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Rating: The slow progression of the first heavy beats of the opening track of this album foreshadow a world made of shadows and ghosts.
You imagine a silhouette advancing in the darkness with a suspicious and threatening demeanor. It's only "Song of Joy", the spectacular opening of "Murder Ballads", the album where perhaps more than others Nick Cave manages to find a compromise between his ability to write captivating ballads with a certain melodicity and his visceral, dirty, and dark signature style, which had made some of his albums difficult to digest, certainly not for his most loyal fans.
"Murder Ballads" is a 1996 album that follows the splendid "Let Love In", and that fully confirms the extraordinary ability to write epic and dark ballads of the good King Ink. About "Song For Joy", it has already been said... A piece that catapults you right into Cave's world, which unsettles and captivates... The track that follows is of equally high level. "Stagger Lee" is a ballad with an absolutely irresistible rhythm, dark, pressing, overwhelming, unique... Truly motherfucker!!!
"Henry Lee" and "Where The Wild Roses Grow" are among Cave's most melancholic and famous pieces, and certainly don't need much commentary. The tenderness that Cave unleashes together with an unprecedented Kylie Minogue in this last track is extraordinary, but it definitely deviates from Nick's typical dull and underground tone. A piece that remains splendid, nonetheless, and that draws timeless images and scenarios. But the true gem of the album remains "The Kindness of Stranger", a sparse and repetitive track, flavored by the extraordinary voice of Nick Cave, and characterized by a female cry that, intertwined with Nick's voice, creates a dreamlike atmosphere, filled with dreams of love and sweet regret. Worth noting in the album is also "Lovely Creature", a slick and dirty ballad, in the typical King Ink style.
There is something negligible in the album, but overall it is a work steeped and overflowing with Nick Cave, in the guise of a filthy and dirty poet as always, but never more than in this album also capable of more immediate and easy melodies, but not for this reason banal.
One of the 3 most beautiful albums by the King Ink.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
04 Lovely Creature (04:18)
There she stands, this lovely creature
There she stands, there she stands
With her hair full of ribbons
And green gloves on her hands
So I asked this lovely creature
Yes, I asked. Yes I asked
Would she walk with me a while
Through this night so fast
She took my hand, this lovely creature
"Yes", she said, "Yes", she said
"Yes, I'll walk with you a while"
It was a joyful man she led
Over hills, this lovely creature
Over mountains, over ranges
By great pyramids and sphinxs
We met drifters and strangers
Oh the sands, my lovely creature
And the mad, moaning winds
At night the deserts writhed
With diabolical things
Through the night, through the night
The wind lashed and it whipped me
When I got home, my lovely creature
She was no longer with me
Somewhere she lies, this lovely creature
Beneath the slow drifting sands
With her hair full of ribbons
And green gloves on her hands
06 The Curse of Millhaven (07:00)
I live in a town called Millhaven
And it's small and it's mean and it's cold
But if you come around just as the sun goes down
You can watch the whole thing turn to gold
It's around about then that I used to go a-roaming
La la la la La la la lie
All God's children they all gotta die
My name is Loretta but I prefer it Lottie
I'm closing in on my fifteenth year
If you think you have seen a pair of eyes more green
Then you sure haven't see them around here
Well my hair is a-yellow and I'm always a-combed
La la la la La la la lie
Mama often told me that we all got to die
You must have heard about The Curse Of Millhaven
How last Christmas Bill Blake's little boy didn't come home
They found him the next week in One Mile Creek
His head bashed in and his pockets full of stones
Well, just imagine all the wailing and moaning
La la la la La la la lie
Even Billy Blake's boy, he had to die
Then Professor O'Rye from Millhaven High
Found nailed to his door his prize-winning terrier
Then next day the old fool brought little Biko to school
And we all had to watch as he buried her
Well his eulogy to Biko had all the tears flowing
La la la la La la la lie
Even God's little creatures, they have to die
Our little town fell into a state of shock
A lot of people were saying things that made little sense
Then the next thing you know the head of Handyman Joe
Was found in the fountain of the Mayor's residence
Well foul play can really get a small town going
La la la la La la la lie
Even God's children they have to die
Then, in a cruel twist of fate, old Mrs Colgate
Was stabbed but the job was not complete
Well the last thing she said before the cops pronounced her dead
Was, "My killer is Loretta and she lives across the street!"
Twenty cops burst through my door without even phoning
La la la la La la la lie
The young ones, the old ones, they all gotta die
Yes, it is I, Lottie. The Curse Of Millhaven
I've struck horror in the heart of this town
Like my eyes ain't green and my hair ain't yellow
It's more like the other way around
I gotta pretty little mouth underneath all the foaming
La la la la La la la lie
Sooner or later we all gotta die
Since I was no bigger than a weavil they've been saying I was evil
That if "bad" was a boot that I'd fit it
That I'm a wicked young lady, but I've been trying hard lately
O fuck it! I'm a monster! I admit it!
Well it makes me so mad that my blood really starts a-going
La la la la La la la lie
Mama always told me that we all gotta die
Yeah, I drowned the Blakey kid, stabbed Mrs. Colgate, I admit
Did the handyman with his circular saw in his garden shed
But I never crucified little Biko, that was two junior high school psychos
Stinky Bohoon and his friend with the pumpkin-sized head
I'll sing to the lot, now you got me going
La la la la La la la lie
All God's children have all gotta die
Than there are all of the others, all our sisters and brothers
You assumed were accidents, best forgotten
Recall the children who broke through the ice on Lake Tahoo?
Everyone assumed the "Warning" signs had followed them to the bottom
Well, they're underneath the house where I do quite a bit of stowing
La la la la La la la lie
Even twenty little children, they had to die
And the fire of '91 that razed the Bella Vista slum
That was the biggest shit-fight this country's ever seen
Insurance companies ruined, land lords getting sued
All cause of wee little girl with a can of gasoline
Those flames really roared when the wind started blowing
La la la la La la la lie
Well the rich man, and the poor man, they all got to die
Well I confessed to all these crimes and they put me on trial
I was laughing when they took me away
Off to the asylum in an old black Mariah
Well it ain't home, but you know, it's better than jail
It ain't such bad old place to happy home in
La la la la La la la lie
All God's children they all gotta die
Now I got shrinks that will not rest with their endless Rorschach tests
I keep telling them that I think they're out to get me
They ask me if I feel remorse and I answer, "Why of course!
There's so much more I could've done if they'd let me!"
So it's Rorschach and Prozac and everything is groovy
Singing La la la la La la la lie
All God's children they all have to die
La la la la La la la lie
I'm happy as a lark now and everything is fine
Singing La la la la La la la lie
Yeah, everything is groovy and everything is fine
Singing La la la la La la la lie
All God's children they gotta die
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By noodles
Murder Ballads is a great concept album that does not talk about death as many mistakenly say, but rather about murdered deaths and their killers.
Thank you, Nick, for throwing away the syringe but not the pen, and most importantly, not the anger.
