ORIGINATION The Boatman's Call CD
LAST LISTENED TO December
CHANCE OF WAKING TO IT teeny
RATING ★★★★★
Each time a new Bad Seeds album comes out, almost without exception, my reaction to it is muted. Usually for some months after my first listen, I am unsure about it, about this change to a known entity. Then comes a day that I think, "actually this is all right". By the next day the album will be on constant rotation and will stay there for many, many days. Boatman's Call was something of an exception, it was and is so quiet, so low-key, missing the usual Bad Seed bombast, that I never reached that week of constant rotation. However, over the years it has gradually ebbed into my conscious and finally, in the past few years, I have come to terms with it and it enjoys a special place in my heart. It is a quietly beautiful album.
All of this makes waking to a particular song from this album rather unexpected, especially one that I have never once sought out to listen to on its own. As with the whole album, it is quietly beautiful, centred around Cave and his piano, with minimal further instrumentation. It appears, on the face of it, to be about faith. However, unlike yesterday's song of faith, this one could as easily be a song of secular love. The line is, as ever with Nick Cave, a blurred one.
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