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King Ink
Author and singer/songwriter Cave's first book, which collects early lyrics from his recordings with The Birthday Party and the Bad Seeds (up to and including the Bad Seeds' record, "Your Funeral, My Trial"), short stories and short plays. Cave's dark vision, coupled with his strong connections to primitive folk and blues music, and murder ballads in particular, has yielded an artist whose music rivals the intensity and integrity of Tom Waits and Johnny Cash.
193 pages, Paperback
First published May 19, 1988
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About the author
Nick Cave
96 books1,974 followersNicholas 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
July 29, 2016
King Ink is a piece of Nick Cave miscellanea recommended for only the most pathological of fans—meaning me. This book is primarily composed of lyrics, collecting the material from his formative years as the snotty, rabid pack leader of The Birthday Party, up through the first three albums he released under his own name and with the accompaniment of the indispensible backing band, the Bad Seeds. As much as I enjoy these early outings from Cave—as erratic and messy as they can be—the lyrics on the page alone don’t achieve much as poetry: too many lines repeated over and over, and far too many words in all-caps so as to indicate that Cave is screaming his guts out into the mike. Alongside these lyrics are scanned images of hand-written drafts of lyrics, which are neat to look at but nearly impossible to read thanks to Cave’s illegible scrawl. The other stocking-stuffers to be found here are a short write-up about Einstürzende Neubauten (which is led by Cave’s good friend and collaborator Blixa Bargeld); a forgettable dialect poem about the blues musician Blind Lemon Jefferson; an incomprehensible sputter of flash fiction involving either a man or a crawfish being boiled in a frying pan; and a handful of shockjockesque, experimental one-scene plays co-written with the no-wave viscountess, Lydia Lunch. After the lovefest I had over Cave’s two novels—his Southern Gothic rip-roarer, And the Ass Saw the Angel, and his bawdy satire of misogyny, The Death of Bunny Munro—I was kinda letdown by this odds and sods offering from the Guru of Gloom and Doom. Time to go drown out my disappointment with Henry’s Dream cranked up to max volume.
July 4, 2018
Review to come one day...
Meanwhile a record review I published on May 9, 1983 (in the University of Queensland student magazine "Semper") and reviews of "Prayers on Fire" and a live Birthday Party performance from some time in 1982 (published in 1982 in my fanzine, "X-CHANGE"):
The Boys Next Door (The Birthday Party) - "Hee Haw" CBS (1979/1983)
In 1979 The Boys Next Door decided that their new music was so different from their old, that they should change their name to the Birthday Party.
Although "Hee Haw" was recorded shortly before the change, it bears the stamp of the Birthday Party. In fact, two songs later turned up on their first album.
The E.P. is nevertheless interesting because it captures them in the middle of discarding some of their more obvious influences and self-consciously creating a more identifiable style. As could be expected, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
When it doesn't work, it is largely the fault of the rhythm section. On the first side it stumbles ineptly around with no sense of direction or vitality, and barely manages to hold the songs together.
Of course, the real genius behind the Birthday Party has always been Rowland Howard and Nick Cave, and side two works because they dominate the proceedings.
On it, Rowland Howard is close to perfecting the tense, trebly mechanical sound which has since become his hallmark. But more importantly, there are the first signs of Nick Cave tearing words and sentences apart like a panther at the flesh of its prey.
"Death by Drowning" and "The Hair Shirt" still rate as two of their best songs.
To their credit, though, the flaws on the E.P. are the result more of inexperience than anything else. Phil Calvert's drumming improved over time and, no matter how repulsive and obscene Tracey Pew comes across on stage, he did develop a bass style which matched Nick Cave's twisted humour.
The flaws in the more recent Birthday Party, however, are the result of stagnation. They are well past the point when there was any artistic reason for them to exist as a band.
The fact that they continue to play can only degrade whatever talent each of them still has, as well as obscure the talent they displayed on "Hee Haw". T'is a pity.
The Birthday Party - "Prayers on Fire" (1981)
When I was little, there used to be this boy who lived next door. I can't remember his name, I can't even remember whether he had one. But I know my mum would tell my dad things about him that she thought were really terrible and my dad would laugh his head off and then they would have a fight. Like the time when my mum was taking my big sister to Sunday school and the boy next door ran out onto the footpath and pulled his pants down in front of them and said, "Check this out!"
