his whole work the topic of love and on the other his changing approach to
emotionality and senitive songs. Cave addresses his beloved one again:
And I say to the sleepy summer rain
With a complete absence of pain
You might think Im crazy
But Im still in love with you. (Cave, Nocturama Booklet 10)
Still in Love just as the whole Nocturama album does not contain such a strong
spiritual imagery as lyrics on The Boatmans Call for instance. Nevertheless the individual
songs remain in the spirit of the last recordings represented here by Wonderful Life and
Still in Love. The relationship between a man and a woman tends to be the core of the love
songs, thus in this way in accordance with the last three record titles.
The last chapter was dealing with two main elements of Nick Caves production of the
late 1990s and early 2000s; i.e. emotionality and spirituality. Both of them marked the
authors writing as the major features of the later work. Let us confront the earlier work:
mostly violent, sexual, and sinister subject matter dominated his former songwriting with The
Birthday Party and The Bad Seeds; since the early 1990s these themes have not disappeared
but accompanied the emotional and spiritual face of Caves lyrics. The Boatmans Call
brought the final variation; the preoccupation with the poetic form outweighed the past
approaches the songs discussed above (e.g. Into My Arms, Brompton Oratory, Love
Letter, Wonderful Life etc.) have no sense of any shocking features like murder and
sadism. Cave has changed his approach. However he has remained exclusively an author of
love songs. Consequently the shift from sexuality to pure love can be illustrated as a process.
Just as other artists, Nick Cave and his songs have undergone a change. The meaning of his
lyrics depends mostly on individual interpretation. In fact, it does not matter whether we
regard the Australian bard as a poetic singer or a singing poet.











Conclusion

Nick Caves recent lyrics are different in comparison to the early work with The
Birthday Party and The Bad Seeds. The distinction lies utterly in the form and approach the
topic of love has not disappeared. Consequently the particular shift has replaced depraved
sexuality, violence, sadistic pleasure, and murder by fondness, emotionality, faith, God, and
celebration of love in life. Caves writing has developed in accordance with his professional
and personal life. The cultural surroundings have always had a dominant effect on his lyrics.
The punk-rock era has ignited the rebel in Nick Cave. His rebel-style was later developed in
relation with the blues legacy in Berlin. Brazils anonymity made the author calmer again.
Specifically maturity and family relationship have brought new insights to his writing.
Break-ups and marriage for instance have shown the autobiographical features in his work.
The love lyrics have always been at the centre of his interest; therefore the shaping from a
representative of the post-punk era to a respected author and songwriter has formed individual
records. The shift from sexuality to spirituality has occurred as a process in relation with Nick
Caves life.
What tendencies does the Australian singer follow? Nick Cave has developed into a
poet, just as his teachers Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen who represent the older generation.
He traces their tradition of songwriters, poets, and narrators. The real literary ambitions go
hand in hand with Caves lyrics. In general he has led a life of an individualistic person of
popular music whose work should stand over the mediocre ones. Just like the rebel in his
lyrics, Cave has always stood outside the world of conventions and mainstream. His
exceptional work with love lyrics at its centre has had an effect on other artists production
(e.g. Johnny Cash). Such appreciation along with popularity among his fans has always
been more important for him than any competition. Nowadays, among popular musicians,
Nick Cave is a unique artist who might be regarded in the future as an icon just as Dylan,
Cash, and Cohen. Caves work is outstanding and matches their genius with his love songs.
Let us conclude with a quotation from a letter that Cave sent in 1996 to MTV as a reaction to
a nomination for the Best Male Artist. My music is unique and individual and exists
beyond the realms inhabited by those who would reduce things to mere measuring. [] My
muse is not a horse and I am in no horse race and if indeed she was, still I would not harness
her to this tumbrel (Nick-cave.com).
























Bibliography

Books
Cave, Nick. And the Ass Saw the Angel. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2001.
---, King Ink. Los Angeles: 2. 13. 61 Publications, 2001.
---, King Ink II. Los Angeles: 2. 13. 61 Publications, 1997.
---, The Complete Lyrics 1978 2001. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2001.
Dax, Maximilian. The Life and Music of Nick Cave. Berlin: Die Gestalten Verlag, 1999.
Gladwell, Adele Olivia. Bridal Gown Shroud: Fiction and Essays. London: Creation Books,
1992.
Hanson, Amy. Kicking against the Pricks: An Armchair Guide to Nick Cave. London: Helter
Skelter Publishing, 2005.
Johnston, Ian. Bad Seed. London: Little, Brown and Company, 1995.
Nadel, Ira B. Leonard Cohen. A Life in Art. Toronto: ECW Press, 1994.
Walker, Clinton. Inner City Sound: Punk and Post-Punk in Australia, 1976-85. Portland:
Verse Chorus Press, 2005.

Articles and Essays
Bartlett, Thomas. The Resurrection of Nick Cave. Salon. 18 Nov. 2004. 13 Nov. 2006
<http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/feature/2004/11/18/cave/index.html>.
Cave, Nick. The Secret Life of the Love Song. The Secret Life of the Love Song. The Flesh
Made Word: Two Lectures by Nick Cave. King Mob, 2000.
Gray, Louise. Nick Cave Being a Musician with a Passionate and Shocking Talent. New
Internationalist. 1 Mar. 2000. 15 Nov. 2006
<http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JQP/is_321/ai_30301683>.
Nashawaty, Chris. The Baddest Seed. Entertainment Weekly 19 May 2006: 47.
Reynolds, Simon. Flirting with the Void: Abjection in Rock. The Sex Revolts: Gender,
Rebellion and Rock and Roll. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.
---, Shes Hit: Songs of Fear and Loathing. The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock
and Roll. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.
Sturges, Fiona. Wild Rose. Independent. 4 Sep. 2004. 18 Dec. 2006
<http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20040904/ai_n12807494>.

