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Rating: Nick Cave is everything and nothing... but also much more... it's already in the name... Nick Cave... Nicola Caverna... I don't know how many have given him a social/space/temporal placement... I never thought about it... he's someone who's used life, that's true... but life, egocentric as it is, has used him... I'm not an expert on the subject and, above all, I don't know how to review... or at least, I've never tried... but I chose this album to make a concrete tribute to the enormous art that Nick Cave, throughout all these years, has given us... and still continues to do so... this album, for me, is not an album... it has never been, really. . but don't misunderstand me... more than an album, for me it's always been a fresco... a sound fresco... decadent poetry and melody... pain and dark sounds... intimacy and pained notes... a fresco that is increasingly becoming a true painting... and the canvas are these very seven sound gems (which became nine, with the addition of "The Six Strings That Drew Blood" and the single version of "Tupelo", included only in the CD edition)... a canvas dense with tension, parsimony, darkness... you get lost in this canvas, even unknowingly... you cannot remain indifferent to it... you get so drawn into the storm ("Tupelo"), walk for days in an apparently deserted cornfield ("Black Crow King"), listen dreamily to the story of an outlaw who no longer wants to live ("Wanted Man"), hurry to not miss the long black train ("Train Long-Suffering") and maybe see yourself in that man who sings the desire to not let the woman/girl he's in love with grow up ("Say Goodbye To The Little Girl")? well, in this sound journey, you have a companion though... the sound... you feel it close, friendly, confidant, master of your most hidden emotions... you tremble with the heartbeat of Mick Harvey's drums... you pant along with Blixa Bargeld's guitar on the verge of distortion... you dream claustrophobic images along with Barry Adamson's pulsating bass... and you reach the point of feeling like one of them! You too have become a "bad seed"... or at least you try to be... but something is missing... you're a seed, it needs the plant... the plant is the voice... His voice... it comes to devastate you, but it's a more than pleasant sensation... the timbre is dark, almost disturbing... the painting (fresco or painting as it may be) is composed: Nick Cave is the painter... the Bad Seeds are his colors... the canvas, the poems of love and death that trace the path... and you? well, you are the timid observer... the title? "The Firstborn Is Dead"... the firstborn is dead... but every time this painting's exposition is admired, well, the firstborn rises again!
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Tupelo (07:16)
Looka yonder! Looka yonder!
Looka yonder! A big black cloud come!
A big black cloud come!
O comes to Tupelo. Comes to Tupelo
Yonder on the horizon
Yonder on the horizon
Stopped at the mighty river
Stopped at the mighty river and
Sucked the damn thing dry
Tupelo-o-o, O Tupelo
In a valley hides a town called Tupelo
Distant thunder rumble. Distant thunder rumble
Rumble hungry like the Beast
The Beast it cometh, cometh down
The Beast it cometh, cometh down
Wo wo wo-o-o
Tupelo bound. Tupelo-o-o. Yeah Tupelo
The Beast it cometh, Tupelo bound
Why the hen won't lay no egg
Can't get that cock to crow
The nag is spooked and crazy
O God help Tupelo! O God help Tupelo!
O God help Tupelo! O God help Tupelo!
Ya can say these streets are rivers
Ya can call these rivers streets
Ya can tell ya self ya dreaming buddy
But no sleep runs this deep
No! No sleep runs this deep
No sleep runs this deep
Women at their windows
Rain crashing on the pane
Writing in the frost
Tupelos' shame. Tupelo's shame
O God help Tupelo! O God help Tupelo!
O go to sleep lil children
The sandmans on his way
O go to sleep lil children
The sandmans in his way
But the lil children know
They listen to the beating of their blood
listen to the beating of their blood
listen to the beating of their blood
listen to the beating of their blood
They listen to the beating of their blood
The sandman's mud!
The sandman's mud!
And the black rain come down
the black rain come down
the black rain come down
Water water everywhere
Where no bird can fly no fish can swim
Where no bird can fly no fish can swim
No fish can swim
Until The King is born!
Until The King is born!
In Tupelo! Tupelo-o-o!
Til The King is born in Tupelo!
In a clap-board shack with a roof of tin
Where the rain came down and leaked within
A young mother frozen on a concrete floor
With a bottle and a box and a cradle of straw
Tupelo-o-o! O Tupelo!
With a bottle and a box and a cradle of straw
Well Saturday gives what Sunday steals
And a child is born on his brothers heels
Come Sunday morn the first-born dead
In a shoebox tied with a ribbon of red
Tupelo-o-o! Hey Tupelo!