One day he yelled out to me and asked me if I wanted to see something. I went over to his place and he showed me into his room and on this plate in the middle of the floor was a grass-hopper with no legs. I could tell that it was alive, because its feelers moved around. Anyway he started marching around the plate and calling out, "Fat little insect" in a man's voice. He was really funny and I told my mum, but she wouldn't let me go over there anymore. Not long after I think his mum was killed in a car accident and he and his dad moved away. I never saw him again.
...
"This place is hell to me
With the devil in my bed
And the devil in my bottle
And the devil in my head
I'll meet you in heaven again
(I'll have one more drink, my friend)
Where my heart is kept on ice
And prayers burst into flames
Prayers on fire."
...
When Joseph Conrad wrote "Heart of Darkness", the world believed in our intrinsic goodness. But Conrad shocked it by daring to suggest that in fact we might be intrinsically bad and that our goodness might be part of a thin veneer of civilisation that could disappear at any time.
This suggestion plays on our fear of the unknown. If we are not good and rational, then what governs us must be bad and irrational. And because it is irrational, we cannot perceive and understand it with our rational mind. Nor can we tell when it will manifest itself - we are victims who can do nothing but wait.
It is tempting to write about "Prayers on Fire" as if it were a journey through a heart of darkness and nothing more. But it is something more.
Come, see, scream, laugh. Return?
"Zoo-Music Girls". Primitive, tribal drums. Adam and the Ants? No. It is not our sensuality that has been suppressed, but our destructive, sexual aggression.
"Cry". Someone is leaving. Someone is staying, crying. Desperate, hysterical, repetitive, obsessive, psychotic, insane. Breakup equals breakdown.
"Capers". Comedy capers. Carousel music. Nick Cave raves.
"Nick the Stripper". Hideous to the eye. The guitar. Intimidating. The bass. The unsteady gait of a drunken rapist. The words. "He's a fat little insect!" It amuses the child, it terrifies the adult. Something else terrifies the child, amuses the adult.
"Ho-ho". "Figure of Fun". Adam and the Ants again. No. Long John Silver. Pirate chic. What a laugh.
"King Ink". Strolls into town and sniffs around. Music? Threatening. Words? "King Ink kicks off his stink-boot."
"A Dead Song". Hit it! Then I could get all the little animals out of my room. Paranoid, mad, absurd, funny. A logical progression. Logical? Hit it! Make it a dead one.
"Yard". Children again. Chasing chickens. How many? I don't know. I can't concentrate. It hurts.
There's more yet.
"Dull Day". The light from the window falls on the floor and after it breaks I cut my feet on the little bright pieces. Nurse?
"Just You and Me". Tonite we're on the outside surface. Just you and me girl: you and me and the fat. Fat little insect?
Outside surface. Bubble, Bubble burst. Haha. I understand! Bubble burst! Haha.
Don't laugh at me...I can't remember...whether he had one...mum...car accident...I never saw him again...haha.
"The horror, the horror." Haha. (Laughter is caused by the sudden release of anxiety.) The humour, the humour. Haha.
I've seen it once. I don't want to see it again.
The Birthday Party Live 1982
The Birthday Party live was a futile, foetid experiment in the art of confrontation, the confrontation of art and reality, of band and audience.
At the centre of it all was Nick Cave. Like "Heart of Darkness" and "Elephant Man", his mission was to seek out the animal in all of us. Only it was no search and destroy mission. Once he found it, he wallowed in the mire, he grovelled indulgently in the filthy purity of his own eclectic creation.
The Birthday Party live was an animal act. Black-clad cave darted around the stage like a caged panther, provocatively raiding the front of the audience, pulling hair, singing on with an exaggerated composure as handfuls of his own mane were torn out by awestruck believers.
Show me your wounds and I will believe.
At Souths Leagues Club, Nick Cave called out to the audience to communicate, but it was obvious he only wanted us to react. He wanted to see our horror as we poked our fingers into his wounds, exploring, at first tentatively, later with some perverse pleasure. He wanted to see our attraction to the lure of the forbidden. He wanted to see our bloodlust.
This is the voyeuristic side of Nick Cave. It is the side that wants to see us. He confronts us with his (staged, caged) extremism so he can watch our reaction, so he can be entertained.
Most of the time, we disappoint him. Most of us look on in respectful awe or quiet bemusement. Only a few turn animal, and respond in kind. Strangely, Cave reserves his greatest scorn for these few. The bank clerk who turns animal at his request seems to reinforce his cynicism about human nature. This is the stuff of fascism.
The trouble with Nick Cave is that he wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to be an entertainer and he wants to be entertained. He wants to be an intellectual and he wants to be an anti-intellectual. He wants to be an animal and he wants to be a human. Somehow, he doesn't quite manage to be either. Somewhere between hand and mouth, he drops his cake.
