I Had a Dream, Joe

Interpret at your own risk…

I had a dream
I had a dream
I had a dream, Joe

I had a dream, Joe
You were standing in the middle of an open road
I had a dream, Joe
Your hands were raised up to the sky
And your mouth was covered in foam
I had a dream, Joe
A shadowy Jesus flitted from tree to tree
I had a dream, Joe
And a society of whores stuck needles in an image of me
I had a dream, Joe
It was Autumn time and thickly fell the leaves
And in that dream, Joe
A pimp in seersucker suit sucked a toothpick
And pointed his finger at me

I had a dream,
I had a dream,
I had a dream, Joe

I opened my eyes, Joe
The night had been a giant, dribbling and pacing the boards
I opened my eyes, Joe
All your letters and cards stacked up against the door
I opened my eyes, Joe
The morning light came slowly tumbling through the crack
In the window, Joe
And I thought of you and I felt like I was lugging
A body on my back

I had a dream,
I had a dream,
I had a dream, Joe

Where did you go, Joe?
On that endless, senseless, demented drift
Where did you go, Joe?
Into the woods, into the trees, where you move and shift
Where did you go, Joe?
All dressed up in your ridiculous seersucker suit
Where did you go, Joe?
With that strew of wreckage
Forever at the heel of your boot

I had a dream
I had a dream
I had a dream, Joe
I had a dream
I had a dream
I had a dream, Joe

Hiding All Away

Nick Cave has written plenty of disturbing songs in his time. It’s kind of his stock in trade. He’s been famous for his murder ballads for years and years – years before he went and named a record Murder Ballads. It didn’t look as if he could top that outing, but Abattoir Blues and The Lyre of Orpheus were if anything even more shocking. I don’t know if he’ll ever top that diptych for sheer pitch-blackness. Every song strikes fear into the heart. It’s relentless. This song is like watching a sick horror movie where you can’t quite see what  you’re afraid of and that makes it so much worse. It’s no surprise Cave has started writing movies – he was a master of narrative in short, short form already. His novel unfortunately turned out to be too much of a good thing. It was too dense and sticky to be pleasurable. But the screenplay seems to suit him better. The Proposition was one of the best modern day western films I have seen, with a very characteristic ambiance of doom.  I’m looking forward to his upcoming gangster film Lawless and anything else he might come up with. Heck, I might even give him one more chance with the whole novel-writing thing.

“Hiding All Away”

You went looking for nur, dear,
Down by the sea
You found some Iittle silver fish
But you didn’t find me
I was hiding, dear, hiding all way
I was hiding, dear, hiding all way

You went to the museum
You climbed a spiral stair
You searched for me all among
The knowledgeable air
I was hidden, babe, hiding all away
I was hidden, dear, hiding all away

You entered the cathedral
When you heard the solemn knell
I was not sitting with the gargoyles
I was not swinging from the hell
I was hiding, dear, I was hiding all away
I was hiding, dear, I was hiding all away

You asked an electrician
If he’d seen me round his place
He touched you with his fingers
Sent sparks zapping out your face
I was hidden, dear, hiding all away
I was not there, dear, hiding all away

You went and asked your doctor
To get some advice
He shot you full of Pethidine
And then he billed you twice

But I was hiding, dear, hiding all away
But I was hiding, dear, hiding all away

You approached a high court judge
You thought he’d be on the level
He wrapped a rag around your face
And beat you with his gavel
I was hiding, habe, hiding all away
I was hidden, dem, hiding all away

You asked at the local constabulary
They said, he’s up to his same old tricks
They leered at you with their baby blues
And rubbed jelly on their sticks
I had to get out of there, babe, hiding all away
I had to get out of there, dear, hiding all away

You searched through all my poets
From Sappho through to Auden
I saw the book fall from your hands
As you slowly died of boredom
I had been there, dear,
but I was not there anymore
I had been there, now I’m hiding all way

You walked into the ball of fame
And approached my imitators
Some were stuffing their faces with caviar
Some were eating cold potatoes
I was hiding, dear, hiding all away
I was hiding, dear, hiding all away

You asked a famous cook if he’d seen me
He opened his oven wide
He basted you with butter, babe
And made you crawl inside
I was not in there, dear, hiding all away
I was not in there, dear, hiding all away

You asked the butcher
Who lifted up his cleaver
Stuck his fist up your dress
Said he must’ve been mad to leave you
But I had to get away, dear, hiding all away
I had to get away, dear, I was hidden all away