Albums
Bowie, David. Diamond Dogs. RCA Records, 1974.
Cash, Johnny. At Folsom Prison. Columbia Records, 1968.
Cave, Nick. The Secret Life of the Love Song. The Flesh Made Word: Two Lectures by Nick
Cave. King Mob, 1999.
Cave, Nick and the Bad Seeds. From Her to Eternity. Mute Records, 1984.
---, Henrys Dream. Mute Records, 1992.
---, Kicking against the Pricks. Mute Records, 1986.
---, Let Love In. Mute Records, 1994.
---, Murder Ballads. Mute Records, 1996.
---, Nocturama. Mute Records, 2003.
---, No More Shall We Part. Mute Records, 2001.
---, Tender Prey. Mute Records, 1988.
---, The Boatmans Call. Mute Records, 1997.
---, The Firstborn Is Dead. Mute Records, 1985.
---, The Good Son. Mute Records, 1990.
---, Your Funeral My Trial. Mute Records, 1986.
Cohen, Leonard. Songs of Leonard Cohen. Columbia Records, 1967.
Dylan, Bob. Self Portrait. Columbia Records, 1970.
E.L.O. Eldorado. Warner Bros. Records, 1974.
Genesis. Selling England by the Pound. Charisma Records, 1973.
Jethro Tull. Aqualung. Reprise Records, 1971.
Metallica. Garage Inc.. Elektra Records, 1998.
Pink Floyd. The Wall. Harvest Records, 1979.
The Birthday Party. Mutiny!. Mute Records, 1983.
---, Prayers on Fire. 4AD, 1981.
---, The Bad Seed. 4AD, 1983.
The Who. Tommy. Polydor Records, 1969.

Songs
Cave, Nick. And No More Shall We Part. No More Shall We Part. Mute Records, 2001
---, Babe, Im on Fire. Nocturama. Mute Records, 2003.
---, Bless His Ever Loving Heart. B-Sides and Rarities. Mute Records, 2005.
---, Bring it On. Nocturama. Mute Records, 2003.
---, Brompton Oratory. The Boatmans Call. Mute Records, 1997.
---, Dead Man in My Bed. Nocturama. Mute Records, 2003.
---, Foi na Cruz. The Good Son. Mute Records, 1990
---, From Her to Eternity. From Her to Eternity. Mute Records, 1984.
---, Hard on for Love. Your Funeral My Trial. Mute Records, 1986.
---, Henry Lee. Murder Ballads. Mute Records, 1996.
---, I Let Love In. Let Love In. Mute Records, 1994.
---, Into My Arms. The Boatmans Call. Mute Records, 1997.
---, Kewpie Doll. Junkyard. 4AD, 1982.
---, Lament. The Good Son. Mute Records, 1990
---, Lime-Tree Arbour. The Boatmans Call. Mute Records, 1997.
---, Love Letter. No More Shall We Part. Mute Records, 2001
---, Loverman. Let Love In. Mute Records, 1994.
---, Shes Hit. Junkyard. 4AD, 1982.
---, Stagger Lee. Murder Ballads. Mute Records, 1996.
---, Still in Love. Nocturama. Mute Records, 2003.
---, Swampland. Mutiny!. Mute Records, 1983.
---, The Mercy Seat. Tender Prey. Mute Records, 1988
---, There is a Kingdom. The Boatmans Call. Mute Records, 1997.
---, The Ship Song. Henrys Dream. Mute Records, 1992
---, The Weeping Song. The Good Son. Mute Records, 1990
---, Where the Wild Roses Grow. Murder Ballads. Mute Records, 1996.
---, Wild World. The Bad Seed. 4AD, 1983.
---, Wonderful Life. Nocturama. Mute Records, 2003.
---, Zoo-Music Girl. Prayers on Fire. 4AD, 1981.
Cave, Nick and Bob Dylan. Wanted Man. The Firstborn Is Dead. Mute Records, 1985.
Cave, Nick and Johnny Cash. The Singer. Kicking against the Pricks. Mute Records, 1986.
Dylan, Bob. Death is not the End. Down in the Groove. Columbia Records, 1988.
Lydon, John. Bodies. Nevermind the Bollocks. Virgin Records, 1977.
---, Submission. Nevermind the Bollocks. Virgin Records, 1977.
Pop, Iggy. I Wanna Be Your Dog. The Stooges. Elektra Records, 1969.

Booklets
Cave, Nick and the Bad Seeds. Booklet. Nocturama. Mute Records, 2003.
Films
Wings of Desire. Screenplay by Richard Reitinger. Dir. Wim Wenders. Perf. Bruno Ganz,
Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander, Peter Falk, and Nick Cave. Road Movies
Filmproduktion, 1987.

Internet
Metallica.com. Ed. Jeff Yeager. 2007. Metallica.com. 6 Mar. 2007.
<http://www.metallica.com>.
Nick Cave Online HOME. 10 Mar. 2007. 1998-2007 Nick Cave Online. 20 Mar. 2007.
<http://www.nick-cave.com>.
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Mar. 2007. Internet Movie Database Inc. 15 Mar. 2007.
<http://www.imdb.com>.





















Appendix

Compact Disc
Track List:
1. Zoo-Music Girl
2. Swampland
3. Wild World
4. Foi na Cruz
5. Kewpie Doll
6. From Her to Eternity
7. The Mercy Seat
8. Where the Wild Roses Grow
9. Hard on for Love
























10. Loverman
11. I Let Love In
12. Into My Arms
13. Lime-Tree Arbour
14. Brompton Oratory
15. And No More Shall We Part
16. Love Letter
17. Wonderful Life
18. Still in Love

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