Murder Ballads

There really isn't a weak number on the album, but if there is a touch that truly marks this out as a special album, it is the ironic song that closes the album, a rather obscure Bob Dylan song entitled "Death is not the End."

In retrospect, this album, which summed up all the reflections on death and violence that could be found on Cave's previous albums, took the theme to a level where he had nowhere else to go. In a way, this may have prepared Cave's transition to a more religious perspective. I am reminded of the words someone spoke to J.-K Huysmans after he published AGAINST NATURE: the view of life express in it was so bleak that, his friend said, afterwards the only two options were the church or the noose.


black rose   September 4, 2003
Author Brian Wallace (Mind Transmission, Inc.) (Texas)
Prurient? Nefarious? Perhaps.

Also, lush and beautiful odes that take one mysteriously beyond the subject matter and into strangely soothing realms. While I did not want to love something I had assumed was glorifying something truly evil, I realized that these songs were as much about sadness, tragedy and psychosis as they were a guilty foray into the darkest fantasy. The songs effectively capture both sides of the coin, something this art form can only usually aspire to.

The memorably haunting and mysteriously lovely collaborations with Kylie and PJ make it worth the price of admission - I just cannot recommend how to wrestle your soul back from the devil!

Nick Cave is truly a strange and brilliant talent. I cannot stay away for long.


a disturbing delight   August 28, 2003
timmy (Indiana)
In the early 90s, Nick Cave began to show a lighter, more sensitive side. Albums like Let Love In revealed a Cave who believed in faith, hope, and love (and the greatest of these love), and people wondered if the prophet-of-doom would ever return. Then he hit us hard with Murder Ballads, complete with brooding cover art and a Parental Advisory warning label. The grim Cave reaper was back!

So we thought. At closer inspection, Murder Ballads actually stays on a very parodic path, with even the sickest, most gruesome ballads retaining a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor. Take, for instance, "Stagger Lee," a song too vulgar and twisted to even begin describing in an Amazon.com review, yet I doubt anyone could make it through the song without displaying a wildly goofy grin. "Lee" is a hit (or, more accurately, a PUNCH) that was both a daring and magnificent move for Cave, worth the price of the album alone.

The rest of Murder Ballads holds other surprises as well. Cave's use of female vocalists in several numbers (both in foreground and background) is inspired, especially in "Where the Wild Roses Grow," one of the best and more serious songs on the disc. The dark tale is told with enough haunting recollection to make goose bumps sprout in places you've never imagined.

With all the violent outbursts put forth into Murder Ballads, it was appropriate to end with Dylan's "Death Is Not the End." Here we are given a showcase of all the vocalists in the record, each declaring in their unique style, "Just remember, death is not the end." A word of comfort, perhaps? Hard to say; since Murder Ballads is such a blackly humorous, twisted album to begin with, this last number is almost too cheerful and hopeful, providing quite the opposite effect.

So, the question is, what was Cave trying to say with this record? Was he again channeling the Old Testament parables of the past, or perhaps making a statement about serial killers, or just trying to entertain us with some horrific, funny tales? I'll let you ponder over those questions if you like. For me, Cave's music goes beyond simple answers. It's something that speaks to you, whether the voice is saying "Baby, I love you" or "I'm the bad ____-_____ called Stagger Lee."


PURE GENIOUS   October 8, 2002
DerUeberMensch (westford, MA United States)
Ah, dearest Nick Cave, you are music's last hope. How perfect an idea to sing little folksy, countryish ballads about gruesome murders. The 14 minute epic slaughter that is "O Malley's Bar" is definately one of the Bad Seed's greatest songs, demonstrating Mr. Cave's fabulously evil lyrics. "Stagger Lee" is also quite great (many call it disgusting but I don't understand why). "Henry Lee", "Song of Joy", "Where the Wild Roses Grow", "Death is Not the End", "Kindness of Strangers", they all kick some serious butt. I would consider this to be the aural equivalent of Gorey's Gothic Grimoire. Both are quite grim, morbid, haunting, yet funny in an evil way. Just buy it if you're fan of Nick Cave. It certainly the best of his dark Americana fascination.


Terrifying Beauty Taken To Its Obvious Conclusion   August 29, 2002
3rdeadly3rd (Brisbane, Queensland Australia)
Similar to almost any other Australian music-lover, I'd heard "Where The Wild Roses Grow" countless times before I decided to buy this album. Indeed, my actual purchase may have been as a sort of "NOW, will you stop playing this song?" reaction. Regardless, this CD is simultaneously the most terrifying one I have ever listened to from start to finish and also the most amazing idea I have ever seen committed to CD.

