Right into the very last few tracks. the one and only rule I did make from this list was to not include anything from The Best Of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds compilation album (which I didn't break) but now into the last ten songs, all (except two tracks in the next post) are just from the Bad Seeds albums. So the next number is....
9. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Still In Love
Sorry, I can't help but include this track but I do know most hardcore Nick Cave fans totally dislike this album. This album reunited Nick Cave with Nick Launay who produced the "Release the Bats" single by The Birthday Party 20 years earlier and now has done everything since with him. Apparently Nick Launay said something like "you guys sound like old men on your death beds" which then Cave wrote "Dead Man In My Bed" in the studio quickly after. This song follows that on the album at the mid way point. I think it's one of the most amazing ballads he's every written. This albums main theme was to write about the middle period of love so not sad farewell and not the first blush but after being married for a few years like Cave himself. The intermediate part most singer-songwriters have ignored. This was also written and recorded live but he got rid of his piano after this album but if nothing else you've got to admit it was a transitional track and album.
Find it on: Nocturama (Album) 2003
8. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Breathless
Another beautifully, romantic track just like the last one which was written for his wife, Susie Bick. The last of his albums recorded and released almost two years apart. With Nocturama done March 2002 in Australia after a tour and out early February 2003 and the next one recorded around April 2004 in France, released at the end of September 2004. You can do the math but it looks like a bit of time in between albums to me. Now it seems he's desperate to record the next one even if he's just finished off the American tour and he hasn't written a word. Looking at the last three albums (plus that book) timeline, Grinderman released on March 5, 2007 and recorded in 2006 then Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! recorded June-July, 2007 then released on March 3, 2008 next came the dead bunny book, written on a Dig Larry tour bus and published in September 2009, audio-book was done at the same time as well. Recording of Grinderman 2 took from August 2008 to 2009 so it was completed a year after the original sessions. All were done in and around London as well. I'm not even including the soundtracks or scores from films and theater. He seems like an urgent, non-stop workaholic in last few years, like it's a race to the finish line.
Find it on: Breathless (Single) 2004 or Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus (Album) 2004
7. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Watching Alice
The first of a few more bleak tunes, it might be a little unhealthy that I've chosen so many songs like these but it does give me, myself and I more understanding of what I like listening to. So after two of his most romantic tracks here's peeping Tom Nick Cave watching a girl called Alice getting dressed year after year but keeping this explanation shorter than the last two: what could be more depressing than watching a girl getting dressed?
Find it on: Tender Prey (Album) 1988
6. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere?
Well this is the third song from The Boatman's Call album which I said in the first post in this series of posts that it wasn't his best album but it's seems it's his second best well, tied for second but I haven't finished yet. Is this the saddest from that album? maybe one of them, with lyrics like: "Around the duck pond we grimly mope, Gloomily and mournfully we go round again, And one more doomed time and without much hope, Going round and around to nowhere" but at least you could watch and listen to the ducks, Nick. Quack!
Find it on: The Boatman's Call (Album) 1997
5. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Sad Waters
The very start of Your Funeral... My Trial album which seems like the album which is tied for third place if I add up all the songs and which albums they came from. Not totally giving away the next final top tracks from the next post but third place albums are 2003's Nocturama, 1994's Let Love In, 1988's Tender Prey, this album from 1986 as all the Bad Seeds albums plus the 1983's The Birthday Party's Mutiny/The Bad Seed. Anyway I think I'll stop now and keep this explanation short and sweet as well.
Find it on: Your Funeral... My Trial (Album) 1986
The top plus the bottom photo are by Polly Borland (again). With Susie Bick (left) with her husband Nick Cave (right) taken from around the year 2000. This one below is the only photo I can find of Susie and Nick together, kissing. A very small one:
Or here is the bigger one with writing all over the middle of the pic. It's obviously posed for her camera but it's sweet and it's titled "Marital Bliss" too.
Stay tuned for the very last post soon of these: my 50 favorite Nick Cave songs.
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