I recently discovered Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, though I’m not sure how. I think it was from listening to Sirius XMU, but somehow or another I heard the song “We No Who U R” and my jaw immediately dropped. The slow instrumental and deep, soothing yet brooding voice stunned me. It’s incredibly beautiful music with beautiful lyrics. The first two lines of the song are as follows:

Tree don’t care what the little bird sings
We go down with the dew in the morning light

Nick Cave’s lyrics are beautiful and poetic and for some reason they occasionally remind me of T.S. Eliot and at times his sentence structure makes me think of Hemingway. It could be all in my head, it’s been awhile since I’ve studied either.

To my surprise I discovered Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds has been making music since 1983, and their 2013 album Push The Sky Away is their 15th studio album! Talk about being prolific. I have a lot of catching up to do, but as of right now I’m so in love with Push The Sky away it’s hard to listen to anything else. I’m most definitely ordering this album on vinyl, I imagine it’ll sound great on my record player.

Two of my favorite songs from the album are actually bonus tracks, “Needle Boy” and “Lightning Bolts”. The narrative in these songs and the way they’re sung just leave me in awe.

And the girls from Jubilee Street hang out their windows,
And they wave and ask me how I am tonight,
I say I’m good, I’m all right.

I just love that!

“Needle Boy” is very brooding, it gives me the chills.

Last, but not least, I’ll leave you with “We Real Cool” (love the title!)