The title says it all, Cave and his Bad Seeds have taken the age-old murder ballad and had their wicked way with it and would now like you to hear the fruits of their labour. Not all of these songs are old murder ballads, and those which are tend to be present with slight alterations or in lesser-known forms, but they all would not sound out of place at any time in history. The reason being that they deal with topics such as cold-blooded murder, obsessive passion and crazed hatred which are not alien to any culture.

The opener, "Song Of Joy", is full of typical Cave irony. The title refers to the wife of the singer - killed in a particularly brutal fashion, as the song reveals. Of course, the idea of naming such an unrepentantly nasty song "Song Of Joy" is only what we have come to expect from this tortured genius. Cave's wit surfaces with such moments as the description of the wife becoming sad and "Joy in name only". As the song goes on, Cave weaves in a reference to Milton's "Paradise Lost" (interestingly enough, the same section which gave him the title of an earlier song) and gives some very tantalising clues to the killer's identity. A word of warning, listening to this song at night as not overly recommended, the atmospheric nature of gloom is more than all-pervading.

"Stagger Lee" and "Henry Lee" are both old ballads, and routinely listed as some of the best murder ballads of all time. "Stagger Lee" is performed in a rarer version which makes the (anti-)hero significantly less repentant. For some reason, this actually makes Stag somewhat more appealing as a subject. "Henry Lee" is a duet with PJ Harvey, in which the traditional murder ballad roles are reversed. This time, it's the man - a terribly flaky character as portrayed by Cave - who gets done in by Harvey, again, the listener finds themselves cheering the killer.

"Lovely Creature" and "Wild Roses" both deal with crimes of passion. "Lovely Creature"s pace - significantly faster than the songs around it - makes it a standout, as does the lyric which does not explicitly state that murder occurred. Indeed, the lyric reveals a depth of passion which is somewhat odd considering that the indication is that the murderer and victim have only just met. The ethereal, wordless female vocals backing Cave add immeasurably to the effect - as Cave paints a picture of a killer who may not quite be on the right side of sanity. "Wild Roses" covers much of the same ground, and could almost serve as a dual-narrative version of "Lovely Creature" were it not for the time factor. Kylie Minogue's voice provides a sharp foil of innocence against which Cave's voice - in a masterful performance - relays its clear-minded insanity. The song is especially poignant considering the romance between the singers which existed at the time - the lyrics reveal considerable passion on both sides, but yet there is an air of inevitability about the death. One particularly arch touch is Minogue's revelation in her verse that Cave's parting words of "All beauty must die" became merely "a muttered word".

Then comes the section of the album where Cave loosens up - if such a description could ever be applied. "The Curse Of Millhaven" is hilarious in the most perverse sense of the word. Cave portrays a young woman in a small town where a whole series of gruesome deaths just keep happening, and over a very rapidly-paced instrumental, the listener is left gasping for breath as more and more sadistic scenarios are described. When all is revealed in a wonderful denouement, the listener will almost invariably think "Oh well, the dead ones had it coming to them", this is because of Cave's incredible talent of making the least sympathetic characters of his songs become the most engaging of anti-heros.

"The Kindness Of Strangers" and "Crow Jane" are rather peculiar in relation to the rest of the album. The former is a rather straightforward narrative which seems a bit unsatisfactory when it ends. Cave has inserted a moral about stranger danger and it is unclear exactly how he wants this to be taken. Nonetheless, the story itself is quite a clever idea and the muffled crying as the song fades out is a nice touch. "Crow Jane" is almost too poetic for its own good, as it takes a few listens to work out exactly what's going on. Granted Cave is a singer-songwriter, but on an album of murder ballads, it would be nice to be able to understand everything first go - guts and glory, so to speak.

"O'Malley's Bar" is the only misfire of the album. It appears to almost be a jam session at times, with Cave trotting out a bizarre lyric about a killer with a God-complex killing all the occupants of a bar. There's nothing wrong with that, but the length of the song (some 15 minutes) is rather tedious. There is some room for Blixa Bargeld to deliver his sound effects, which fans of Einsturzende Neubauten will recognise very quickly.

The album ends with all the guests, plus a few others, joining in a version of Bob Dylan's "Death Is Not The End". Here, the effect that Cave was trying to achieve by counterpointing the female vocals of Harvey and Minogue with his own dark voice is completely realised. The addition of some vocals with German accents provides a third contrast.

Overall, absolutely worthwile as a purchase. A tour-de-force of what Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds have been aiming at doing ever since their inception.