The Sick Bag Song

by Nick Cave

The Sick Bag Song is an exploration of love, inspiration and memory shaped around the events of Cave’s 2014 tour of North America. It began life scribbled on airline sick bags during the 22-city tour. It soon grew into a restless full-length contemporary epic. Spurred by encounters with modern day North America, and racked by romantic longing and exhaustion, Cave teases out the significant moments, the people, the books and the music that have influenced and inspired him, and drops them into his Sick Bag.

Genres: Poetry, Music, Nonfiction, Memoir, Travel, Biography, 21st Century

117 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2015

About the author

Nicholas Edward Cave is an Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter, and occasional actor. He is best known for his work in the rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and his fascination with American music and its roots. He has a reputation, which he disowns, for singing dark, brooding songs which some listeners regard as depressing. His music is characterised by intensity, high energy and a wide variety of influences. He currently lives in Brighton & Hove in England.

Cave released his first book King Ink, in 1988. It is a collection of lyrics and plays, including collaborations with American enfant terrible Lydia Lunch.

While he was based in West Berlin, Cave started working on what was to become his debut novel, And the Ass Saw the Angel (1989). Significant crossover is evident between the themes in the book and the lyrics Cave wrote in the late stages of the Birthday Party and the early stage of his solo career. "Swampland", from Mutiny, in particular, uses the same linguistic stylings ('mah' for 'my', for instance) and some of the same themes (the narrator being haunted by the memory of a girl called Lucy, being hunted like an animal, approaching death and execution). A collectors' limited edition of the book appeared in 2007.

Cave wrote the foreword to a Canongate publication of the Gospel according to Mark, published in the UK in 1998. The American publication of the same book contains a foreword by a different author.

Reviews

[julieta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es irresistible la combinación que hace acá Nick Cave, entre memorias, poesía, imágenes extrañas, música, encuentros y canciones. Cuenta en forma de fragmentos la ausencia, los viajes, el estar y no estar. Me gustó mucho que no es un libro de memorias explícito, es más poético, juega con algunas canciones, es muy cercano, y la edición de sexto piso es preciosa.

[Lynx · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nick Cave takes us on his 2014 North American tour, sharing thoughts, ideas, and memories from his beautifully poetic soul.

*Thank you Cannongate Books and Edelweiss for this review copy.

[Patricija || book.duo · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5

„I am a nervous system that runs on rhyme and ghosts.“

Kažkas tarp lobių medžioklės, sapno, labai neaiškios autobiografijos, sąmonės srauto, dainos ir epinės poemos. Pamenat, kai mokykloj mokytoja bandydavo mušdama į stalą delnu įtikint, kad koks vargiai besirimuojantis reikalas tipo turi ritmą, kurį turėtum pajaust? Vienintelis kartas, kai tikrai jaučiasi rimas ten kur jo nėra ar ten, kur nemanei, kad bus – skaitant Sick bag song. Nes kiekvienas sakinys turi ritmą ir tempą, net kvėpavimo greitį. O jei dar galvoje labai aiškiai girdi Nicko balsą, įskaitantį savo paties žodžius (ar čia jau šizofrenija ar viskas norma?), net audio knygos nebereikia – jaučiuosi ne perskaičiusi, o išgirdusi. Knyga, parašyta ant lėktuvuose dalinamų maišelių, jei supykintų, nors ir parašyta tiek pat netipiškai, kiek ir netipiškas popierius, ant kurio išguldyta, visgi dėliojasi labai logiškai, turi pasikartojančius vaizdinius, pasikartojančias nuorodas į literatūrą, istoriją, mitologiją. Tokioje mažoje, kaip kad su jomis dažnai nutinka, telpa nesvietiškai daug – jo paties, jo šeimos, jo vaikystės, net jo ateities.

