Hello again and welcome to my third blog. Today I'm going to start the beginning of my 50 greatest Nick Cave songs. I saw Uncut magazine just the other day with their top 30 tracks which was very predicable and even boring at times so I didn't buy it but maybe will later on. Off-course the number one song was The Mercy Seat and number two is Into My Arms which does seem right I guess. An interesting thing is both songs where written at different times but he was in rehab. It just makes you want to get him addicted to drugs and booze again just you can throw him into rehab and get another truly great song out of it (that's a joke).
Grinderman's new song Heathen Child even made it into uncut's top 30 which I have to say it's not that good. So for the above reason and few others I'm going to do my own. It's going to be fifty tracks too, sorry but I couldn't cut it down to just thirty. Also I've not included anything from The Best of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds because I've heard all these songs hundreds of times and that would be a good place to start but this blog is kind-off for where to go next. It's going to be alternative, or different kind-off greatest songs. I never really liked the hit singles anyway of course these are my choice, so you whoever you are, reading this might disagree but this is my blog and nothing stopping you doing the same or just commenting below. I'm going to break them into the next few or more blogs because I'm going to write a little about each song like with the reason why or just a bit about it. Writing out a big list would be a bit boring and this is supposed to keep me writing.
50. The Boys Next Door - Sex Crimes
To start with is one of those totally forgotten, or was it ever remembered in the first place? But it was his earliest song to be recorded, it was rejected by the time of their debut album but really this could be a Grinderman song if you know what I mean. Sex Crimes is a 1978 demo on this double CD Inner City Sound which seems now to be deleted. Also included on this is Rowland S. Howard's first band Young Charlatans original previously unreleased Shivers, plus 45 other early Aussie punk songs, so it's worth trying to find a copy of it.
Find it on: Inner City Sound: Australian Punk & Post-Punk (Compilation) 2005
49. Nick Cave - Shine On Me
I going to included three covers at this point before I really get going. Cave has a long list of songs he's reworked to make his own but these can't be higher because they're just covers. I only got three more cover songs after these too cause he's such a prolific songwriter there is no reason to have anymore so these half a dozen are my all time favorites. The first is the oldest song going all the way back to 1930 originally on Harry Smith's Anthology Of American Folk Music and preformed by Ernest Phipps and His Holiness Singers. Cave's version was recorded at his Meltdown Festival in 1999 but not released until mid-2000's.
Find it on: The Harry Smith Project: Anthology Of American Folk Music Revisited (Box-set) 2006
48. Nick Cave - Here Comes The Sun
Well magazines like Uncut have The Beatles and their members on their covers with stories and write-ups about them until the cows could all be arrested for home invasions. Surprisingly this is Cave's only time he's been on the cover of this magazine. So with that in mind the greatest Beatles cover in my opinion is by you guessed it, Cave. In the early 2000's he recorded two Beatles covers Paul McCartney's Let It Be and George Harrison's Here Comes The Sun from Sean Penn's film I Am Sam but you could get both songs on the single, or if you could find the 20 track European edition with more Beatles covers than you could possibility want.
Find it on: Here Comes the Sun (Single) 2002
47. Nick Cave, Julie Christensen, Perla Batalla - Suzanne
He's recorded and preformed more Leonard Cohen covers than anyone else from his debut album as Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds to various tribute albums and shows. These songs have been Avalanche, Tower of Song, I'm Your Man and he also did Don't Go Home With Your Hard-On with Lou Reed and Jarvis Cocker one time and with Rufus Wainwright and Teddy Thompson another time which both those versions remained unreleased. But the best has to be Suzanne which was the first track on Cohen's debut album Songs of Leonard Cohen way back in 1967.
Find it on: Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man (Soundtrack) 2006
46. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Idiot Prayer
Right, now back to his own songwriting with one of the last songs on the album which critics dub his greatest, I wouldn't because it's good but not his best. For most of the album the band The Bad Seeds as a whole don't play together on these songs, it could be his solo album, almost. They're on Idiot Prayer with all seven members playing here with only Jim Sclavunos missing out which is no great loss really. You could say this is the first of many of Cave's depressing songs I've picked here which could really be the sub-title to this list. Not that that is a bad thing to me it makes him even better or should I just say the greatest songwriter of our time.
Find it on: The Boatman's Call (Album) 1997
Top photo by Jason South, Nick Cave at Melbourne Art Centre's Nick Cave — The Exhibition in November, 2007.
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Good list! Looking forward to the next post. I must say I'm impressed by your knowledge, Duck.
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