TOWERS OF SONG: a Nick Cave Sings Covers listening thread and poll

* non-eligible single-Seed sidebar:

Harvey retranslated the Gainsbourg song into German two decades later for his second batch of two Serge albums, and his official youtube channel has an English version of that recording, which appears not to have been released anywhere else.

Mick Harvey featuring Andrea Schroeder - Ich Liebe Dich... Ich Dich Auch Nicht
Mick Harvey - I Love You... Nor Do I

and Barry Adamson had a go at the original French lyric on his 1993 album The Negro Inside Me:

Barry Adamson - Je T'aime ... Moi Non Plus

There are seven more Mick & Anita takes on Gainsbourg songs across Mick's Intoxicated Man album, the Initials B.B. single b-sides, and a bonus 7" that came with the 2014 LP reissue. If I run out of Cave-sung covers before the month is out, we'll dip back.

Nearly a decade after their last bout of reinterpreting traditional songs, the Bad Seeds knocked out a solid fistful for the 1995-96 Murder Ballads b-sides and LP. Folks are probably familiar with the Lee twins...

Nick Cave & PJ Harvey and The Bad Seeds - Henry Lee
and
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Stagger Lee

...but let's also note

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - The Willow Garden
(the trad song is also known as Down In The Willow Garden and Rose Connelly, here sung by Conway Savage. A live take with Nick is here, for the curious)

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - King Kong Kitchee Kitchee Ki-Mi-O

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Knoxville Girl

Despite the credits, that last is just Nick singing with James Johnston of Gallon Drunk on guitar. Remember the name!

The album closed with a full-on Bob Dylan cover, with in-band and guest vocals by Nick, Kylie Minogue, Blixa, Shane MacGowan, PJ Harvey, Thomas Wydler, and Anita Lane.

Nick Caev And The Bad Seeds - Death Is Not The End

I was oblivious to the Chad Morgan connection. Nice!

https://i.imgur.com/PkSTRJN.jpg

yeah that was a good tidbit sic - nice one

The uncanny thing about Cave's cover of Death Is Not the End is that it seems to entirely flip the message of Dylan's original. Whereas Dylan is saying that it doesn't matter how bad things get in this life, because everything will be fine in the afterlife, the way Cave and the rest of them sing it, they seem to be saying the exact opposite – that death brings no end to suffering, which continues eternally.

speaking of

In the next 25 years, The Bad Seeds will release just one more cover. But still in 1996, the core of the band snuck another Dylan version out on the Blixa Bargeld / Nick Cave / Mick Harvey soundtrack to regular collaborator John Hillcoat's film To Have And To Hold (with additional arrangements by Barry Adamson, and a sole guest singer).

Scott Walker - I Threw It All Away

Death Is Not The End had appeared on Dylan's extremely unbeloved Down In The Groove album in 1983, with the bemusing one-song-only backing band of Sly & Robbie, Mark Knopfler & Alan Clark (Dire Straits & Local Hero keyboardist), and Full Force and Clydie King on BVs.

I Threw It All Away was a single from the better-regarded Nashville Skyline in 1969, backed by an array of country session guns & songwriters like Norman Blake and Charlie Daniels.

Nick wasted no time in continuing to issue covers outside the band. The same year, he made two appearances to close out Current 93's All The Pretty Little Horses, the middle LP of 93blokey David Tibet's The Inmost Light trilogy. One was the titular American lullaby, one was based on extracts from mathematician & philosopher Blaise Pascal (d. 1662)'s Pensées.

Current 93 - All The Pretty Little Horses
Current 93 - Patripassian

was just listening to that record the other day, to say that Cave's appearance on that record was a surprise in 1996 is a serious understatement

i had totally forgotten about these and had never known Patripassian was a cover, of sorts. Will add that.

plain gold ring off live seeds is one of my favorites

A 1959-released hit for Miss Toni Fisher, written by Wayne Shanklin for his own Signet Records label, is claimed to be the first record with flanging on it. In 1997, Cave teamed up with that former one-B-side-only (and Lollapalooza) Bad Seed James Johnston and his group Gallon Drunk to cover it, for Jez Butterworth's film adaptation of his play Mojo.

Nick Cave & Gallon Drunk - The Big Hurt

The same year saw the Most Likely Cave Cover ever, from Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's 1928 The Threepenny Opera. The recording was done for a documentary / tribute album coordinated by Hal Willner. Remember the name!

Nick Cave with Spanish Fly and Kenny Wolleston - Mack The Knife

Perhaps spurred by Harvey's recent acclaim covering a French songwriter, in 1999 Cave and Bertrand Burgalat took on Polnareff's decade-earlier comeback hit Goodbye Marylou, for the album Hommage À Polnareff. (Written by mysterious svengali Michel Polnareff, lyrics co-written by Jean-René Mariani.)

Nick Cave - Goodbye Marylou

Rowland inaugurated the new millennium with an Iggy Pop cover, for Dogs In Space director (and his future biographer) Richard Lowenstein's film adaptation of He Died With A Felafel In His Hand. Full credits aren't readily available, but let's face it, it's probably Mick Harvey and Brian Hooper. (Seed associate and future Rowland tribute album contributor Noah Taylor stars in the film, so there's one extra link.)

