"They sound like songs by someone who loves songs too much."

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So said Momus here talking about why he doesn't like Nick Cave's solo career as opposed to the Birthday Party, and I am intrigued by the implication I sense, namely that one can love not too wisely but too well when one is a musician -- and this said by a fellow musician. Is it that one is so entangled in a chosen artform that one can then ignore others to their detriment, or ignore 'real life' or...?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 21 February 2004 21:44 (twenty-two years ago)

link doesn't work for me

― amateur!st (amateurist), Saturday, 21 February 2004 21:46 (twenty-two years ago)

It is now fixed.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 21 February 2004 21:47 (twenty-two years ago)

i sort of have my own sense of what this phrase might mean but i doubt it relates to mr currie's meaning

― amateur!st (amateurist), Saturday, 21 February 2004 21:48 (twenty-two years ago)

In order to save one's chosen medium, one must destroy one's chosen medium. If one loves something, one kills it. How can Nick Cave, of all people, not know this? He needs to murder the ballads.

― Momus (Momus), Saturday, 21 February 2004 21:52 (twenty-two years ago)

this makes me think of elvis costello

― brains (cerybut), Saturday, 21 February 2004 22:05 (twenty-two years ago)

This makes me think of the Tet Offensive

― Nate in ST.P (natedetritus), Saturday, 21 February 2004 22:26 (twenty-two years ago)

He needs to murder the ballads.

Dude, that is rat on rat on. therefore, i agree.

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 21 February 2004 22:29 (twenty-two years ago)

i mean not everything is an art song. especially everything that nick writes. he's got to much reverence for his own reverence. just as every lame spoon-moon-june rhyme that jason spaceman comes up with isn't dying to be turned into a friggin' opera.

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 21 February 2004 22:36 (twenty-two years ago)

In order to save one's chosen medium, one must destroy one's chosen medium

I think oneself usually ends up superceding one's medium. If a musician isn't willing/able to strike up a new medium in place of the old one he cut his teeth on, it might be because he has discovered himself and isn't seeing the necessity of destroying things in the name of progress anymore. ie, everyone gets older/wiser/complacent/settled/dead/etc

― dleone (dleone), Saturday, 21 February 2004 22:43 (twenty-two years ago)

brains, I was going to say Elvis Costello too. Conversely, techno artists are often rightly accused of loving production too much, and loving song mechanics too little.

An even spread of attention on the part of the musician over the whole musical field is something desireable perhaps. Obsessive love of some aspect of music is like favouring some of your children and disregarding the others. The loved child becomes spoilt and narcissistic, the ignored children become listless and depressed. Eventually, they will get you back, haha, like they got Brian Wilson. His love of the song was finally overwhelmed by a huge wave of dark, obsessive enthrallment to sound and production.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Saturday, 21 February 2004 22:44 (twenty-two years ago)

The song 'Rock of Gibraltar' on Cave's 2003 album Nocturama goes:

Let me say this to you
I’ll be steadfast and true
And my love will never falter...

There are a dozen more stanzas of this and it just gets worse and worse. The trademark 'songwriter piano' chords plod incessantly between E major and A major, with a sentimental steel guitar wailing over the top.

When was the last time you heard anyone in real life using the phrase 'steadfast and true'? Is this good writing? Or is it just the dullest, most conservative song you've ever heard this side of Cat Stevens singing 'Morning Has Broken'?

― Momus (Momus), Saturday, 21 February 2004 23:04 (twenty-two years ago)

It's sentimental and cliche-ridden, drunk even.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Saturday, 21 February 2004 23:10 (twenty-two years ago)

You know what they say about rock critics being bitter, failed musicians? Does that go both ways?

― Nate in ST.P (natedetritus), Saturday, 21 February 2004 23:11 (twenty-two years ago)

not that the Nick Cave lyrics aren't awful, just sayin'.

― Nate in ST.P (natedetritus), Saturday, 21 February 2004 23:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Compare with, say, 'Deep in the Woods':

"Love is for fools and all fools are lovers
It's raining on my house and none of the others
Love is for fools and God knows I'm still one
The sidewalks are filled with love's lonely children"

The second line has become a saying for one of my friends, when he's taking the piss out of someone for being maudlin. It's a beautiful line, very original and bleakly comical.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Saturday, 21 February 2004 23:19 (twenty-two years ago)

"They sound like songs by someone who loves songs too much."

