The Nick Cave Top 75 Countdown (#20-16) & This Week's Statistics

Hello, my friends, old and new! The way things go during the last few months - I usually only manage to write two stories every week, one during the week and one on the weekend. I will try to write more, but it all depends on my schedule and the amount of research each story requires. Let's see how it goes...

Before the Nick Cave countdown continues, however, let's begin with our bonus track, from one of the soundtracks that Cave wrote in his long and illustrious career. In 2016, Cave and his soundtrack-writing partner Warren Ellis worked on their most high-profile film yet, Hell or High Water. The film, an intriguing crime drama starring Chris Pine, Ben Foster, and Jeff Bridges, was nominated for four major Oscars: Best Picture, Original Screenplay, Supporting Actor (Jeff Bridges), and Film Editing. The film-score also had its share of awards: it won the Best Film Score award at the International Sound & Film Music Festival and was also nominated by the San Francisco Film Critics Circle, as well as by the Austin Film Critics. Here's part of the soundtrack:

At #20 on our countdown we find a song from one of the three best Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds' album, Let Love In (1994). I Let Love In is ripe with a desolate sadness that is hard to get away from. It is another song about lost love that features a guitar melody which has been dipped in the sound stylings of country and blues music. The title track also features one of the most memorable and heartbreaking lyrics on the record: "Far worse to be Love's lover than the lover that love has scorned."

It is creepy, sardonic, and hauntingly atmospheric. It's like walking into a dark, musty, cobwebbed, claustrophobic room lit only by a single candle that's on the verge of flickering out and feeling that someone is going to come out of nowhere and murder you, except with less horrifying physical pain and more awesome slide guitar.

This is the studio version:

Here are the Bad Seeds, performing live on MTV:

At #19 is O Children, from Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus (2004), a skin-crawlingly gorgeous ballad of murder and suicide. It quite simply is one of the most profound statements of sadness and loss ever committed to tape. The song was featured in the film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. Which was a brave thing to do, but then again it is easy to hear why it would work as something to add a dark and anthemic element to a Harry Potter movie.

O Children is a straight-faced, full-chorus number that somehow overcomes every inspirational music cliche (including a lyrical reference to Amazing Grace) to become genuinely beautiful and stirring. It may even leave you with a brief but powerful feeling that piety may yet someday overcome depravity.

Here it is:

This is the actual scene from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1:

This is live at the Fonda Theatre:

At #18 is a song from another of Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds' classic albums, Tender Prey (1988). Deanna is a ripping song. It channels rockabilly and surf rock vibes in every sense; from the call and answer refrain to the production on the track. Nick Cave isn't known for his foot tappers, but this one goes beyond that. It's a hip shaker.

Although this one's more about the Bad Seeds than Nick Cave. Not that Cave isn't in top form, snarling and sputtering his way through a gloriously demented lust song. But the Seeds... man, they've never been a traditional rock band at all, but they raise enough hell here to rank with some of the toughest punks the world has ever seen.

This garage rock-style rave-up that lyrically is everything Natural Born Killers tried to be, but failed at - killing sprees, Cadillacs, and carrying out the work of the Lord, however atypically. The rousing garage pop of Deanna would quickly become one of Cave's best-known songs (it was almost 'radio friendly') and a live favorite. The track was based on a version of Edwin Hawkins' O Happy Day and inspired by a teenage relationship Cave had with a girl in Melbourne and the song would allow Cave to "time-travel" to happier days. Again, the lyrics were particularly memorable - "Murder takes the wheel of your Cadillac / And death climbs in the back" depicted the real-life Deanna's zest for cruising around Melbourne in search of semi-legal mischief, while the "Ku Klux furniture" referenced the white-sheeted sofas in her parents' house. Subsequently, Cave issued an acoustic version of a medley of Deanna and Oh Happy Day, which was later issued on Original Seeds Vol. 1.

This is the original version:

This is live at LSO St. Lukes:

This is the medley of the acoustic version of Deanna with Oh Happy Day:

At #17 is a song from 1996's masterpiece, Murder Ballads. This album perfectly works as an oeuvre of literature as well as it does as a music album. Every song is a short story, albeit one with murder at its core. The Kindness of Strangers is a cautionary tale that ends with the lyrics: "So mothers keep your girls at home / Don't let them journey all alone / Tell them this world is full of danger / And to shun the company of strangers." But it's the song's story that chills my soul every time I hear it. Compared to some other songs on this album, The Kindness of Strangers describes, a simple murder, one may even be tempted to call it mundane. But it is the ordinary nature of this murder that makes it so chilling. Every moment recounted feels real, very emotion feels honest. Perhaps it especially resonates with my gay nature - there have been moments in the lives of most of us that loneliness and lust made us let our guard down and possibly expose ourselves to serious danger. So, identifying with poor Mary Bellows becomes hauntingly real. Here are the rest of the song's lyrics:

"They found Mary Bellows cuffed to the bed
With a rag in her mouth and a bullet in her head
O, poor Mary Bellows

She'd grown up hungry, she'd grown up poor
She left her home in Arkansas
O, poor Mary Bellows 

She wanted to see the deep blue sea
She traveled across Tennessee
O, poor Mary Bellows 

She met a man along the way
He introduced himself as Richard Slade
O, poor Mary Bellows 

Poor Mary thought that she might die
When she saw the ocean for the first time
O, poor Mary Bellows 

She checked into a cheap little place
Richard Slade carried in her old suitcase
O, poor Mary Bellows 

"I'm a good girl, sir", she said to him
"I couldn't possibly permit you in"
O, poor Mary Bellows 

Slade tipped his hat and winked his eye
And turned away without goodbye
O, poor Mary Bellows 

She sat on her bed and thought of home
With the sea breeze whistling all alone
O, poor Mary Bellows 

In hope and loneliness, she crossed the floor
And undid the latch on the front door
O, poor Mary Bellows 

They found her the next day cuffed to the bed
A rag in her mouth and a bullet in her head
O, poor Mary Bellows"

Here it is:

Finally for today, at #16, we will end as we began, with a song from Let Love In (1994). Loverman is a snarling, menacing whirlwind of a song, with fantastic dynamics and a phenomenal, menacing vocal and some seriously disturbing lyrics. Metallica eventually covered it, but there's no doubt in my mind that the original is the best. Easily one of Cave's definitive tunes.

On an album full of classics, Loverman feels the most disturbing. Unlike The Ship Song, it's lust rather than love that's clouded the senses, and Cave howls and groans like he's been possessed by Twin Peaks' BOB, taken over by an evil spirit and creeping and crawling like a sex-sick devil. The music grows and growls, from eerie and quiet to giant crashes and crescendos, and Cave mutters the verses as if he's sweating out a fever before his voice turns disturbingly, disgustingly seductive as he whispers: "R is for rape me, m is for murder me."

Cave himself has said, "Loverman was a song we almost didn't do because it seemed like a very weak idea at the time of recording. It was supposed to be just a throwaway song about desire. I was squirming about how banal it was. I changed the whole atmosphere, so the guy who's the telling the story is weak and dysfunctional. I put in the bits where I spell out loverman. It was a great surprise to everyone."

Here is the studio version:

This is a live version from the Glastonbury Festival, UK, 1994:

Here is Metallica's version:

Now, let's continue with last week's statistics; the week before was good, last week was even better: the visits have more than doubled. As far as the stories were concerned, Shirley Bassey was not only the story of the week, but better still, the story of the month. It received lots of love from all of you and just as importantly, from the official Shirley Bassey Fan Site. I won't deny that it was a proud moment for GayCultureLand. Last week's Nick Cave did well, but the week's winners, following Bassey, were George Maharis, Tab Hunter, and Sal Mineo. You see, I've recently joined another great Facebook group, called CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD MOVIE STARS AND VINTAGE BEEFCAKE ( PRE-1990 ONLY) and I have introduced the good people there to our stories. Welcome, our new friends!

May I remind you, that the end of voting for the Motown Countdown is less than two weeks away. I suggest that you visit the story, called Motown Countdown, here: Motown Countdown which has the details on how to vote. Then you can cast your vote, either as a comment on any story on GayCultureLand, a message to me if we're Facebook friends, or an email (my address is on the linked story).

As far as countries are concerned, the United States were the big winners of the week, while Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands also had a good week. Germany, Spain, and Brazil were more or less stable, while the other major players suffered minor falls, but France's fall was definitely more pronounced.

Here are this week's Top 10 countries:

1. the United States

2. the United Kingdom

3. Greece

4. Australia

5. Canada

6. France

7. the Netherlands

8. Germany

9. Spain

10. Brazil

Here are the other countries that graced us with their presence since our last statistics (alphabetically): Algeria, Argentina, Aruba, Austria, the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, Fiji, Finland, Georgia, Guadeloupe, Guam, Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Laos, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Malaysia, Mexico, Monaco, Mongolia, Morocco, Myanmar (Burma), New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saint Lucia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, South Korea, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad & Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam, and Zambia. Happy to have you all!

And here's the all-time Top 10:

1. the United States = 26.7%

2. France = 24.7%

3. the United Kingdom = 13.4%

4. Greece = 6.5%

5. Russia = 2.5%

6. Germany = 1.7%

7. Canada = 1.46%

8. Italy = 1.21%

9. Turkey = 1.04%

10. Cyprus = 0.89%

That's all for today, folks. Till the next one!