The ideas behind The Birthday Party and "Prayers on Fire" are simple ones. They are about animals and humans, horror and humour. They were captured perfectly, once and for all, on the 1980 tour and the album.
This time round we saw the caricature. Nick Cave wouldn't have a clue where to turn next, Tracey Pew was a pretentious, obscene joke; Rowland Howard was a pedestrian shadow of the person the Cure's Robert Smith called the best guitarist he had seen.
The Birthday Party will perish if they don't overcome their poverty of fresh ideas. It will be the slow death of a toothless circus animal and it might be a death that will make us forget their very real achievement.
ADDED EXTRAS:
The Boys Next Door - "Death by Drowning"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vIa5...
The Boys Next Door - "The Hair Shirt"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzL-O...
The Boys Next Door - "Shivers"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsIPo...
A still beautiful song written by Rowland. He died aged 50 in 2009.
Rowland Howard - "Shivers"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7ChS...
Rowland plays a cover version of his own song.
Interview: Mick Harvey on Tracy Pew
Tracey Pew died in 1986.
http://vimeo.com/64801272
The Birthday Party - "Nick The Stripper" (1981)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5I2v...
Tracey is stunning on this track.
The Birthday Party - "Junkyard" (Live in Germany in 1982)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvlS4...
Nick Cave - The Ship Song" (Live on BBC Four's "Songwriters Circle" in 1999)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKlaV...
John Cale, Nick Cave & Chrissie Hynde (in alphabetical order)
The whole show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynoGf...
Meanwhile a record review I published on May 9, 1983 (in the University of Queensland student magazine "Semper") and reviews of "Prayers on Fire" and a live Birthday Party performance from some time in 1982 (published in 1982 in my fanzine, "X-CHANGE"):
The Boys Next Door (The Birthday Party) - "Hee Haw" CBS (1979/1983)
In 1979 The Boys Next Door decided that their new music was so different from their old, that they should change their name to the Birthday Party.
Although "Hee Haw" was recorded shortly before the change, it bears the stamp of the Birthday Party. In fact, two songs later turned up on their first album.
The E.P. is nevertheless interesting because it captures them in the middle of discarding some of their more obvious influences and self-consciously creating a more identifiable style. As could be expected, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
When it doesn't work, it is largely the fault of the rhythm section. On the first side it stumbles ineptly around with no sense of direction or vitality, and barely manages to hold the songs together.
Of course, the real genius behind the Birthday Party has always been Rowland Howard and Nick Cave, and side two works because they dominate the proceedings.
On it, Rowland Howard is close to perfecting the tense, trebly mechanical sound which has since become his hallmark. But more importantly, there are the first signs of Nick Cave tearing words and sentences apart like a panther at the flesh of its prey.
"Death by Drowning" and "The Hair Shirt" still rate as two of their best songs.
To their credit, though, the flaws on the E.P. are the result more of inexperience than anything else. Phil Calvert's drumming improved over time and, no matter how repulsive and obscene Tracey Pew comes across on stage, he did develop a bass style which matched Nick Cave's twisted humour.
The flaws in the more recent Birthday Party, however, are the result of stagnation. They are well past the point when there was any artistic reason for them to exist as a band.
The fact that they continue to play can only degrade whatever talent each of them still has, as well as obscure the talent they displayed on "Hee Haw". T'is a pity.
The Birthday Party - "Prayers on Fire" (1981)
When I was little, there used to be this boy who lived next door. I can't remember his name, I can't even remember whether he had one. But I know my mum would tell my dad things about him that she thought were really terrible and my dad would laugh his head off and then they would have a fight. Like the time when my mum was taking my big sister to Sunday school and the boy next door ran out onto the footpath and pulled his pants down in front of them and said, "Check this out!"
One day he yelled out to me and asked me if I wanted to see something. I went over to his place and he showed me into his room and on this plate in the middle of the floor was a grass-hopper with no legs. I could tell that it was alive, because its feelers moved around. Anyway he started marching around the plate and calling out, "Fat little insect" in a man's voice. He was really funny and I told my mum, but she wouldn't let me go over there anymore. Not long after I think his mum was killed in a car accident and he and his dad moved away. I never saw him again.
...
"This place is hell to me
With the devil in my bed
And the devil in my bottle
And the devil in my head
I'll meet you in heaven again
(I'll have one more drink, my friend)
Where my heart is kept on ice
And prayers burst into flames
Prayers on fire."
