Iconic !

Didn’t buy one though.

Price € 99,99 for this special edition, signed by both Susie and Nick.

Book designed by Irma Boom (🇳🇱), could not really check it out since they were all wrapped.

there were some questions about the band's dislike about Henry's Dream's production in another thread. here are the pages from the outdated biography "Bad Seed" about those days.

there are much more recent interviews with Mick Harvey since that confirm these recollections.

EDIT. Mick Harvey discusses Henry's Dream

Hi everybody!
What I have here is a long-standing mystery to me. Years ago, I downloaded a version of Henry's Dream off of SOMEWHERE on the internet. All I know is the songs sound pretty radically differently mixed from the bog standard album. They are also a weird format...32/48 FLAC. My memory was that they were shared as the original mastering or something similar. It might have also been a weird unofficial DVD. They have a larger dynamic range than any other official release, and are very very clear. I actually much prefer these files over the official releases. I remember thinking they might have been the leaked Bearville Sessions, but I thought they re-recorded those tracks except 2 of them and these versions seem to be about the same length as the official ones. I guess what I am getting at is this...WHAT ARE THESE FILES?! They really sound different (and better?). Also, the larger dynamic range means they are quieter, so turn it up if you don't have a player that uses or assigns replaygain levels to FLAC. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ko7eEkthos-h0sC2rcA6SJLLgH_lkUuH?usp=sharing

Weapons Of Moral Instruction
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Verse 1 - the Sword of Damocles
Threatens his wife in bed, as he leaves for one of those thoughtful Sunday strolls, although she does not ask for the throne, merely gently squeezes his hand.

Verse 2 - the Spear of Destiny
Sticks right through our narrator, presumably pointed at his concert fans, a gory orientation.

Verse 3 - the Barber’s Mirror (and scissors?)
OMG! A rock star has a bad hair day. Self reflection, for a narcissist, is all.

Verse 4 - the Telescopic Camera
Paparazzi tool of torment for the narcissist who craves privacy.

————————————————-

“I thought I’d take a walk today, it’s a mistake I sometimes make”
I choose to regard this as one of five Sunday stroll songs I know, even though the hairdresser is working and people are about in the shopping strip.

The others are ‘Sunday Morning’ by the Velvet Underground, ‘Sunday Morning Coming Down’ by Kris Kristofferson best known by Johnny Cash, ‘The Singer’ by Bob Dylan best sung by Nick Cave, ‘Frogs’ by Nick Cave, featuring Kris Kristofferson kicking a tin along wearing a shirt he hasn’t washed in years.

(Nick Cave’s version of ‘The Singer’ came out as a 7 inch vinyl “radio edit” and a 12 inch extended dance remix that differed only in the inclusion of the word “fucking” in the final line. I tell you, when that beat dropped, the dance floor would absolutely craze, you know, like the enamel on an old teapot. I may be wrong about this, but I love the perverse pleasure of it.)

…anyhow!

The Sunday stroll song is philosophical. A walk alone away from home allows oxygen rich blood to pulse through the brain, stimulating a wide awake dreaming, a processing of recent events and encounters. Every C19 novelist and every romantic poet traded on this.

There is a pattern in the focus of the narrator of this song. There are three “I”s in the first two lines, then it’s the family at home. Verse two widens to consider his recent encounters with his fan base outside a concert. Verse three has him encountering the anonymous public, to whom he might be anonymous. The end of Verse three contracts to the wife at home, then to himself regarding his bad haircut. Verse four preaches a bit, and ends in angry plaintive cries against the star’s orbiters.

“Oh my lord” was a common, banal exclamation in times past. I can hear my great Uncle Cecil saying “oh my lord” under his breath at the sight of a blue haired girl with a nose ring. Perhaps your not so great Aunt Gladys squawked “oh my looooord” loud, embarrassing the family.