Rowland S. Howard - The Passenger (2001)

Written with guitarist Ricky Gardiner, for Mr Pop's 1977 album Lust Is Life.

For that year's soundtrack to Jessie Nelson and Kristine Johnson's film I Am Sam, Cave recorded a Beatles cover. By plan or chance, he recorded a second one while he was at it, which came out the next year as a single.

Nick Cave - Here Comes the Sun (single 2002)
Nick Cave - Let It Be (OST 2001, b-side 2002)

lol wtf

Something of a counter to my "most likely Cave cover ever" earlier.

Johnny Cash and Nick squeaked one duet from their session out just before Cash's 2002 death, on American IV. Rick Rubin had asked Cave what song he would most like to record with The Older Man In Black, given the opportunity, and he nominated one frequently covered by Cash, originally released as a Hank Williams b-side in 1949.

Johnny Cash with Nick Cave - I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry

(Music by Williams, lyrics disputed.)

Also in 2002, Nick returned to the Velvet Underground catalogue with electronic popper Chris Coco.

Chris Coco feat. Nick Cave - Sunday Morning

(Like his kicked prick, from the 1968 debut LP Velvet Underground & Nico.)

Still in 2002, Pulp's Bad Cover Version single came with two good cover versions as its b-side. Moloko's Róisín Murphy questioned the band's Sorted For E's And Wizz, and Nick Cave quested retroactively for 1995's Disco 2000, backed by Richard Hawley and Martin Slattery, and unspecified full-time members of Pulp.

Nick Cave - Disco 2000

Four years later, Pulp put a different version on a different kind of B-side - presumably from the same session.

Nick Cave - Disco 2000 (Pub Rock Version)


Another 14 years after that, Universal Music Group published it to the Bad Seeds' youtube page, claiming that it was previously unreleased. The future really works.

2003 saw the only non-Cave-composition released by the Bad Seeds in the last 25 years. At one minute 47, they really made the most of it!

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - I Feel So Good

From Wim Wenders' documentary The Soul Of A Man, about blues musicians Skip James, Blind Willie Johnson and J. B. Lenoir, this cover is of the latter circa 1954.

2006 saw Cave crack out half a dozen non-originals for various Hal Willner projects, before taking five years off from covers again.

Just fifteen years too soon for this week's TikTok trend, Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Song And Chanteys was a loose waft of a tie-in with the Pirates Of The Caribbean films. Executive producer credits for J. Depp and Gore Verbinski gave Willner the excuse to convene two discs of all-stars. Nick's two songs include Kate St. John, Leo Abrahams, Martyn Barker of Shriekback, Andy Newmark of Sly & The Family Stone, and Warren in the backing band. (The same group also back Bryan Ferry and David Thomas of Pere Ubu, amongst others, on the record.)

Nick Cave - Fire Down Below
Nick Cave - Pinery Boy

Another Willner project was compiled that year from a series of concerts he'd staged in 1999 and 2001, with a similar array of contributors to the pirate record. No idea what year or who played on Nick's contribution to the 2CD/2DVD The Harry Smith Project: Anthology Of American Folk Music Revisited - the director stays in head-and-shoulder shots on Cave and the female backing singers.

Nick Cave - John the Revelator (Live)
Nick Cave - Shine On Me (Live)

Nick had also, unsurprisingly, sung twice at Willner's "Came So Far For Beauty" Leonard Cohen tribute shows. A 2006 documentary based on the 2005 Sydney Opera House version was accompanied by a soundtrack mainly recorded at the Brighton Dome installment in 2004.

Nick Cave - I'm Your Man (Live)
Nick Cave, Julie Christensen, Perla Batalla - Suzanne (Live)

Five years on, what could bring The Dark Professor Of Serious Adult Music back to other peoples' songs, but a chance to record for the soundtrack of a "sexy vampires" soap opera?

Neko Case & Nick Cave - She's Not There

Brief may have gotten confused somewhat - Neko and her co-singer are covering some zombies here, from 1964.

Here's one I had in the wrong place, due to: figuring out the complexities of the Jools Holland R&B Orchestra's similarly-designed & frequently-retitled discography is not something I expected would be necessary tbrr. This was written by TV host Jools and 1980s popster Sam Brown, and in fact might not technically be a cover here at all, by some lights. It appears as a ukulele demo on a self-released EP by Brown later though, and almost certainly wasn't written for Cave, so let's count it.

Jools Holland Rhythm & Blues Orchestra feat. Nick Cave & Sam Brown - Kiss Of Love (2003)

Well that's interesting. I'd forgotten about all about Brown. I used to have her first (I think) record (well, cassette) as a child.

used to have

did you Stop!?

While we're going back in time to visit jaunty pop with a melancholy twist, here's a super rarity to download. At the turn of the century, both the Bad Seeds drummers teamed up for a side band, with a variety of floating guests (including former Seed Kid Congo Powers, and future Seed Larry Mullins/Toby Dammit).