Nebūtų čia įdomu tiems, kuriems neįdomus pats Nickas, bet nei jūs skaitysit, nei svarstysit, ar verta. Bet vis dėlto, jeigu Nickas jums nors kažkiek aktualus, o ir nors kažkiek daugiau svarbus ar/ir pažįstamas, verta knygai paskirti valandą ar kelias. Ji alsuoja nostalgišku Australijos karščiu ir atsiduoda turų nuovargiu, prakaitu, cigaretėmis ir vėmalais. Ją skaitydamas jautiesi kaip stebėdamas egzorcizmą ir dvasios kvietimą viename. Nėra čia pletkų, netikėtų įdomybių ar labai atviro žvilgsnio į asmeninį gyvenimą. Bet kupina ji vaizdinių, kuriuos mokant skaityti, kaip kokius arbatos tirščius ar delno linijas, galima prisigalvoti milijonus prasmių, esmių ir gelmių. Ties kažkuriomis net pataikysi.

[Kaila · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5 stars

"These are the lollipop ladies, with there severed heads on pikes, shepherding me across these lost and lonely highways and into your arms tonight.”

There's something you should know about me: I LOVE everything Nick Cave related. He is by far my favourite musician and, his poetry and performance continuously leaves me awestruck. So of course I bought this book, or should I say epic poem/tour journal/ overall genius, as soon as I saw it in stores. I absolutely love the voice of Nick Cave in this piece, it was dark, witty, blunt and shared so many similarities with his music. I found this to be hilarious, superbly written and just downright epic, plus it only took me a couple of hours to read. As soon as I finished the book, I just wanted to flip it over and start all over again. I only read it two days ago, but since I finished, I've already gone back to read multiple chapters over and over. That's how much I LOVED this. I really hope Nick ventures into the realm of poems more often, because if this was any indication, I'm obsessed with everything he writes.

[William III · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can I give it more than five stars? I feel like I just got punched in the gut by a book, and afterwards it patted me on the back, sat me down on the edge of the mighty Ohio River, and lit a cigarette for me. It will all be okay.

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

No actual sick bag was used to produce at least this version of the book. What you get are pictures of barf bags from various airlines complete with poetry.

Kind of a cleaver idea to produce Mr. Cave's words to his poetry in such an original manner If you like Nick Cave or are interested in his work than this is worth it.

The Book is white cloth in a black clam shell box and subtitled "For Motion Discomfort".

See it here:

http://thesickbagsong.com/#unlimited-...

Listen to Nick Cave's reading hare:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoLEj...

There is also a signed version that sells for $1550.

[philosophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything is happening and has happened and will happen again. Everything that exists has always existed and will continue to exist. Memory is imagined; it is not real. Don’t be ashamed of its need to create; it is the loveliest part of your heart. Myth is the true history. Don't let them tell you that there are no monsters. Don't let them make you feel stupid, just because you are happy to play down in the dark with your flashlight. The mystical world depends on you and your tolerance for the absurd.

Εκ πρώτης όψεως πρόκειται για μια άκρως προσωπική, κι αποσπασματική, κατασκευή, βασισμένη σε χειρόγραφες σημειώσεις του Cave σε σακούλες αεροπλάνου κατά τη διάρκεια περιοδείας του με το συγκρότημα the Bad Seeds. Οι σημειώσεις αυτές αναπτύσσονται περαιτέρω σε σύντομα κεφάλαια-μείγματα πεζογραφίας και ποίησης. Οι σακούλες αναπαράγονται ως έργα τέχνης που χρήζουν επεξεργασίας κι ανάλυσης, ενεργούν ως στήλη της Ροζέττας για το κύριο κείμενο, με ορισμένες γραμμές να μοιάζουν με σκέψεις που στοχεύουν στη δραματοποίηση της αίσθησης της αφήγησης.

Το Sick Bag Song λειτουργεί ως το σύγχρονο ισοδύναμο της Οδύσσειας, με τον Cave να αποτελεί τη rock 'n' roll εκδοχή του Οδυσσέα που προσπαθεί να συνδεθεί με τη σύζυγό του μέσα από αναπάντητες τηλεφωνικές κλήσεις, ένα είδος deus ex machina που προσδίδει στην ημερολογιακή γραφή ένα λανθάνον άγχος, σαν το ταξίδι να κατευθύνεται σε τραγωδία κι όχι σε ευτυχισμένη επιστροφή.