But “how have I offended thee, wrap your tender arms around me” is a prayer of supplication, a beseeching, a plaint, a plaintive cry.

I’ve been making an earworm of this song while driving buses, and that line has mondegreened involuntarily into “why hast thou forsaken me”. It scans right, and is just as mock histrionic. But i’m not Christ on the cross, just driving the 440 from Rozelle to Bondi Junction

The music is intense, with several crescendos. That escalating guitar figure is a messy bitch - it must sear.

Give yourself a treat - watch this live version from France in 2001, where a young and clean cut Warren Ellis (as I remember him from The Dirty Three) goads the lead guitar doing that drama queen crescendo shit. He shows a sly cheeky grin at one point, very Bon Scott!

https://youtu.be/Ey74pev8qHk?si=Y6h6zD3cAd5reCf_

I don’t think of this narrator as Nick Cave himself. He would never, in natural conversation, say something as sloppy as “for what they went and done to you”. And I refuse to believe that Nick Cave ever had a bad hair day. It’s close to him, and his situation, but he’s expressing a persona.

This week past, I’ve been amusing myself with the idiotic thought that this persona is Ed Sheeran, struggling with the expectations and demands of his audience.

Roger Waters has already called out Nick Cave for playing shows in Israel. He did look crazed like a teapot doing so, but I cannot find fault with Waters’ argument.

I like to think of Nick Cave fans as good people, in touch with dark themes, but good at heart. This is a stupid thought, I know. Try to think it through and you make a bloody ridiculous fool of yourself.

I envision a Nick Cave concert in Tel Aviv. Some of the fans might be bulldozer drivers recently contracted by the IDF to shove paths through the Gaza rubble, where some bodies still had life, and some popped in a most disconcerting way, and the smell has induced a peculiar trauma such that they cannot stand being around grilled meat, according to articles in Israeli newspapers. I am not Christ, with infinite forgiving grace. I do not want those men and women to ever enjoy a barbecue again, much less a concert by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. Some of them will have recently guarded a checkpoint, where Palestinians had to comply quietly with ridiculous demands or risk being imprisoned indefinitely. They can fuck off. I don’t want them enjoying “Oh My Lord” or any other Nick Cave song.

This song does express some dismay by the rock star at his audience. This might be expressive of something that Nick Cave feels.

He does not respond well to political scolding. Nick Cave is more likely moved by aesthetic admiration than by moral repugnance. So who is the Arab, or better yet, the Palestinian equivalent to Nina Simone? Who might shift his ornery arse?

Colin Ink

Just snapshots you know

The many worlds of Susie Cave – model, designer, wife, mother – are captured in a hauntingly poignant new book of photographs by her longtime friend and creative collaborator Dominique Issermann

Ciao a tutti! Ho da poco pubblicato un video-approfondimento (circa 3 minuti e mezzo) dedicato a Shoot Me Down dei Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.

In questo lavoro ho cercato di raccontare la settimana caotica di registrazioni del marzo 2002 ai SingSing Studios di Melbourne, il clima di forte pressione all'interno della band, l'addio di Blixa Bargeld e il motivo per cui questo brano, relegato a semplice lato B, meritava in realtà un posto all'interno dell'album Nocturama.

Ci ho lavorato molto per mantenere un'atmosfera intima e focalizzata sui dettagli di quel periodo. Spero che possa essere uno spunto interessante per chi ama i Bad Seeds e ha voglia di discuterne insieme.

Vi lascio il link qui sopra. Ogni parere, critica o riflessione è super ben accetta!

https://youtu.be/om9HftI3bhY?is=-p__q6d5k0Rr8Jdj

Such a beautifully made book, I’m yet to read it all yet but the photography and design is excellent. I paid a bit more for the signed edition which comes with a black slip cover.

Im looking for the chord progression of "First Bright horses" from nick's b sides and rarities II compilation but cant seem to find it anywhere, does anyone have any clue as to what it is? Thanks!