The Definitive 1000 Songs Of All Time 1955 to 2005: Number 701

Number 701

Nick Cave

"Stagger Lee"

(1996)
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Genre:Alt Punk

Utterly brilliant song here by Nick Cave, full of Goth gusto sound and fantastic vocals from the Vamp ocker himself. Do all of you grab a chance to hear this song, you won't regret. That is unless you enjoy Doris Day or Cliff Richard!

After goth pioneers the Birthday Party called it quits in 1983, singer/songwriter Nick Cave assembled the Bad Seeds, a post-punk supergroup featuring former Birthday Party guitarist Mick Harvey on drums, ex-Magazine bassist Barry Adamson, and Einstürzende Neubauten guitarist Blixa Bargeld. With the Bad Seeds, Cave continued to explore his obsessions with religion, death, love, America, and violence with a bizarre, sometimes self-consciously eclectic hybrid of blues, gospel, rock, and arty post-punk, although in a more subdued fashion than his work with the Birthday Party. Cave also allowed his literary aspirations to come to the forefront; the lyrics are narrative prose, heavy on literary allusions and myth-making, and take some inspiration from Leonard Cohen. Cave's gloomy lyrics, dark musical arrangements, and deep baritone voice recall the albums of Scott Walker, who also obsessed over death and love with a frightening passion. However, Cave brings a hefty amount of post-punk experimentalism to Walker's epic dark pop.

Cave released his first album with the Bad Seeds, From Her to Eternity, in 1984, which contained a noteworthy cover of Elvis Presley's "In the Ghetto," foreshadowing much of Cave's style and subject matter on the follow-up The Firstborn Is Dead. Kicking Against the Pricks, an all-covers album, broke the band in England with the help of "The Singer," which hit number one on the U.K. independent charts. The album also strengthened Cave's reputation as an original interpreter and a vocal stylist of note. Following 1986's Your Funeral...My Trial, Cave took a two-year hiatus from recording, partially to appear in Wim Wenders' 1987 film Wings of Desire, and then returned with Tender Prey, which featured Cramps guitarist Kid Congo Powers and Cave's strongest vocal performance up to that point.

Cave's productivity picked up immensely over the next two years after he kicked a heroin habit. He had two books (1988's -King Ink, a collection of lyrics, plays, and prose, and 1989's -And the Ass Saw the Angel, a novel) published; appeared in the 1989 Australian film Ghosts...of the Civil Dead as a prisoner; recorded a soundtrack to the film with Harvey and Bargeld; and released 1990's The Good Son, his most relaxed, quiet album. Cave received his due as one of the leading figures in alternative rock when he was invited to perform on the 1994 edition of the Lollapalooza tour to promote his Let Love In album.

Early in 1996, he released Murder Ballads, a collection of songs about murder. Murder Ballads became Cave's most commercially successful album to date, and, with typical perversity, he followed it with the introspective and personal The Boatman's Call in early 1997. A spoken word release, Secret Life of the Love Song, followed in 1999. Two years later, a rejuvenated Cave teamed up with the Bad Seeds once again for the piano-laden No More Shall We Part. Nocturama was released in 2003, and the double-album Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus followed by the end of 2004. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine & Steve Huey

For Doris Day see Number 961

For Cliff Richard see Number 739

For Elvis Presley see Number 840

For Kylie Minogue see Number 886

For more Kylie Minogue visit Mellow Mix Vol 1 #076

What does Rolling Stone think about Nick Cave?

Nick Cave has made a cottage industry out of theatrical gloom for the past 15 years, artfully plunging into the depths of a reservoir of despair that many alternative rockers couldn't even dream of fathoming. But never before have manic elements elevated Cave's shtick to art as on Murder Ballads. In a way, the album is an author-subject synergy reminiscent of Linda Ronstadt's Canciones de Mi Padre, only Cave's realm is much, much darker, and his daddy is the mass murderer Richard Speck.

Then the fun begins with the psychotically enhanced shriekfest "Stagger Lee" (Cave's version of the turn-of-the-century classic); a pretty and poisonous "Henry Lee," with Polly Jean Harvey; and a sublimely insidious "Lovely Creature," taking the listener on a textural roller coaster through psychosexual rage and raw sensuality. The album reaches its zenith on "Where the Wild Roses Grow," a succulent duet with Australian pop princess Kylie Minogue. Cave's character is so infatuated with Minogue's pristine nubility that he bashes her brains in, underscoring the link between sex and death.

For Linda Ronstadt see Number 665

Crowbarreds choice for Website to find more on Nick Cave ... Click on the address http://home.claranet.nl/users/maes/cave/

Rolling Stone Top 500 Songs ranked this song at Number (He scared the shit out of us!) and the Album ranked at Number (Does he bite Bats heads off? Huh?)

This song has a crowbarred rating of 68.5 out of 108

Nick cave stagger lee
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