[Vanessa · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Sick Bag Song charts Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' 2014 North American Tour, and it a fantastic mixture of prose, poetry, and general Nick Cave-ness.

The book itself is stunning - a white dust jacket-less hardback made to look like an airplane sick bag, and photos of each of the sick bags that Nick Cave scrawled on throughout the tour, followed by the expanded version of the free verse that came from these scrawls.

I could hear Nick Cave's voice speak-singing every line as I read through this book, and constantly had Jubilee Street playing in the background of my mind. His thoughts are at times jumbled, at others inspired, and always with a dark humour underlying them. He manages to make the mundane fantastical.

A must-read for any Nick Cave fan. If you're not already a fan though, I'm not sure how much you would get out of this.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the afternoon Cave releases his astonishing new song—Jesus Alone—a haunting lament for a recent loss, I flick through this ‘epic poem’ and relish in the warped humour, offbeat poetry, and play with form: a quality that elevates his music from the drear pockets of elder statesman rock.

[Ian "Marvin" Graye]

Papa's got a brand new sick bag!

[Ti Emme Rock · Rating 5 out of 5]

❤ Nick Cave

[gorecki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nick Cave is a creative force. I don't think anyone can argue with that. The man has done so many things, I've lost track of his talent ventures. And in all of his creative ventures he's managed to remain thought-provoking and to challenge form. His song lyrics can be read as poems telling full stories, his books play with form and structure, his blogs and answers to fan questions are philosophical and rich in references. If there is one thing that keeps drawing me to Nick Cave, it's how versatile and grounded he is in his art. If he were a preacher (which is how he often writes and speaks), I would definitely join his church. I don't see him as a regular person doing art, but rather as someone living and breathing their art, someone being grounded in it. It's not that I'm such a huge fan of Nick Cave, I just have a very big respect for him and what he does.

But now about the Sick Bag Song. A project that started as scribbles and notes on airplane sick bags during his band's North American tour, resulted into a book of loosely connected pieces of hallucinations, lamentations, and memories. Some motifs return again and again throughout the book, following thin story lines pieces of which pop up here and there (a boy on a railway bridge, him trying to call his wife, a girl standing on the edge of a cliff), others appear sporadically without any connection (sexual references, city descriptions), and then there are lists - lists of angels, lists of muses, lists of dragons, lists of qualities. It's not a coherent "one", though. It's a mixed bag. A sick bag. It's how I imagine the world looks and feels like when you're an artist on tour, moving from one place to another, losing touch with reality once you get high on stage performing and start moving between empty hotel rooms and crowds at concert halls, from plane to bus and city to city. This is a confused and conceptual collection of thoughts, fears and manias, of whatever crosses your mind or whatever you can't get out of it. And while there were many trivial and cliché moments, there was also a lot of art and beauty and poetry and a lot, I mean a lot, that went straight over my head and I didn't understand, but that's okay because I'm not supposed to understand everything. This is a sick bag song, something to help with your motion sickness until you arrive at your next destination.

[Bjorn · Rating 3 out of 5]

The tour diary is a special kind of rock'n'roll memoir; the account of work-a-day rock'n'roll filtered through equal parts honesty and exhaustion along with the general surreality of a rock star being herded from city to city.

The Sick Bag Song is set during Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' 2014 tour of the US and Canada, as Nick travels from city to city, performs, tries to call home, considers his influences, his past and his future ... It makes for a good companion piece to his film 20,000 Days on Earth, equal parts self-mythologizing and self-reclaiming. I can't, as a decades-long Cave fan, say how well it stands up on its own. There is no "on its own" for me.

That it's a North American tour is not coincidental. Aussie Cave, fan of the blues and gospel and punk and Nabokov, has always been caught up in the fictional America, the myth of it. He sees all the layers.

He keeps coming back to the image of a young boy jumping off a bridge. Metaphor? No, he insists, that happened in his hometown as a kid, he saw the corpse, about the same time he heard Leonard Cohen for the first time and knew what the world had to offer. Years later he met Dylan and couldn't write a decent song for years afterwards. Now he writes, constantly, on the back of the sick bags the airlines hand him as he travels the country he's been hunting for 30 years. Writing is his job. Some of it will suck. His working through that does not.

