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Rating:
How is it possible that on a quality music site with a bucketful of reviews of Burzum, Defecatius Intestinalis, and Motosega Agguerrita, there isn't a mention of King Ink's masterpiece, here at the peak of his musical and self-destructive career?
Drenched in genius and shabbiness, he throws himself full throttle against a wall of damnation along with the loyal Bad Seeds and the insane Kid Congo Powers, co-opted from the Gun Club.
The result is a melee of drugged mysticism, ancestral fears, alcohol-induced dementia, and a punch in the face to those who praise the heroin-chic style... a slap, a horrendous scream of despair, and a cry for help: all these things are locked in the unhealthy treasure chest of Tender Prey, conceived under extreme and all-consuming psychological and physical conditions.
"Mercy Seat" is the masterpiece we all know, the song that even Johnny Cash honored in the third volume of his American Recordings: a wild and paranoid ride lodged in the mind of a death row inmate babbling about his final days, first denying and then admitting his guilt, all adorned with solemn biblical references and street curses... a masterpiece of arrangements and a true sonic maelstrom without borders to contain it. "Deanna" is an "O happy days" on the roads of Natural Born Killers or Terrence Malick's Badlands: a disjointed and rowdy song about the love story between a murderer and his accomplice, a fun road fantasy and assorted gruesomeness.
"Mercy": probably the lyrical masterpiece of this album, narrating the dirty parable of a prophet abandoned to himself, clad in camel skin and dripping swamp water, raising his eyes to the sky and begging the Lord for mercy. There's something of Durer's The Temptation of Saint Anthony in this song... an atrocious and despairing anthem but at the same time convinced of being able to overcome one's weaknesses and reach the shore... salvation.
"Up Jump The Devil" is a song in Kurt Weill style, very theatrical and colorful, illustrating the birth of a dispossessed and retracing the character of Cave's only novel: And the Ass Saw the Angel, a small masterpiece in the footsteps of Steinbeck, where a poor cripple is born in a valley of sinners and then redeems it like a hunchbacked Christ. "Slowly Goes The Night" is a ballad in Burt Bacharach style, performed with grace and class and somewhat anticipates the future artistic inclination of our skinny storyteller. This piece pairs with "Watching Alice": a sad and spleen-filled track, which very candidly paints in pastel shades a voyeur engaged in his daily practice... spying on Alice as she undresses, as she changes, and outside, it's June, while outside the heat begins and he retreats, a new Raskolnikov, into his bedroom-tomb-place of wild onanism.
"Sugar Sugar Sugar", a song not listed in the tracklist, bursts in like a cavalry charge... determined bass strokes and a wall of distortions cover Cave's violated singing, his singing to prayer, the only lifeline seeming to be this barbaric faith filled with fear of the Father. Cave's God is not a good God, but a terrible judge, a catastrophic fist ready to strike down the erring brother... it is the God of battlefields flooded with corpses; and it is this atrocious panorama but also this hope that whispers gently in "New Morning": a sweet farewell of a general to his defeated troops while the sky is blood-red and the soldiers have been massacred. But perhaps there is still hope to move forward, to cleanse oneself again, to face one's demons and no longer see others with clenched claws but hands ready to grip, caress, and comfort.
After this album, and after almost losing his life, Cave will shed the clothes of the terminal addict to wear those of the surviving crooner, a singer-songwriter of broken loves and life on the wrong side of the road; but this compositional and human peak will never again be equaled in urgency and creative fire, due to the extreme existential condition of the author.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
01 The Mercy Seat (07:17)
It began when they come took me from my home
And put me in Dead Row,
Of which I am nearly wholly innocent, you know.
And I'll say it again
I..am..not..afraid..to..die.
I began to warm and chill
To objects and their fields,
A ragged cup, a twisted mop
The face of Jesus in my soup
Those sinister dinner meals
The meal trolley's wicked wheels
A hooked bone rising from my food
All things either good or ungood.
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of truth.
An eye for an eye
A tooth for a tooth
And anyway I told the truth
And I'm not afraid to die.
Interpret signs and catalogue
A blackened tooth, a scarlet fog.
The walls are bad. Black. Bottom kind.