...
When Joseph Conrad wrote "Heart of Darkness", the world believed in our intrinsic goodness. But Conrad shocked it by daring to suggest that in fact we might be intrinsically bad and that our goodness might be part of a thin veneer of civilisation that could disappear at any time.
This suggestion plays on our fear of the unknown. If we are not good and rational, then what governs us must be bad and irrational. And because it is irrational, we cannot perceive and understand it with our rational mind. Nor can we tell when it will manifest itself - we are victims who can do nothing but wait.
It is tempting to write about "Prayers on Fire" as if it were a journey through a heart of darkness and nothing more. But it is something more.
Come, see, scream, laugh. Return?
"Zoo-Music Girls". Primitive, tribal drums. Adam and the Ants? No. It is not our sensuality that has been suppressed, but our destructive, sexual aggression.
"Cry". Someone is leaving. Someone is staying, crying. Desperate, hysterical, repetitive, obsessive, psychotic, insane. Breakup equals breakdown.
"Capers". Comedy capers. Carousel music. Nick Cave raves.
"Nick the Stripper". Hideous to the eye. The guitar. Intimidating. The bass. The unsteady gait of a drunken rapist. The words. "He's a fat little insect!" It amuses the child, it terrifies the adult. Something else terrifies the child, amuses the adult.
"Ho-ho". "Figure of Fun". Adam and the Ants again. No. Long John Silver. Pirate chic. What a laugh.
"King Ink". Strolls into town and sniffs around. Music? Threatening. Words? "King Ink kicks off his stink-boot."
"A Dead Song". Hit it! Then I could get all the little animals out of my room. Paranoid, mad, absurd, funny. A logical progression. Logical? Hit it! Make it a dead one.
"Yard". Children again. Chasing chickens. How many? I don't know. I can't concentrate. It hurts.
There's more yet.
"Dull Day". The light from the window falls on the floor and after it breaks I cut my feet on the little bright pieces. Nurse?
"Just You and Me". Tonite we're on the outside surface. Just you and me girl: you and me and the fat. Fat little insect?
Outside surface. Bubble, Bubble burst. Haha. I understand! Bubble burst! Haha.
Don't laugh at me...I can't remember...whether he had one...mum...car accident...I never saw him again...haha.
"The horror, the horror." Haha. (Laughter is caused by the sudden release of anxiety.) The humour, the humour. Haha.
I've seen it once. I don't want to see it again.
The Birthday Party Live 1982
The Birthday Party live was a futile, foetid experiment in the art of confrontation, the confrontation of art and reality, of band and audience.
At the centre of it all was Nick Cave. Like "Heart of Darkness" and "Elephant Man", his mission was to seek out the animal in all of us. Only it was no search and destroy mission. Once he found it, he wallowed in the mire, he grovelled indulgently in the filthy purity of his own eclectic creation.
The Birthday Party live was an animal act. Black-clad cave darted around the stage like a caged panther, provocatively raiding the front of the audience, pulling hair, singing on with an exaggerated composure as handfuls of his own mane were torn out by awestruck believers.
Show me your wounds and I will believe.
At Souths Leagues Club, Nick Cave called out to the audience to communicate, but it was obvious he only wanted us to react. He wanted to see our horror as we poked our fingers into his wounds, exploring, at first tentatively, later with some perverse pleasure. He wanted to see our attraction to the lure of the forbidden. He wanted to see our bloodlust.
This is the voyeuristic side of Nick Cave. It is the side that wants to see us. He confronts us with his (staged, caged) extremism so he can watch our reaction, so he can be entertained.
Most of the time, we disappoint him. Most of us look on in respectful awe or quiet bemusement. Only a few turn animal, and respond in kind. Strangely, Cave reserves his greatest scorn for these few. The bank clerk who turns animal at his request seems to reinforce his cynicism about human nature. This is the stuff of fascism.
The trouble with Nick Cave is that he wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to be an entertainer and he wants to be entertained. He wants to be an intellectual and he wants to be an anti-intellectual. He wants to be an animal and he wants to be a human. Somehow, he doesn't quite manage to be either. Somewhere between hand and mouth, he drops his cake.
The ideas behind The Birthday Party and "Prayers on Fire" are simple ones. They are about animals and humans, horror and humour. They were captured perfectly, once and for all, on the 1980 tour and the album.
This time round we saw the caricature. Nick Cave wouldn't have a clue where to turn next, Tracey Pew was a pretentious, obscene joke; Rowland Howard was a pedestrian shadow of the person the Cure's Robert Smith called the best guitarist he had seen.