After the tour, after the book, his teenage son was killed in a rock climbing accident. The text, the writer Cave, doesn't know why I wince every time he talks about railroad bridges.

[Jorik Breban · Rating 5 out of 5]

IK HEB HET NOG EENS GELEZEN OP DE TREIN NAAR ANTWERPEN VOOR ZIJN CONCERT EN NICK CAVE HEEFT MIJN BOEKJE GESIGNEERD

"The river is a pulsating, living artery.
It has nine known qualities.

It is not ashamed of its actions.
It flows without resistance.
It washes its own history away.
It has no memory.
It is eternally of the present and in the present.
It is not dependent on the whims of the muse.
It needs no angels to transport it.
It is not petrified, haunted or derelict.
It is not fumigated."

[Satyajeet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I sit alone on the bank of the glacial Saskatchewan,
Beside a low-lying bridge,
Picking at a thread in my jacket sleeve. Pick, pick, pick.
Cubic tonnes of water spew along the river’s course.

The river is a pulsating, living artery.
It has nine known qualities.

It is not ashamed of its actions.
It flows without resistance.
It washes its own history away.
It has no memory.
It is eternally of the present and in the present.
It is not dependent on the whims of the muse.
It needs no angels to transport it.
It is not petrified, haunted or derelict.
It is not fumigated.

I'm transforming
I'm vibrating
I'm glowing
I'm flying
Look at me now
I'm flying
Look at me now!

In the end, I’m not interested in that which I fully understand. The words I have written over the years are just a veneer. There are truths that lie beneath the surface of the words. Truths that rise up without warning like the humps of a sea monster, and then disappear. What performance and song is to me, is finding a way to tempt the monster to the surface. To create a space where the creature can break through what is real, and what is known to us. This shimmering space - where imagination and reality intersect - this is where all love, and tears, and joy exist. This is the place. This is where we live.

Nick Cave is a fucking freak genius!

[Chalchihut · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was a little child, I didn't know that those paper bags in the aeroplanes were sick bags. I thought we could put food in them or some personal stuff (at that age toys perhaps). One day we were flying and a girl just got sick of overcoming the gravity and puked in that bag! I was very shocked and at that moment I comprehended that those clean and nice bags was meant for something that disgusts us.

Despite my childish disappointment, now I feel kind of glad to have thought that those bags could have been meant for something else, because Nick Cave made a book out of his writings on them. A book that in the very first page I knew that I was going to love. I appreciate this book very much for it's coming from a man, who has been through the worst pain a human can go through, letting us read these short poetic notes which lead to his heart, to his worries and sadness.

It's impossible for me to evaluate Nick Cave's literature separately from his music, thus his words were very melodic and beautiful. I don't think I understood what he meant in most of the pages, but in these kind of books, we don't have to understand, we have to find something from ourselves, I guess. Personally, I felt connected to this book very much. I tried to read it as slowly as I can, I didn't want to consume it in a meaningless speed. I wanted more to read, still I think it was perfectly short as well.

I don't know when the next book would come, so I'm just waiting for September, for the new album to come out, to "push the sky away"!

[Ferdinand Bardamu · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Sana yaklaşan bir adam fotoğrafını çekmek istiyor.
Bir işe alım formu.
Ait olmakla ilgili bir şeye benziyor, bu yüzden kabul ediyorsun.
Sahip olunmak için yetiştirildin ve ait olmayı özlüyorsun.
Bu dünyada oturulacak, ayakta durulacak ya da uzanılacak güvenli bir yer yok.
Otur, diyor. Ayağa kalk, diyor. Uzan.

Yıllar sonra başka bir adam sana yaklaşıyor
Ve evlenme teklif ediyor.
Bir bakıma serseri ve rezil, senin gibi. Evleniyorsun.
Ondan önce çekilmiş tüm fotoğrafları yatağa diziyorsun.

