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

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

BALLOTS IN!!!

could we get a text list of all the nominees?

(plaintext, Pastebin, whatever)

Just went to my spreadsheet to see how much faff this would be, and was reminded there's another 15 Mick Harvey non-Gainsbourg covers that I'd postponed before bcz they're not on youtube

Plus a studio version of Sad Dark Eyes and live versions of two of the Serges

Most of Mick's second or tenth or fourth solo album, depending on how you count, was recorded with a quartet that went on to tour in 2007 and release a live album, the next year, from one London date. Thomas Wydler drummed, James Johnston played organ and guitar, and non-Seed Rosie Westbrook joined them to play double bass.

This cover of a 1984 Saints song, from the era when the band had become Chris Bailey's backing group after the departure of the bloke who would, soon after this cover, replace Mick on live guitar with the Bad Seeds, has a video:

Mick Harvey - Photograph (on both Two Of Diamonds and Three Sisters - Live At Bush Hall)

(That one also features Rob Ellis from PJ Harvey, the band.)

The following were likewise released in both studio and live versions. And it turns out the studio ones are on youtube, if you set your VPN accordingly and search for each one individually, as they're under a Topic listing:

Mick Harvey - I Don't Want You On My Mind (original from Still Bill by Bill Withers, 1972)

Mick Harvey - Everything Is Fixed (retitled from Everything Fixed Is Killed, a David McComb song only recorded while overstaying a radio session, to use a taxpayer-funded facility for free, by his and Graham Lee's post-Triffids group The Red Ponies in 1994. Warren Ellis was in the band, pre-Bad Seeds, but had to leave after the official session.)

Mick Harvey - A Walk On The Wild Side (not the Lou Reed song, a 1962 film theme by Elmer Bernstein & Mack David - Harvey restored the "A" from Nelson Algren's novel to the title)

These Two Of Diamonds tracks didn't make it into the tour set:

Mick Harvey - Sad Dark Eyes (ibid.)

Mick Harvey - Here I Am (by Emmylou Harris, from Stumble Into Grace, 2003)

Mick Harvey - Out Of Time Man (written by Manu Chao for Mano Negra's 1991 King Of Bongo)

...but this one did - recorded all-instruments solo by Mick on the record, so not linked:

Mick Harvey - Slow-Motion-Movie-Star

(another technically-maybe-not-a-cover: a still-unreleased song from PJ Harvey's Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea, which Mick had played on and co-produced in 2001. In lieu of the Three Sisters version with the Seed-filled group, have a live audience video from 2013.)

Mick Harvey - Everything Is Fixed

this one has Rob Ellis on drums instead of Wydler, fact fans

Chris Bailey... Photograph

Bailey ofc was a Bad Seed for one song, duetting with Cave on the 2003 single Bring It On

Also performed on the Three Sisters live album, but not linkable in that form (the album is out of print physically, not on major digital services, nor on either Mute or Harvey's own Bandcamps):

Mick Harvey - Come Into My Sleep (a Bad Seeds b-side from 1997, covered solo on Mick's album One Man's Treasure)

Mick Harvey - Louise (written by Don Walker for the 1993 self-titled album inaugurating micro-supergroup Tex, Don, & Charlie, also done on One Man's Treasure)

Mick Harvey - First St. Blues (a Lee Hazelwood song, possibly known to Harvey as a 1966 B-side by Australian boy/girl singing duo Bobby And Laurie (With The Rondells) - especially as he seems to have copied a typo from the credits. also played solo on One, live audience video, 2012)

Mick Harvey - Quasimodo's Dream (offical Tenth Best Australian Song Of All Time, recorded by The Reels in 1981 and 1983. the only song from Three Sisters not previously recorded by Mick, but played at least on tour in Amsterdam in 2005. guessing Johnston is on organ here?)

Mick Harvey - Planetarium (from Australian psych band Once Upon A Time's 1992 album The Blink Of An Eye {me neither. also solo on One Man's Treasure though.} here's audience video of the quartet in Praha on the same tour as the live album.)

Mick Harvey - Bethelridge (from Robbie Fulks' 1998 Let's Kill Saturday Night. also recorded solo on One Man's Treasure. audience video from 2013)

Mick Harvey - Come On Spring (the single from Australian rock/alt/dance supergroup Antenna's one album, 1998's Installation. The group consisted of Hoodoo Gurus' Dave Faulkner, Beasts Of Bourbon/Scientists/Surrealists/etc Kim Salmon, and the members of Olympic techno hitmakers Southend. Plus Coda on strings, and one-song guest vocals by Chrissie Amphlett. solo on One, here's quartet audience video in Praha from this tour.)

Two of the Gainsbourgs got live outings:

Mick Harvey - Intoxicated Man (and here's a video session in a Berlin club in 2013
Mick Harvey - Black Seaweed (here's an audience-shot video in Moscow from a late-2019 Songs Of Serge tour

et fin:

Mick Harvey - Just A Little Bit Of Rain (from Fred Neil's 1965 Bleecker & MacDougall. had previously been recorded by Harvey for Evil Graham Lee's V/A 1997 sad country covers album Where Joy Kills Sorrow, which stocked several Australian radio formats that year. here's a 2012 living-room session video of him playing it with Loene Carmen, who did most of the female vocals on Pink Elephants, and Louis Tillett.)

Pastebin: https://pastebin.com/qUHLm2Qd

(missed a couple in there, I'm afraid, but still a hundred to pick from)

bump

Johnny Suede on telly. Nick telling Brad Pitt "you just wrap it up in tinfoil" and then eating greasy chicken from a bag on the ground: scripted or just junkie-era Cave getting distracted at the end of a long take?

This is due today, right?

Yes please!

bump for sarahell or any other hellions

thx, voted

I've been contemplating receiving and tabulating ballots