The Birthday Party will perish if they don't overcome their poverty of fresh ideas. It will be the slow death of a toothless circus animal and it might be a death that will make us forget their very real achievement.
ADDED EXTRAS:
The Boys Next Door - "Death by Drowning"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vIa5...
The Boys Next Door - "The Hair Shirt"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzL-O...
The Boys Next Door - "Shivers"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsIPo...
A still beautiful song written by Rowland. He died aged 50 in 2009.
Rowland Howard - "Shivers"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7ChS...
Rowland plays a cover version of his own song.
Interview: Mick Harvey on Tracy Pew
Tracey Pew died in 1986.
http://vimeo.com/64801272
The Birthday Party - "Nick The Stripper" (1981)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5I2v...
Tracey is stunning on this track.
The Birthday Party - "Junkyard" (Live in Germany in 1982)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvlS4...
Nick Cave - The Ship Song" (Live on BBC Four's "Songwriters Circle" in 1999)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKlaV...
John Cale, Nick Cave & Chrissie Hynde (in alphabetical order)
The whole show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynoGf...
May 18, 2016
koliko god voleo kejva, muzičkog megacara, ovoj zbirci ne mogu da dam veću ocenu. zbirka sadrzi tekstove s pocetka karijerekoji bas i nisu dovoljno dobri da bi se citali van muzike.
September 19, 2009
On the one hand, Cave's got talent in the blues form, and some of his lyrics are wonderful. On the other hand, his themes tire easily and get awfully repetitive, and his misogynistic view of women makes me sick like no one since Bukowski (and at least Bukowski is funny at times). I also tire easily of his obsession with violence. So... if you're a fan, you'll like this. If you're not, you'll likely find it very hard to get through. It was ok. I would have given it only one star but the lyrics are better/more fleshed out towards the end. His plays? A complete joke. Taking Biblical themes and piling on extra sex and violence is just... boring. All in all, If it weren't for the fact he's a talented singer and has a real ear for music, I doubt much of this would have ever seen print.
May 25, 2008
I love Nick Cave, but this book is basically garbage. It's nice to have the lyrics to the songs (although you can look those up easily enough on the net), but the one act plays are truly atrocious. "Greasy-Hot-Rod-Cream" is good for a laugh, at least.
The single best thing in this book, in my opinion, is "Thistles in the Soul." "Thistles" describes Nick Cave's first introduction to Einsturzende Neubaten. He is clearly enraptured by their performance, which he sees in a Dutch hotel on a lobby TV, and his adoration is well-deserved.
The single best thing in this book, in my opinion, is "Thistles in the Soul." "Thistles" describes Nick Cave's first introduction to Einsturzende Neubaten. He is clearly enraptured by their performance, which he sees in a Dutch hotel on a lobby TV, and his adoration is well-deserved.
December 31, 2007
Musicians as writers...c'mon, now, who are you kidding? Nick Cave is the exception who proves the rule. This book, along with his novel and screenplay work are the real deal. This book of lyrics is full-on strong on its own, too. Mr. Cave deserves literary respect. No joke.
November 24, 2008
Nick Cave is freaking amazing... he is just brill.
August 9, 2017
"Lord, I've discovered the recipe of Heaven/ You get solitude and mix with sanctuary and silence/ Then bake it!
Listen, I plead guilty to misanthropy/ So hang me! And appreciate it!"
This is going to obviously be a love it or hate it book for just about anyone, whether fans of Cave or no. I'm a big fan, and though not every entry is a gem, of course, the ones that are still drip right off the page in the same dark, slick, unique way that listening to his music tends to feel. I'd give it 3.5 stars if that was a thing on here (and I still wish it were). I dug it.
Listen, I plead guilty to misanthropy/ So hang me! And appreciate it!"
This is going to obviously be a love it or hate it book for just about anyone, whether fans of Cave or no. I'm a big fan, and though not every entry is a gem, of course, the ones that are still drip right off the page in the same dark, slick, unique way that listening to his music tends to feel. I'd give it 3.5 stars if that was a thing on here (and I still wish it were). I dug it.
June 16, 2018
Nick Cave is an original from the darkest places of rock music. In this book poetry/lyrics are visceral, black shoe-polish scented, charmingly wicked and straightforward. A great book for inspiration-seekers that are obsessed with delving in dark corners and bathing in processed blazes of strong emotions.
May 29, 2009
The ravings of a lunatic genius. Nobody does dark, bloody lust like Nick Cave. A lovely whores breakfast of Cave miscellany.