Elini içine sokup fotoğrafçıyı çıkarıyor.
Çıkarıyor ilk kocanı, Japonya'daki kızıl saçlı oğlanı,
Ünlü sanatçıyı, gangsteri, flu ihtimal-adamı,
Hayalet çocukları, bütün sahip olduklarını,
Bütün büyüttüklerini,
Bütün terk ettiklerini.

Hepsini altın bir banta tutturuyor
ve göğün içine uzatıyor.
Otur, diyerek. Ayağa kalk, diyerek. Uzan, diyerek.

Ama bu onları son görüşün değil, çünkü bazen
Geceleri, ahşap döşemede süründüklerini ve
Alçıpan tavanda ilerlediklerini hissediyorsun.
Senin için geldiklerini düşünüyorsun.
Seni öldürmek istediklerini.
Tacizci Adam, Japon Adam, Ressam Adam,
Gangster Adam, Hayalet çocuk, Flu Adam, Kocan Adam.
İşe alım memuru, mesaisini yapıyor gölgelerde.
Otur, diyor. Ayağa kalk, diyor. Uzan."

[Brian J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Musings, poems, and hallucinogenic snippets of travelogue-like journal entries make up the majority of this for-fans-only piece from the always beguiling Nick Cave. I don’t think the casual listener (does he even have any casual listeners?) will find much of value here, but those who are ignited by the electric prose in his songs/stories/folk tales should enjoy these subtle (yet crudely vivid) meanderings.

[Kit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very likely one of my new favorite books. Nick's thoughts always strike a chord with me, but the universal themes of distance, risk, anxiety, love, and the creative drug are both useful and arrestingly communicated. I found myself taking pictures of almost every other page to save a part to my phone for later use and read it all in one sitting on my porch. The man's a visionary.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you feel obsessed with Nick Cave? Good! This book helps you to satisfy your voyuer urge to get into Nick's head or even his bed. You'll probably end up re-reading the book while playing each and every song mentioned there couple of times. Or is it just me?

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read it in a few hours, pure Nick Cave poetry! Can't wait to listen to the audio copy that came with the book, definitely one of my favourite working artists.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t imagine anyone other than Nick Cave tempting me into reading a book of poetry. I didn’t understand all of it but I really really liked it.

[Jesús Santana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nick Cave es uno de esos artistas que no hace falta presentar destacándose en casi todas las áreas, como músico en su juventud estando al frente de The Birthday Party dejó un legado y una gran influencia que habla por sí sola dentro del post-punk, como solista con su nombre y su banda Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds ha logrado ocupar un merecido lugar al lado de los más grandes artistas del Rock & Roll, con su proyecto de garage Grinderman drenó parte de la furia sonora que no podía y que no encajaba musicalmente como solista, como guionista en el año 2005 escribió el western “The Proposition” pocos años después en el 2012 adaptó la historia convertida en la genial película “Lawless”, sin contar la cantidad de soundtracks de los que ha sido parte no solo con alguna de sus canciones sino componiendo los Scores de muchas de ellas, en la parte literaria se ha destacado mostrando su vena poética y narrativa con “Y el asno vio al Ángel” (Pre Textos, 2005) un libro que todo fan de este australiano debe de leer como también su novela con chispas de humor negro y altas dosis filosóficas “La muerte de Bunny Munro” (Papel de Liar, 2009) su particular interés literario lo ha llevado a escribir algunas introducciones a los libros de la Biblia. Como puede verse Nick Cave llamado por algunos como el Príncipe de la Oscuridad y a quien otros consideran lo mas cercano a un vampiro es uno de los artistas contemporáneos mas completos que existen, algunos lo aman y otros lo odian pero lo que si está muy claro es que no deja a nadie sin generar una opinión sobre él.