They are sick breath at my hind
They are sick breath at my hind
They are sick breath at my hind
They are sick breath gathering at my hind
I hear stories from the chamber
How Christ was born into a manger
And like some ragged stranger
Died upon the cross
And might I say it seems so fitting in its way
He was a carpenter by trade
Or at least that's what I'm told
Like my good hand I
tatooed E.V.I.L. across it's brother's fist
That filthy five! They did nothing to challenge or resist.
In Heaven His throne is made of gold
The ark of his Testament is stowed
A throne from which I'm told
All history does unfold.
Down here it's made of wood and wire
And my body is on fire
And God is never far away.
Into the mercy seat I climb
My head is shaved, my head is wired
And like a moth that tries
To enter the bright eye
I go shuffling out of life
Just to hide in death awhile
And anyway I never lied.
My kill-hand is called E.V.I.L.
Wears a wedding band that's G.O.O.D.
`Tis a long-suffering shackle
Collaring all that rebel blood.
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of truth.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway I told the truth
And I'm not afraid to die.
And the mercy seat is burning
And I think my head is glowing
And in a way I'm hoping
To be done with all this weighing up of truth.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And I've got nothing left to lose
And I'm not afraid to die.
And the mercy seat is glowing
And I think my head is smoking
And in a way I'm hoping
To be done with all this looks of disbelief.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway there was no proof
Nor a motive why.
And the mercy seat is smoking
And I think my head is melting
And in a way I'm helping
To be done with all this twisted of the truth.
A lie for a lie
And a truth for a truth
And I've got nothing left to lose
And I'm not afraid to die.
And the mercy seat is melting
And I think my blood is boiling
And in a way I'm spoiling
All the fun with all this truth and consequence.
An eye for an eye
And a truth for a truth
And anyway I told the truth
And I'm not afraid to die.
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
A life for a life
And a truth for a truth
And anyway there was no proof
But I'm not afraid to tell a lie.
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of truth.
An eye for an eye
And a truth for a truth
And anyway I told the truth
But I'm afraid I told a lie.
03 Deanna (03:45)
O DEANNA
O Deanna!
O DEANNA
Sweet Deanna!
O DEANNA
You know you are my friend, yeah
O DEANNA
And I ain't down here for your money
I ain't down here for your love
I ain't down here for your love or money
I'm down here for your soul
No carpet on the floor
And the winding cloth holds many moths
Around your Ku Klux furniture
I cum of death-head in your frock
We discuss the murder plan
We discuss murder and the murder act
Murder takes the wheel of your Cadillac
And death climbs in the back
O DEANNA
This is a car
O DEANNA
This is a gun
O DEANNA
And this a day number one
O DEANNA
Our little crimeworn histories
Black and smoking christmas trees
And honey, it ain't mystery
Why you're a mystery to me
We will eat out of their pantries
And their parlours
Ashy leaving in their beds
And we'll unload into their heads
On this mean season
This little angel that I squeezin'
She ain't been mean to me
O DEANNA
O Deanna!
O DEANNA
You are my friend and my partner
O DEANNA
On this house on the hill
O DEANNA
And I ain't down here for your money
I ain't down here for your love
I ain't down here for your love or money
I'm down here for your soul
O DEANNA
I am a-knocking
O DEANNA
With my toolbox and my stocking
O DEANNA
And I'll meet you on the corner
O DEANNA
Yes, you point it like a finger
O DEANNA
And squeeze its little thing
O DEANNA
Feel its kick, hear its bang
And let no worry about its issue
Don't worry about where its been
and don't worry about where it hits
Cause it just ain't yours to sin
O DEANNA
No it just ain't your to sin
O DEANNA
Sweet Deanna
O DEANNA
And we ain't getting any younger
O DEANNA
And I don't intend gettin' any older
O DEANNA
The sun a hump at my shoulder
O DEANNA
O Deanna!
O DEANNA
Sweet Deanna
O DEANNA
And I ain't down here for your money
I ain't down here for your love
I ain't down here for your love of money
I'm down here for your soul
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Other reviews
By RedStrawHat
"He declares himself innocent in the legendary 'The Mercy Seat' from the darkness of a cell to the electric light of the chair."
"'Slowly Goes The Night' piano-bar-heroin, torments, pleas, bitterness, and darkness blend softly with the most sentimental Cave."
