| Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Higgs Boson Blues Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| I believe that it is too reductive to say that's just about drugs. Althought I remember Nick mentioning how he used to go to Brighton (before he was married) just to lock himself in a hotel room and drink and sweat and stay away from drugs. (So maybe that's why he says: "It's hot, it's hot, that's why they call it the Hot-Spot" | |
| Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Higgs Boson Blues Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| I loved your views on it! Especially second thoughts about alternate universes. What do you think about the Mau Mau and Pygmy thing, I mean how does it fit in? | |
| Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Higgs Boson Blues Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| Didn't know this, thanks for clarifying! I feel like another jigsaw falls into place. | |
| Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Higgs Boson Blues Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| This is what a "blues" should sound nowadays. Nick has talked about this one as the depiction of the general decay and confusion ruling our reality nowadays (referring also to Hannah Montana, which is the only discording note, she's there to contrast with naivety and unaware calm all the chaos around). Of course the decay is especially spiritual; I believe that the Higgs Boson fits because its revelation in a way (in a very collateral, poetic way) denies the existence of a God. A world in which God is denied, all kind of stuff happen, some other stuff are justified by it (black babies dying, Marthin Luther shot dead, Robert Johnson dead with any given credit -- basically there's just Lucipher hanging around like it's nothing). There's also a sarcastic look at science, on the other side, when he goes like: "here comes the missionary" -- maybe a doctor without borders carrying vaccines and knownledge like everything is under control, and everything can be explained. But in a messed up world without any God, nothing can ever make sense and 2+2 always make a 5. So in the end, Cave suggests he's just accepting the way things roll and flow; we're in a mess, no matter what they discover in Geneva. He does this long journey thro the whole human chaos but ends up defied in his basement patio, just like Miley Cirus in a way. But at the end of the day who cares? Who cares what the future brings? | |
| Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – The Lyre of Orpheus Lyrics | 11 years ago |
|
I believe that in the original myth Euridice was still killed because of Orpheus, but "indirectly", since Apollo was envious of his ability as a musician, and he decided to punish him. Nick's peculiar re-adaptation is brilliant and entertaining, I love the Euridice/orifice bit; it's very funny how Euridice goes on all like: "Shut the fuck up, it was all your fault in the first place!" which seems fitting also for the original version. I also kind of like that he gave the whole myth a happy ending, but still not a corny one: "screaming brats" sums up very well having children (in hell). That's realism. On top of that, could there be an autobiographical parallelism? Cave has often mentioned how he tries to keep music out of his domestic walls; probably his wife doesn't enjoy it that much. But now that's overspeculating. This album is all just so fucking ace. |
|
| Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Jubilee Street Lyrics | 11 years ago |
|
After watching the video, I feel like this comes a little clearer. There are 2 layers in the storyline I think, one from the point of view of a young prostitute, Bee, while the other one belongs to the man that got her pregnant (foetus on a leash, where leash is simply the umbilical cord?) For some reasons Bee has to leave the apartment in Jubilee Street where she received their clients (probably she's turned down by them because they discover the pregnancy -- or maybe caught and arrested) and so the man, who somehow was obsessed with her "is too scared to even walk on past" (maybe eaten by guilt and memories and all of that). I think this could be all wrong, but the song to me is more generally about how people focus on a fake appearance of morality and decour, but then deep inside they all know they are fucked up and desperate and, ultimately, need love, no matter how "dirty" and immoral it is. The contrast here is beautiful, Jubilee Street is a symbol for this formal morality, this masquerade of social order, somehow connected with the figure of the Queen (the ultimate thing is that Bee could be a nickname for girl called Elizabeth) and all that she represents. But on Jubilee street there's darkness too, there are prostitutes and stories going horribly wrong. Guys, this is still Nick Cave after all. |
|
| Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Where Do We Go Now but Nowhere? Lyrics | 11 years ago |
|
Considering that this album is probably one of Cave's most personal ones, I'd go for the rehab interpretation. I honestly don't know who the girl in question is though. She was probably helping him through his addiction problems, visiting him from time to time (see "clinical benches" where patients and visitors hang out) being some sort of hope (carrying the "missionary bell") among all the grimy imaginery of death that surrounded him at the moment ("grim reapers and skeletons"). My thought is that she probably got tired of the situation, got angry at him because of his difficulties trying to detox, so the one who was meant to soothe him turned against him: "The kitten that padded and purred on my lap Now swipes at my face with the paw of a bear" and he couldn't react at all because he knew it was his fault after all "I turn the other cheek and you lay into that." Images like the ones of the colonial hotel are probably just memories from a past that seemed promising for both of them, maybe at the peak of their love, when they dreamed of having a baby; the hope of the baby dies when their relationship starts to fall apart because of the addiction, and they become progressively consumed by it, that's why while they "have nothing to talk" about, " the bones of our child crumble like chalk", in a metaphorical way, like a dream that vanishes. In my head, when he sings: "If I could relive one day of my life If I could relive just a single one You on the balcony, my future wife O who could have known, but no one" he's remembering the day the girl visited him to the clinic for the last time. Or maybe the old times at the "colonial" hotels, when they were happy and in love and he dreamed to marry her. Maybe I got it all wrong. But I had to say something, I love the song. |
|
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.