February 2, 2020
Sing along with Nick! the stories and plays are great too.
February 23, 2020
I read this many years ago, but I still remember the line, "She's got a house-big heart where we all live, and plead and council and forgive."
I am moved by the concept of a benevolent love that allows for discussion, openness and forgiveness and welcomes anyone who needs welcoming. I aspire to become someone like that.
This is poetry and lyrics together in a collection. It's Nick Cave. Everything he writes is beautiful and poignant and always, always worth reading or listening to.
I am moved by the concept of a benevolent love that allows for discussion, openness and forgiveness and welcomes anyone who needs welcoming. I aspire to become someone like that.
This is poetry and lyrics together in a collection. It's Nick Cave. Everything he writes is beautiful and poignant and always, always worth reading or listening to.
August 12, 2007
Now I know what he's saying...
October 11, 2008
read it long ago
December 20, 2009
King Ink by Nick Cave (1990)
January 8, 2010
Great poetry.......a piece of it included to the soundtrack of The Proposition which Nick Cave did.
April 10, 2015
he is such a great storywriter
September 5, 2012
Inventive and weird.
December 26, 2025
Cave emerges from the swamp. The early lyrics are ‘the dolls on the grill are caked in bloody bug guts’ and ‘a fucked little insect’ - actually quite a lot of bugs and insects. Slowly we see the new world gothic of Cave’s first great period. Big Jesus Trash Can gives way to ‘I stuck a six inch gold blade in the head of a girl’ but the lines sit there disconnected without pathos or irony. And then a couplet that wouldn’t be out of place in Cave’s second (and overlapping) great period of lovelorn melodrama - ‘love is for fools and all fools are lovers, it’s raining on my house and none of the others’.
The one act plays, that sit in the middle, are barely curiosities. A priest having already lopped off one of his hands, with the aid of an attachment goes to work on four digits on his remaining hand. His hands are possessed and he is compelled. ‘The unfortunate five’ will become the ‘filthy five’ by the time we get to The Mercy Seat. These are not one act plays though. They last just a matter of seconds before someone blows their head off. Salome is Cave working out what to do with biblical imagery and references.
The second set of lyrics see Cave put it all together. From Her to Eternity has such a strong narrative - incidentally the opening ‘ah wanna tell ya bout a girl’ started as ‘now I wanna tell ya about Maine’ in a one act play. The songs have more magical or mythical imagery that perhaps comes from the biblical where anything is possible. Again from the epic From Her to Eternity - Her tears seep through the floorboards to the protagonist below. Tupulo - released as a single - re-imagines Elvis’ birth and the stillbirth of his twin as biblical prophecy. Pop music was different in 1985.
The collection ends with The Mercy Seat, the point at which Cave achieves perfection. It’s perfection, as with Leonard Cohen, where working within the its form, every word is perfectly chosen and placed. The effect has always been mesmerising, on record, live and on paper. It’s a level of perfection that Cave has gone on to repeat.
The one act plays, that sit in the middle, are barely curiosities. A priest having already lopped off one of his hands, with the aid of an attachment goes to work on four digits on his remaining hand. His hands are possessed and he is compelled. ‘The unfortunate five’ will become the ‘filthy five’ by the time we get to The Mercy Seat. These are not one act plays though. They last just a matter of seconds before someone blows their head off. Salome is Cave working out what to do with biblical imagery and references.
The second set of lyrics see Cave put it all together. From Her to Eternity has such a strong narrative - incidentally the opening ‘ah wanna tell ya bout a girl’ started as ‘now I wanna tell ya about Maine’ in a one act play. The songs have more magical or mythical imagery that perhaps comes from the biblical where anything is possible. Again from the epic From Her to Eternity - Her tears seep through the floorboards to the protagonist below. Tupulo - released as a single - re-imagines Elvis’ birth and the stillbirth of his twin as biblical prophecy. Pop music was different in 1985.
The collection ends with The Mercy Seat, the point at which Cave achieves perfection. It’s perfection, as with Leonard Cohen, where working within the its form, every word is perfectly chosen and placed. The effect has always been mesmerising, on record, live and on paper. It’s a level of perfection that Cave has gone on to repeat.
November 23, 2023
Bonkers. I love Nick Cave
May 8, 2025
As a Bday Party fan, this works fine. It's a buncha lyrics from that era and early solo stuff. Now in the age of internets, you can find it all elsewhere.
February 21, 2010
This has been a favorite of mine since I was 15.
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