I'm guessing it means he thinks they sound too conventional.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 21 February 2004 23:20 (twenty-two years ago)

...which makes perfect sense, being that the Birthday Party eschewed virtually all semblance of adherence to conventional song structure. So, if you were sucked in by the Birthday Party, I can see how the Bad Seeds might seem like a boring comprimise...but I still think Cave's work with the Bad Seeds is exciting...albeit in an entirely different manner than the Birthday Party. Last couple of Cave albums, though.....YAWN.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 21 February 2004 23:23 (twenty-two years ago)

i don't think it's a question of conventional vs. nonconventional. what he's specifically saying, i think, is that cave's lyrics these days sound antiquated, as if he's writing in the language of other songs, older songs, much older songs, rather than writing in the language of his own life and times. the result being songs that are about songs, rather than about anything real.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Saturday, 21 February 2004 23:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Come on, Momus! You are generally correct & there is no need to weaken the case by invoking 'Rock of Gibralter' which is Cave's worst song & only defendable via the "the lyrics are supposed to be bad - it's an exercise in rubbish" method.

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Saturday, 21 February 2004 23:29 (twenty-two years ago)

This is what Cave could sound like if his sense of humour and his love of language hadn't deserted him. This, for me anyway, is where to put the line between the absurd and the touching.

― Momus (Momus), Saturday, 21 February 2004 23:41 (twenty-two years ago)

I must disagree heartily w/Momus, for that song suxx

― Donna Brown (Donna Brown), Sunday, 22 February 2004 01:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Well I'm listening to it now with some random IDM stuff on Skam playing on my stereo and if the vocals were quieter or absent it'd be fantastic.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 22 February 2004 01:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Watch the video and imagine Adam is Nick Cave. Especially when he croons 'Tomorrow gets closer / A purple bulldozer is calling you on the phone...' And then try imagining it as Leonard Cohen.

― Momus (Momus), Sunday, 22 February 2004 01:52 (twenty-two years ago)

He's no Liam Lynch, that's for sure

― Donna Brown (Donna Brown), Sunday, 22 February 2004 01:53 (twenty-two years ago)

If I was one of these people who sees music as something that should be thought about a lot like, say, someone's bed (as long as it's in an art gallery) I'd probably agree with Mr Momus.

However, the way I see it, the situation can be summed up like this:

Intelligent assessment < pretty

Also, the line "lesbian counter-attacks" makes him a hero, if nothing else.

― Stupid (Stupid), Sunday, 22 February 2004 02:02 (twenty-two years ago)

i think i agree entirely with momus, cave's recent stuff sounds impossibly leaden and *deliberate* to me

i don't think the problem is too much reverance but simply not enough imagination

― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 22 February 2004 11:31 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't know or like the music of Cave or Momus. But I have to hand it to Momus for his way with words, in prose, right here.

The ambiguity of Momus's original phrase makes it interesting.

Writing antiquated language doesn't show that you 'love songs too much'.

Some people don't love songs enough.

― the firefox, Sunday, 22 February 2004 11:43 (twenty-two years ago)

sorry i left out a "not" in my post:

problem is *not* too much reverance

― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 22 February 2004 12:41 (twenty-two years ago)

I think Cave has been leaden and deliberate for about 15 years, and the example Momus quotes seems typical to me, but I don't know if you have to destroy the song or just do it better. Destroying the song sounds sexier, though.

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 22 February 2004 13:17 (twenty-two years ago)

This reminds me of something I heard in a doc about miles davis, he was asked why he doesn't play ballads anymore. His answer was something along the lines of: 'Because I love ballads'.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Sunday, 22 February 2004 13:25 (twenty-two years ago)

What do you get if you destroy the song?

Probably you destroy the heart.

Especially if you destroy 'Destroy The Heart'.

― the firefox, Sunday, 22 February 2004 13:34 (twenty-two years ago)

also John Cage was someone who seemed to want to destroy the 'tradition' to create something else.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Sunday, 22 February 2004 13:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Today I will mostly be destroying the tradition of embroidery and creating something else.

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 22 February 2004 13:47 (twenty-two years ago)

anarchist!

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Sunday, 22 February 2004 14:03 (twenty-two years ago)

I wonder if RJG loves songs, what with all these superior tunes he's said to be penning.

― the firefox, Sunday, 22 February 2004 15:46 (twenty-two years ago)

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