1997: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Boatman's Call

Does this album now sound and look so much like Nick Cave was trying to make it a classic album because it is a classic album? Did he will it to be so? Or did he happen upon it by chance, by magic? To me, it is the benchmark and the watershed in Nick Cave's career, the turning point in the road, but then again, maybe that's just because it was the first Nick Cave album I got into.

But it's not just that. There it stands, now halfway through his recording career, just before he quit heroin for good, around the time he married his current wife, the album where he became an acceptable figure, a writer of wedding songs. Maybe this is the first album of the resurrection of Nick Cave ... or, like I say, maybe I think that because it's the first one I got into.

It's not like he hadn't written beautiful piano ballads before, nor like he wouldn't write more obscene, infernal rock songs. It's not actually like this is the commercial breakthrough. The previous album, 'Murder Ballads', was marginally more successful and also contained his highest charting single, 'When the Wild Roses Grow' (with Kylie, of course). And in fact, really, Nick Cave just seems to become more and more successful every album since then. Slightly. As if, every album, he doesn't lose any fans, he just gains a few extra thousand, a few  extra thousand people realise how awesome he is. On his last two albums, he's finally cracking America. He's kind of mainstream. By the time he's 70, he'll be the new Justin Bieber.

 I wasn't ready for Nick Cave when 'Murder Ballads' came out, at the height of Britpop. To be honest, I'm still not a massive fan of that album, though it certainly has its mean motherfucking moments called Stagger Lee. Yeah, yeah, murder ballads, nice idea ... give me god and love ballads any day.

God and Love. That's this album. God is Love, they say, those Christians. But here, they're kind of separate, kind of battling.

It's well known that romance with PJ Harvey is starkly written within, sometimes cruelly, and also that the album picks over the bones of a previous, longer-lasting romance. It's also known that this is Nick Cave's religious album, and, you know, it really is - though certain kinds of religion infuse his work before and after, this is really his C of E album, it's a beautiful, warm, loving religion, not hellfire and damnation at all.

Now, I don't know if Nick Cave has ever actually believed in God (well, we can be pretty sure he don't believe in an interventionist God), but that's not quite the point. The album is infused with knowledge of faith, of church, respect for the Bible and for the practices of worship.

Somehow, he places that comfortably alongside hopelessness, bitterness and carnal longing.  Not a song is wasted.

I'm thinking a lot about the album form, what makes a great album for me. A unity. Sticking with that. Blood on the Tracks. Blue, Astral Weeks, Blue, The Boatman's Call. I think he knew what he was saying. This is my classic. This is one for the archive.

I happen to enjoy the successor, And No More Shall We Part, more. I love the songs on that, the lyricism, the wit, the surges of adrenaline and the moments of reflection, the tunes. That's really one of my favourite albums to listen to. But, if pushed, i'd accept that this is the great work.  It's not on the way anywhere. It's exactly where it is.

I love Nick Cave, obviously, and I know he's got a full career, indeed two careers, before The Boatman's Call, but i'm not tempted, no I refuse, to investigate. I'm New Testament Nick all the way. I've heard a few of the prophets, Ship Song, Straight to You, The Mercy Seat, but god knows what I'll find deep in the dark Old Testament.

So, the songs on this album? How are they? They're good. They're piano ballads, they never speed up, there's no real humour, they can be mean. The best tunes are on the first half, but some of the most striking  and unusual stuff is on the second half. Into My Arms you could build a marriage on, People Ain't No Good you could build a philosophy on, Lime Tree Arbour who could build an ... orchard on ... Brompton Oratory, you could ... oh, you know.

I wrote about Into My Arms before, so that'll do for now. Here is my Nick Cave compilation

Into My Arms
No Pussy Blues (Grinderman)
Stagger Lee
The Mercy Seat
O My Lord
Brompton Oratory
God is in the House
Love Letter
There She Goes My Beautiful World
Breathless
The Sorrowful Wife
Still in Love
People Ain't No Good
We Call Upon the Author
The Ship Song
Straight to you
Far From You
Higgs Boson Blues
We Know Who U R
Darker With the Day

That was a difficult compilation to draw a line under. Not as hard as the Beatles or Bob Dylan, but not far off, and bear in mind, I'm actually dealing with significantly less than half his recorded output... pretty good