Some of us we hide away
Some of us we don’t
Some will live to love another day
And some of us won’t
But we all know there is a law
And that law, it is love
And we all know there’s a war coming
Coming from above

There is a war coming
There is a war coming

Henry Lee

Omygod another sickeningly intimate lovey-dovey cuddle party by a besotted rock star couple! Eww! Ack! Only this time it’s Nick Cave and PJ Harvey and in between smooches they’re singing about the horrible, horrible consequences of jilting the wrong lover. Hell hath not fury, they say, like a woman scorned. And it’s true. How quickly love and desire curdle into hatred and spite in the face of rejection. It just can’t be forgiven. So much so that sometimes you just have to kill them. That according to Nick and PJ is the height of romance, and I tend to agree. I’d save myself a lot of heartache if I could just murder and dispose of any man who scorns me, but I fear that doing so would be frowned upon by society. It’s a nice fantasy though. I do find it to be a beautiful, lovely song. Very sexy and yes indeed, romantic.

Hallelujah

If anyone is man enough to write a song with the same title and chorus as Leonard Cohen’s iconic Hallelujah, let it be Nick Cave. For he is one of a precious few who can approach Cohen as an equal. Cave is high on the list of greatest living poets. I place him below Cohen, just above Lou Reed, Bob Dylan,Tom Waits and Patti Smith. (I also think Lou Reed is a greater poet than Dylan, but that’s a whole ‘nother blog post.) So of course only someone of Nick Cave’s caliber can get away with taking the title of The Master’s most hallowed song for his own divine, evil purposes. From the mournful violin intro to Kate and Anna McGarrigle’s wraithlike voices fading into lonely silence, a minor masterpiece of a tale about some cracked, faintly comical, possibly insane search for salvation, with one brown cow along the way. And only in a canon of Nick Cave’s stature could this masterpiece be called minor. On what I personally think is his greatest album – No More Shall We Part – it’s only one of many songs of equal status. Almost, almost equal to its namesake.

God Is In the House

If anything were to be my karaoke jam, this would be it. For one, it doesn’t require great singing, because it hold together entirely on the lyrics, which are beyond brilliant. Nick Cave has always been a master of cutting through to the darkest depths of the human condition whilst also being wildly hilarious. Nowhere is this rare talent more brightly illuminated than here. Cave paints a picture of the stultifying, soul crushing fear and conformity that sometimes lurks behind the shiniest white picket fences. In a verdant, peaceful, god-fearing community folks are paralyzed with dread. Cave satirizes piousness and political correctness and the ongoing battles waged politically and personally over everything from sexuality to choice of kitten color. His voice ranges from sincere anguish to coldest sarcasm, dropping to a scary whisper or relishing lines about “goose-stepping, twelve-stepping teetotalitarianists”. The message may be, if there is one, that peace and prosperity bought at the price of self-expression is no peace at all but a hell made of good intentions.

We’ve laid the cables and the wires
We’ve split the wood and stoked
the fires
We’ve lit our town so there is no
Place for crime to hide
Our little church is painted white
And in the safety of the night
We all go quiet as a mouse
For the word is out
God is in the house
God is in the house
God is in the house
No cause for worry now
God is in the house

Moral sneaks in the White House
Computer geeks in the school house
Drug freaks in the crack house
We don’t have that stuff here
We have a tiny little Force
But we need them of course
For the kittens in the trees
And at night we are on our knees
As quiet as a mouse
For God is in the house
God is in the house
God is in the house
And no one’s left in doubt
God is in the house

Homos roaming the streets in packs
Queer bashers with tyre-jacks
Lesbian counter-attacks
That stuff is for the big cities
Our town is very pretty
We have a pretty little square
We have a woman for a mayor
Our policy is firm but fair
Now that God is in the house
God is in the house
God is in the house
Any day now He’ll come out
God is in the house

Well-meaning little therapists
Goose-stepping twelve-stepping Tetotalitarianists
The tipsy, the reeling and the drop down pissed
We got no time for that stuff here
Zero crime and no fear
We’ve bred all our kittens white
So you can see them in the night
And at night we’re on our knees
As quiet as a mouse
Since the word got out
From the North down to the South
For no-one’s left in doubt
There’s no fear about
If we all hold hands and very quietly shout
Hallelujah
God is in the house
God is in the house
Oh I wish He would come out
God is in the house