La Editorial Sexto Piso ha sorprendido con la edición casi que de manera inmediata en español del libro publicado recientemente por este genial artista “The Sick Bag Song” cuya traducción conocemos ahora como “La canción de la bolsa para el mareo” con una preciosa presentación tapa dura, papel de excelente calidad y cada hoja acompañada de unas fotografías en alta resolución. Nick Cave explica con sus propias palabras que “La canción de la bolsa para el mareo” es un poema de carretera - relato de terror. Una mezcla entre “Carretera al Infierno”, “El libro de los Salmos”, John Berryman, un poco de indianismo y “La Tierra Baldía” más “Cocksucker Blues y “Nosferatu”, Marilyn Monroe, Jimy Hendrix, Janis Joplin y cualquiera que se haya ahogado con su propio vómito”, considerando estos ingredientes y esta manera de describir su propio trabajo al finalizar su lectura no queda duda de que es la mejor definición posible de este libro tan intimo, directo, sentimental a veces y otras no tanto, un pedazo del autor que define fielmente lo que significa estar dentro de una banda de Rock y todo lo que esto significa para un músico alejado de su familia por un buen tiempo en la carretera, entre hoteles y vuelos alrededor del planeta.

Y es justo en una Gira que nace la idea de escribir este libro para dejar una muestra de lo que se encuentra dentro de uno de los mejores compositores de canciones y letras en la actualidad quien ya ha colocado su nombre entre grandes como Leonard Cohen o Tom Waits por mencionar solo a dos, Nick Cave asegura que este libro debe de leerse como una especie de poema épico, “La canción de la bolsa para el mareo” fue escrito aleatoriamente durante un bloqueo musical ya que no encontraba inspiración para letras nuevas, en pleno avión decide comenzar a soltar palabras sobre papel y toma lo primero que tiene a la mano una bolsa para vómitos de un avión y de esta manera comenzar posibles bocetos de nuevas canciones, entre concierto y concierto se da cuenta de que ha escrito sin parar algo que va mas allá de unas nuevas letras, así nace y aparece este libro que verdaderamente va a dejar sorprendido a todo fan del trabajo de Nick Cave.

El inicio del poema es con él en pleno, el artista, el hombre inyectándose esteroides para poder dar todo de sí en la tarima esa noche durante una larga gira agotadora, Cave nos retrocede a sus memorias de niño, lleno de miedos de dar los pasos necesarios para seguir adelante con su vida y con ese camino tortuoso del que ahora todos nosotros podemos disfrutar con todos sus trabajos disponibles, todo esto es el inicio de un camino interminable de experiencias, memorias y de recuerdos que aparecen incesantemente durante la gira, de seres humanos y de vampiros que nos rodean para quitarnos energía, de hoteles, mala comida, todas sus influencias literarias John Berryman, Philip Larkin, W.H. Auden y Gertrude Stein, sus lecturas de Sharon Olds en silenciosos hoteles recordando el impacto de sus poemas en él, todo esto sucede en el transcurso de 22 ciudades sumado a la angustia de no saber que sucede en casa, el miedo que significa estar lejos de su esposa y sus niños.

“La canción de la bolsa para el mareo” es el lado intimo de Nick Cave, un poema escrito con el alma, lleno de lirismo y de una prosa poética que pocos músicos han podido contar entre aviones, hoteles y las carreteras, durante todo el cansancio de lo que significa una tarima tras otra, un viaje del espíritu y de la búsqueda de librarse de ese bloqueo de algunos artistas que buscan escribir y escribir sin parar dando a sus fans y lectores regalos tan maravillosos como este que uno puede disfrutar después de una fuerte lucha contra sus demonios.

Lo que hizo la Editorial Sexto Piso es de agradecer por todo aquel que se considere fan de Nick Cave, primero por su excelente edición y presentación y segundo por la velocidad con la que decidieron darnos la oportunidad de tenerlo en nuestras manos y así poder disfrutar de una nueva creación de uno de los mejores músicos y artistas con vida en la actualidad. De lo mejor que he leído en el año y en bastante tiempo. No quiero dejar pasar la oportunidad de recomendar para quienes desconozcan el trabajo de Nick Cave o para los que lo conocen y aun no han visto el documental “20.000 Days on Earth” de Ian Forsyth y Jane Pollard ya que sirve como complemento perfecto para la lectura de este libro y conocer mucho mas al interesante y misterioso personaje que ha escrito este hermoso libro.

