and " Black Hair" have invisibly possessed my sub-conscious - I wake up with these tunes and lyrics in head. A more cinematic focus would dictate the majority of their 90s output, moving through 92’s Henry’s Dream(which featured some of Cave’s most assured and sprawling lyrical compositions) and 94’s Let Love In, both of which bought The Bad Seeds a wealth of new focus from the critical mainstream. Originally released in 1997, gone were the menacing, troubled tunes of yore; instead, here was a selection of graceful, minimal, melancholic numbers that saw Cave reflect on spirituality, loves past and present, and almost atoning for past indiscretions. The album’s dwelling on the fragility of love also collided with Cave’s similarly complicated relationship with religion.

After a career spent tearing down the world with horror and disgust, Nick Cave finally sounds ready to start rebuilding from scratch. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. These ruptures in his life would not only influence the lyrical direction of this next album, but would completely remould The Bad Seed’s musical role, stripping them back to a level of restraint and sparseness which, at this point, was new and scary territory. Having collaborated previously on the Murder Balladsfolk-cover ‘Henry Lee’, the pair had hit it off on the video shoot for that very song – an erotic, bare-bones scene which found the two-singers wrapped around one-another, locked deep in lustful stares and lyrical whispers.His lyrics were now thoroughly soaked in misanthropic themes and often documented characters in moments of bleak depravity or despair.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. His brief dalliance with Polly Harvey, whom he became infatuated with after their Henry Lee duet on Murder Ballads, is referenced on Green Eyes, Black Hair and the more direct West Country Girl.These are your actual songs of faith and devotion, and by Cave’s own admission his most personal album to date. It’s such a gorgeous song that Peaches Geldof even has its lyrics tattooed on her (but don’t let that put you off). Cave urged the group to embellish as little as possible, seeking to maintain the primary focus on his lyrics and stark solo piano playing, allowing their naked and vulnerable emotional qualities to shine through unvarnished. Behind the scenes, several issues had aligned in Cave’s life; a traumatic break-up, a second stint in rehab for a still persistent heroin addiction, and, most famously, a passionate but swiftly extinguished love-affair. And his continued insecurity surrounding emotional honesty has shone through when he states that “confessional writing is a dead end, there’s something about making heroic your own little pains that sticks in my craw.