Get Ready For Love

I thought you didn’t believe in an interventionist God. Oh well, even Nick Cave is allowed to change his mind. This has to be the most terrifying gospel song ever. For it is a gospel song, and if it’s not about God, then I can’t image what Cave was thinking. Religion exactly hasn’t been one of his fascinations, but faith and yearning always were. When Nick Cave fist showed up with The Birthday Party, looking and sounding like a half-drowned rat-baby, no one expected him to live very long, let alone mature into the most spiritually sophisticated songwriter since Leonard Cohen. Yet here he is, plumbing the depths of the profane with one hand (as deeply as ever), and reaching for the sacred with the other. I don’t know if Cave just finds the Biblical inspiring in a literary sense or if he’s earnestly considering the possibility of an interventionist deity. Either way, in true form, he paints no benign Redeemer. God is frightening, and Nick Cave makes for an equally frightening prophet. What kind of love does this  God promise?

Gates to the Garden

Only in Nick Cave’s world is this going to pass as the happy song. Sitting near the end of No More Shall We Part, it strikes an optimistic note. No More Shall We Part is Cave’s wedding album, with songs about marriage and wives and less violence than usual. The mood is subdued, a far cry from his noisy early days, but it’s still Cave and there’s still the ongoing balancing act between hope and the bleakest blackness. And kittens. Gates to the Garden is a rare moment of peace, a walk through a churchyard, and though among the dead there, nothing is horrid. He even evokes God, peaceably. How unlikely of Cave to contemplate leaving the dead to the angels, to walk through the gates without anger or baleful laughter. Has the old devil found some guiding light? That doesn’t come in a syringe? That was ten years ago and you couldn’t say then he’d mellowed with age and you can’t say that now. But he’s gained some wisdom and keeps finding deeper, quieter ways of being dark.

Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow

“I wave to my neighbor, my neighbor waves to me. But my neighbor is my enemy.”

We’ve had a long run of inoffensive sensitive kind songs this week. How about something about a man who butchers his family? Leave it up to Nick Cave to write a song about murderous cabin fever and have it come out a gospel invocation. He’s always wrestling with the vile and the profound. Someone needs to shed light upon the dark side. Cave is both morbid and optimistic, and the older he gets the more he calls out to God. Is he being cynical? No, I don’t think so. Perhaps the souls at the bottom of the barrel are somehow closer to God, in the extremity of their sinning. It’s been my pet theory, in answer to the eternal question “If He loves us so much, why does He allow such suffering?” that those who suffer are closer to Him. Why martyrs are sainted. Maybe breaking the spirit opens it up. And doesn’t it seem like it’s a smudgy line between true belief and good old fashioned insanity? That’s a lot of deep thoughts for a pop song, but then, that’s what murder ballads are for.

Fear Is A Man’s Best Friend

Bait and switch! You’ve been praying to see John Cale, Nick Cave and Chrissie Hynde form a trio, and here they are all on one stage, but dammit only one of them plays. Gaw Shucks! I’d like to find out what forces brought those three into orbit and how the rests of the evenings festivities went. But that’s for another day. In the meantime John Cale hammering his piano through Fear is good enough. It was Nick Cave who took John Cale to task for having a ‘lack of humor’ in his work. Good point, Cale’s records aren’t the fount of hilarity that Cave’s are. But you can’t accuse him of lacking zest. While he oft sounds graveyard somber on record he performs, if not exactly humorously, but with a previously unsuspected sense of absurd vitality. Yeah, he really gets into it.

Easy Money

“All the things for which my heart yearns/joy and diminishing returns”

That somber reptile Nick Cave is saying something about the American way of life. Or anybody’s way of life, we just assume it’s American because we’re here. Wherever your way of life happens to be, Nick Cave has something to say. About the way we’re all willing to take any amount of disgrace to keep the ever-lovin’ money pouring “down the open drain”. There’s no dignity in the face of money. Money, which not only doesn’t buy happiness, but on the contrary tears a bottomless abyss of the soul. So it would appear from listening to this song, anyway. If Nick Cave’s worldview is to be believed, even if you’ve dodged the soul ravaging dangers of opiates and homicidal lovers, the very process of making a living will drag you to hell anyway. But that’s all right. If Nick Cave’s worldview is to be believed, in hell there will be bunnies.