Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds
The Boatman's Call

THE REVIEW

"To our love send a dozen white lilies
To our love send a coffin of wood
To our love send back all the letters
To our love a Valentine of blood..."
("People ain't no good")

I have often wondered what could be the appropriate soundtrack for the end of a love. The ideal musical accompaniment to underline the death of a feeling.
Could it be an album that you listened to together with the object of desire in question, and that would masochistically bring to light, the memories, the passionate nights when you said "forever"? Or something less profound but sentimental, a record with some key tracks that trigger tears, listened to in particularly dark moments of the closing process? But so it is, the Moving Sidewalks have already been reviewed and All By Myself is not exactly what I listen to. When I found myself alone, in my perpetually messy room, I chose a "neutral" album (for the memories, not the feelings), that summarized the emotions and feelings that unfortunately pervade me, but over which I have no control.
Everything has already been decided. Out of ignorance, lack of sensitivity, boredom, or perhaps simply for some new piece of ass. Selavì, as one of the more cynical ones here would say, myself included, so the only thing left for me is this drifting wreck I've clung to.

The boatman's call, strangely, is one of the few Cave albums that has not yet been reviewed on de-b, and as a non-fanatic of the Inky King, it's certainly my favorite, one of the most intimate, the most delicate and bitter, a love story, its end, the quest for a God who can quell the suffering from the loss of what seemed absolute, infinite, special. For what inevitably dies, but we often bring to an early death, out of laziness or lack of desire, because we are children of a throwaway world, which teaches us to trample on the most primitive values, to give up at the first obstacle, to no longer fight for the beautiful things that come our way.
The boatman's call is the album that follows Murder Ballads, where anger and madness mingled with the most traditional culture of storytellers. It's a therapeutic and introspective album for Cave who, after a divorce and countless personal and artistic vicissitudes, finds himself deeply meditating on the meaning of the purest yet so complex concepts: love, death, faith, rationality, hate. "I don't believe in an interventionist God but if I did I would ask Him to watch over you" ("Into my arms")

It is a continuous asking of questions, self-examination, not being afraid to look inside and admit one's weaknesses, as a man, as a father ("Far from me"), as a wretch and common mortal like everyone. It's wondering if laziness and ignorance have led us to be without flags, without principles. God has forgotten us and we have forgotten Him ("Where do we go now but nowhere"). The beauty of the tracks, their hybrid of sweetness and bitterness has often been my companion on these melancholic evenings. It made me feel less alone, less stupid. Because we all suffer and each of us suffers for something that isn't so important to others. We are focused on our pain, on feeling "unique" thanks to this pain. And at the same time, in our fragility we manage to be devastating, to cause immense harm to those who care for us, of course, we prefer to kill than to be killed, often we adopt malice to try to survive the pain. Love and death, which have always gone together and increasingly become confused with each other.
The boatman's call is this, the account of a man who sums up the first half of his life, his role in society, better still in the universe, feeling immensely small but weighed down with suffering, love poorly given, to oneself and others.

"So hold me and hold me, don't tell me your name
This morning will be wiser than this evening is
Then leave me to my enemied dreams
And be quiet as you leave, Miss..."

R.I.P. VV