[Povilas Šklėrius · Rating 3 out of 5]

Plonoje knygoje yra trumpi Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds 2014 m. turo po Šiaurės Ameriką užrašai. Iš pradžių galvojau, kad bus buitiška istorija, bet ji iš buitiškos pereina prie užrašytų dainų, eilėraščių, visokiausių prisiminimų, yra ir fantastinių elementų. Man būtų daug labiau patikę, jei tos buities būtų daug daugiau. Kita vertus, tikrai džiaugiuosi, kad perskaičiau. Nežinau ar knyga būtų įdomi tiems, kam nepatinka Nick Cave muzika.

[Bücherangelegenheiten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Während der 2014er US-Tour schreibt Nick Cave das Buch „The sick bag song: Das Spucktütenlied“. Eigentlich waren die Texte in dem Buch, die auf Spucktüten verschiedener Airlines geschrieben wurden – deshalb auch der Titel des Buches– als Song-Ideen gedacht, doch entstanden ist dabei ein Buch mit Lyrik in Langform.

Die Prosa-Gedichte von Cave stecken voller Einflüsse aus der Bibel bis hin zum Trash-TV. Es werden Alltagserfahrungen und Anekdoten verarbeitet. Das wiederkehrende Thema in allen Texten ist aber die Angst vor dem Verlust von Kreativität. Das Lyrische-Ich ist weitestgehend ein zweifelndes und hat erstaunlich viel gemein mit dem echten Künstler Cave, so kommt es, dass auch ein Brian Ferry oder ein Bob Dylan in den Gedichten verarbeitet werden.

Das Tourleben bleibt jedoch weitestgehend außen vor. Einzig, dass das Lyrische-Ich vergeblich versucht, seine Frau zu erreichen, weil er nicht bei ihr sein kann, ist ein Hinweis auf das besagte Tourleben. Hier wird zudem mit dem bekannten Motiv, dass Nick Cave eigentlich ein Vampir ist, gespielt. Ob er wirklich ein Vampir ist, beleibt aber eins der vielen Geheimnisse rund um Cave.

Gewidmet ist das Buch einem Jungen auf einer Brücke, dieser möchte sich von dieser stürzen. Der Junge ist ein wiederkehrendes Motiv in den Gedichten.
Wenige Monate nach Erscheinen des „The sick bag song“ im Original, im Juli 2015, starb Arthur Cave, einer der beiden Zwillingssöhne von Nick Cave bei einem Sturz von den Klippen in Brighton. Er war 15 Jahre alt. Die Kunst hat die Realität eingeholt.

„The sick bag song“ ist ein wirklich besonderes Buch, so besonders wie es auch die Musik von Cave ist. Die Texte wurden wunderbar von Eike Schönfeld ins Deutsche übertragen, im hinteren Teil des Buches befindenden sich zudem noch die englischen Originaltexte, sodass man diese simultan zum deutschen Text lesen kann. Außerdem sind die Spucktüten als Bilder im Buch mit abgedruckt.