Their self-titled album closed with a hidden track, duetting the Bacharach / David song written for 1969's Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, which became a huge hit for BJ Thomas.

The Vanity Set - Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head (mp3 link for two weeks)

The band's followup album, in 2003, included an unsecret cover of the Bee Gees' I Started A Joke, but Sclavunos assembled a completely different array of musicians around him that time.

Unlike most of Cave & Ellis' score-based film work, the Hillcoat Western "Lawless" saw them convene a house band with Dave Sardy, Bad Seed Martyn Casey and became-a-Bad-Seed-promptly afterward George Vjestica, to back two guest star singers on a healthy chunk of covers and a few Cave / Ellis originals. Nick sang one himself, recorded alone by John Lee Hooker in 1959, and released on an almost-titular album in 1964.

The Bootleggers featuring Nick Cave - Burnin' Hell

Mark Lanegan was brought in for three covers on that 2012 soundtrack - each of these also had a solo bluegrassier version interpreted by Ralph Stanley, to be used in a less anachronistic mode in the film.

The Bootleggers featuring Mark Lanegan - Fire And Brimstone (originally a single from Link Wray's self-titled 1971 album)

The Bootleggers featuring Mark Lanegan - White Light / White Heat (title track of the Velvet Underground's 1968 LP)

The Bootleggers featuring Mark Lanegan - Sure 'Nuff 'N Yes I Do (originally on Captain Beefheart's 1967 Safe As Milk LP)

Emmylou Harris mostly fronts originals on the album, but does lace two covers.

The Bootleggers featuring Emmylou Harris - Snake Song (original by Townes Van Zandt, on his 1978 Flyin' Shoes. This version opens with a minute of Stanley singing one of the Cave/Ellis pieces.)

The Bootleggers featuring Emmylou Harris - So You'll Aim Towards The Sky (original written by Jason Lytle, on Grandaddy's second album The Sophtware Slump, from 2000.)

Seven years after the first, Hal Willner produced another Verbinksi/Depp-approved sea shanty collection. For Son Of Rogues Gallery, Nick (on BVs and piano) and Warren (violin) revisited The Threepenny Opera in support to singer and harmoniumister Shilpa Ray.

Shilpa Ray w/ Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - Pirate Jenny

Prolific baby-daddy Cave appeared on a 2016 Starbucks-exclusive album by childrens' artist Dan Zanes, singing another shanty. The song was recorded by Alan Lomax circa April 1960, performed by a group of fisherman in the Gulf of Mexico that he noted as the Bright Light Quartette.

Dan Zanes feat. Nick Cave - Sweet Rosyanne

Producer (and guitarist) T-Bone Burnett recruited Nick and Warren for the 2015 True Detective telly soundtrack album. They took on a 1979 #1 single by Larry Gatlin And The Gatlin Brothers Band, notably performed at Ronald Reagan's second inaugural gala. Bringing in a star violinist saw Laurel Canyon Rambler and Punch Brother Gabe Witcher switch to bass from fiddle for this track.

Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - All the Gold In California

only one more Cave-sung cover to go! if I've missed anything, get ready to plug it.

Mick's first single from Intoxicated Man was fronted by himself, but had two b-sides that turned up two years later on his second Gainsbourg album, one of which featured Anita.

Mick Harvey - The Ballad Of Melody Nelson (b-side 1995)

The second single from Intoxicated Man spotlighted one of the songs fronted by Ms Lane, and gave her front cover credit, despite not appearing on any of the three B-sides..

Mick Harvey & Anita Lane - Harley Davidson (LP 1995, single 1996)



(When the Pink Elephants album came out the following year, the five previously-released B-sides were clustered at the end, suggesting he thought of them as bonus tracks added to a half-hour album.)

But the back cover of Intoxicated Man had toplined the project as "Songs Of Serge Gainsbourg Sung In English By Mick Harvey & Anita Lane. Here are the four album-only Anita-featuring tracks from that round of Mick's translations:

Mick Harvey & Anita Lane - 69 Erotic Year
Mick Harvey & Anita Lane - Ford Mustang
Mick Harvey & Anita Lane - Overseas Telegram
Mick Harvey & Anita Lane - Bonnie & Clyde

After another five year break, our old pal Hal Willner dragged Nicholas back last year for a T-Rex tribute album, AngelHeaded Hipster.

Nick Cave - Cosmic Dancer (LP August 2020, 7" Nov 2020)


Willner had died of COVID four months before the album's release, so we might expect another long gap between covers for Cave. Due to a fluke of availability, the drummer on this recording is Superchunk / Bob Mould / Mountain Goats / Split Single skinsman and Best Show comedian Jon Wurster.

For a 19th-anniversary double-LP reissue of the first two Gainsbourg records, Mick snuck out another Anita-aided track on a bonus 7". (both sides of which became two more bonus tracks at the end of Pink Elephants on the CD)

Mick Harvey & Anita Lane - Run From Happiness (unreleased until 2014, click to be the 100th listener)

and Hugo Race played rhythm on

Mick Harvey - Jazz In The Ravine