In a shoebox buried with a ribbon of red
O ma-ma rock you lil' one slow
O ma-ma rock your baby
O ma-ma rock your lil' one slow
O God help Tupelo! O God help Tupelo!
Mama rock your lil' one slow
The lil one will walk on Tupelo
The lil one will walk on Tupelo
Black rain come down, Black rain come down
Tupelo-o-o! Yeah Tupelo!
And carry the burden of Tupelo
Tupelo-o-o! O Tupelo! Yeah!
The King will walk on Tupelo!
Tupelo-o-o! O Tupelo!
He carried the burden outa Tupelo!
Tupelo-o-o! Hey Tupelo! [Repeat]
You will reap just what you sow
07 Blind Lemon Jefferson (06:09)
Blind Lemon Jefferson is a-coming
Tap tap tappin with his cane
Blind Lemon Jefferson is a-coming
Tap tap tappin with his cane
His last ditch lies down the road of trials
Down the road of trials
Half filled with rain
O Sycamore, Sycamore!
Stretch your arms across the storm
Down fly two greasy brother-crows
They hop'n'bop They hop'n'bop They hop'n'bop
Like the tax-man come to call
They go knock knock! Knock knock!
Hop'n'bop hop'n'bop
They slap a death-writ on his door
Here come the Judgement train
Git on board!
And turn that big black engine home
O let's roll!
Let's roll!
Down the tunnel
The terrible tunnel of his world
Waiting at his final station
Like a bigger blacker third bird
O let's roll!
Let's roll!
O his road is dark and lonely
He don't drive no Cadillac
O his road is dark and holy
He don't drive no Cadillac
If that sky serves as his eyes
Then that moons a cataract
Let's roll!
Yeah let's roll!
08 In the Ghetto (04:06)
(M. Davies)
As the snow flies
On a cold and grey Chicago morn
A poor little baby child is born in the ghetto
And his mama cries
Cause there's one thing that she don't need
Is another little hungry mouth to feed in the ghetto
Oh people don't you understand
This child needs a helping hand
He's gonna grow to be an angry young man some day
Take a look at you and me
Are we that blind to see?
Do we simply turn our heads and look the other way?
And the world turns
And the hungry little boy with the runny nose
Plays in the streets as the cold wind blows in the ghetto
And his hunger burns
So he starts to roam the streets at night
And he learns how to steal and he learns how to fight in the ghetto
Then one night in desperation
The young man breaks away
He buys a gun and steals a car
He tries to run but he don't get far
And his mama cries
A crowd gathers round an angry young man
Face down in the street with a gun in his hand in the ghetto
Oh people don't you understand
This child needs a helping hand
He's gonna grow to be an angry young man some day
Take a look at you and me
Are we that blind to see?
Do we simply turn our heads and look the other way?
And as her young man dies
On a cold and grey Chicago morn
Another little baby child is born in the ghetto
10 The Six Strings That Drew Blood (04:50)
Guitar thug blew into town
His eyes like wheels spinnin' round
Jerkin-off at every sound
Layin' all his crosses down
O yeah
He got Six Strings
The Six Strings that drew blood
The bar is full of Holy-Joes
A Holy-hole-a-whole-aria
Around the neck of our consumptive rose
is the root of all his sorrows
O yeah
He got Six Strings
Six Strings that drew blood
A Holy-hole-a-whole-aria
Six Strings that drew blood
In the bathroom under cover
He turns on one tap to discover
He's smashed his teeth out on the other
Well he look in the mirror and say
don't fuck me brother
Cause I got Six Strings
Six Strings that drew blood
Numbin' the runt of reputation they call rat fame
Top-E as a tourniquet
A low tune whistles across his grave
Forever the master and the slave of his Six Strings
A Holy-hole-a-whole-aria
Six Strings that drew blood.
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Other reviews
By Bartleboom
The prophet is the voice that fills the silence between the lightning and the thunder: he is a hooded snake, mad and sensual, with the face of a vampire worn out by thirst.
Twenty years after its release, The Firstborn Is Dead remains, in my opinion, one of Nick Cave’s most poignant and beautiful frescoes.
By preachinblues
The album opens with 'Tupelo', introduced and concluded by the sound of pouring rain that explicitly represents the climate and mood, fatalistic and hallucinatory, of the entire work.
'Knockin’ on Joe' is a piercing blues, capable of penetrating the darkest depths and recesses of the soul.
