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

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

Just popping in to give a big thank you to sic for pulling this all together. There's lots I have missed over the years, am going to attempt to listen to them all!

I think we've got a few Nick-less but still Badseeds adjacent covers so maybe worth mentioning the brief tenure of Joe Strummer as a Pogue which included covers of London Calling and I Fought the Law.

https://www.discogs.com/The-Pogues-Tuesday-Morning-5-Tracks/release/15593852

I miss anticipating her next record a lot, but after all these years, there's also an appeal to the tidiness of six albums so good I cant choose among them, evenly spaced over a specific decade, produced with the same raw sheen, as though there was a Felt-like manifesto she completed.

That was meant for the Nastasia thread! Though I wouldn't mind hearing the Bad Seeds interpret "Blackened Air" or "Brad Haunts a Party".

i didn't realise non Nick songs were eligible. Is it too late to re-submit?

It's not too late, because I'm still waiting on a ballot for cover poll enthusiast sarahell!

(Hoping for Veg Grrl too?)

Anything that Cave, or any two of his compatriots in various bands, have recorded is eligible

- hence Sclavunos and Wydler duetting on Raindrops counts, Sclavunos singing Bee Gees with no other Seeds playing on the record doesn't. Mick Harvey singing and playing every instrument doesn't count, but Mick playing everything and Anita singing does, or Mick with three other players, two of them Seeds, does. Die Haut with any Seed singing counts because Thomas is a member of Die Haut.

Sorry for brain damaged diversion

I figured it was a chemo cloud making your train of thought skip a track after leaving the Shane station :) Great to see you popping in, and hope everything's going well.

I would it's going as well despite the evidence :)

Jeezo my kingdom for a proofreader!

ah, ok. thanks.

i patently missed the crucial line...

Anything that Cave, or any two of his compatriots in various bands, have recorded is eligible

ack sorry totally spaced on this - will send ballot tonight if thats ok?

👌

thank youuuu <3

voted!