Eine klare Leseempfehlung!
Note: 1

[Ethan Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Sick Bag Song is a collection of free form writing developed from notes and scribbles that Cave committed to the back of airline barf bags while 1st classing it across America on tour. A blur of the great theaters and halls and the finest hotels from one coast to the other in 2014, at the commercial height of a career in music that has now spanned 3 and a half decades. Some prose, some poetry, some drawings or diagrams, very little is a straight journal entry or specific descriptions about gigs or experiences he and the Bad Seeds have on tour. What you get instead is a deconstructed American 'road' story taken down to flashes of experience and larger than life distorted fantasy reenactments of events. Through these means it becomes a book that shows (poetically, abstractly) the process of how an incredibly gifted artist turns the moments of everyday life and thought, emotion and imagination into art, poetry and song. Cave has such a gifted pen hand and bombastic literary mind that the book can be read as straight poetry and free prose and enjoyed greatly but I found most fascinating the showing of the gears turning inside the writers mind, the birth of an idea, often just a word or a scribbled line with little weight, developed into a thing of great weight, beauty and resonance. Cave's voice on the page and in song has a unique blend of fearlessness and self-awareness and it is rare to see the two states so perfectly married in an artist. In one section in SBS he writes a new song and then goes through and talks about how pleased he was with himself for a certain line, how wonderfully this or that imagery came out but ultimately that the song was a failed thing, then lists the elements in it that didn't hold truth or water, that rang flat or cliche, that ultimately doomed something to stillbirth that he'd deemed worthy of life. Cave also weaves his current reading list, his favorite poets, his deep musical experiences with other artist's music and long time literary obsessions into his writing here (sometimes as intimate characters or poetic subject) and it is refreshing and inspiring to see someone who polishes his own ultra thick marble myth to such a degree unzip the artist-as-diety figure and reveal a great fan inside, electrified by his influences and peers as only a great fan can be. But fear not, for every small window into the man, the myth swirls ever greater, inflamed with cannibals, murder, animal sex, angels and devils and of course a larger than life artist-God-man mutation in a tall black suit crawling, running, fucking and howling through the maelstrom. All that classic Nick Cave stuff makes a more than adequate appearance in The Sick Bag Song too.

Note about the unlimited edition hardback: It is currently only available through Nick Cave's website in the UK and it's not particularly cheap after shipping to the US. So I thought it was worth noting that the hardback product is worth the price in my opinion. This edition comes in a handsome printed case, the hardback is elegant and letterpressed. Each chapter begins with an excellent color reproduction of each 'sick bag' in its original hand scribbled and notated form, the corresponding chapter is the developed writing from the original sick bag idea. So there ya go. It's not your discount mass market cheap release week hardback off Amazon, it's a real literary piece with an aesthetic and painstaking elements. Hard core fans will not be sorry. Folks with a casual interest might want to wait for a paperback edition.

[Nadja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ive listened to this after visiting Brighton and running into Nick Cave... now I am nurturing my obsession. My life is a Nick Cave shaped bubble at the moment, filled with his words via music, literature, and film. The Sick Bag Song was a weird wild ride, a sick journey narrated by a master-poet. Will revisit single chapters in the coming weeks with my notebook and pencil ready.

[Gina Freyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed it. Not sure I completely understood it all. Maybe it was meant to be obscure. Yes, I think that's it. He's on tour. He can not get ahold of his wife. He is frustrated from missing and longing her. THAT, I get. Unique approach.

[Thomas Farmer]

Came across this in a NY record store, sat down, and accidentally read it cover to cover. A bit impossible to recommend this to anyone who isn’t a Nick Cave fan, but nonetheless a very personal, introspective form of word vomit from an artist amidst his draining live performances.

[Morvling Bookink · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was.... strangely good. Good?

"He will feel like an insect trapped under a child's malicious magnifying glass; the sun so fierce that it burns away all shadows and secrets and ambiguities with its interrogatory light. There is no escaping it."

"And you will see.
You will soar on your brave sick bag wings!
It will be difficult but you will rise!
But be warned! You will be judged and judged harshly,
But only by those who dared not leap.
They will sit around and say, that traitor, that fucking poser,
Look at him! Who does he think he is?"

There was a lot of symbolism present in this book.
I believe that the style of it was a venture outside of Nick's usual "literature zone," which is a vast one at that despite. It was certainly almost unrecognisable as his own work, but also pretty distinct, pretty distinct as his. A new Cave? A new Cave distinction.

When is he ever going to stop making up his own genres and styles and distinctions?

There were recurring themes of trains and railtracks, bees, girls, the sun (towards the end), butchers, rivers and bridges, unrequited telephones, and.... decapitation.

I loved how it was a mixture of fact and fiction, self-reflection and outward-deflection, making it impossible for critics to pick it apart; which is very much a Nick thing to do. Everything is either hinted at another reality or is made up entirely, or simply partially intertwined with his confabulations and creations. Often, I think he isn't quite sure which is which himself (which is often a drug-induced symptom, but also his brain alone is quite a depth to delve).