Illustration Laura Weider
There are countless ways to discover new music. You can dig into artists, labels, genres, geographical areas, producers, instrumentation and more. One thing I really like is tracing the roots of artists I like – if you’re lucky, it’s like a musical treasure hunt. Now we dive into Nick Cave’s 1986 cover album “Kicking Against the Pricks” to trace the dark crooner’s inspirations and find some golden gems along the way.
Cover albums are tricky. Too often they seem to be plain fillers from artists in periods of creative drought, or half-hearted attempts to revive a dwindling career after the songwriting well has run dry. Nick Cave’s 1986 all-covers album Kicking Against the Pricks is luckily neither. Rather, his third solo album is a surprising collection of old southern states rock, traditionals, and AM radio goldens delivered in a dark, daring and hellbent manner – from an artist clearly on a potent streak, and at a formative point of his career. That makes it a great starting point for digging, so let’s see what we can find!
Nick Cave’s many personas
On this album Nick Cave the Crooner is really starting to find his form. Here we first meet Nick Cave the Balladeer, side by side with the manic, punk-blues ravings that define his first two albums. It’s also here that the pitch dark humor infesting and lightening so much of his later work really starts to shine through. All of this while we get a grand tour of his own inspirations.
Even at the time of Kicking Against the Pricks, Cave was not unfamiliar with doing renditions of his heroes work. His
very first single with The Bad Seeds was Elvis’ «In the Ghetto», from the album From Her to Eternity (1984), an album that also opens with Leonard Cohen’s «Avalanche». Sophomore album The Firstborn is Dead (1985) included Bob Dylan’s «Wanted Man» (that he never actually recorded himself). If all these songs can be said to have a touch of darkness even in their original versions, Nick Cave definitely proved capable of bringing it forth in disturbing amounts.
The songs and the originals
This way of injecting his own demons into other peoples material, as well as into his own, is evident already from opening track Muddy Water, originally released as «Muddy Waters» by the American bluegrass band The Seldom Scene on their 1973 album Act III. The song was also recorded by Johnny Cash on his 1979 album Silver.
Muddy Water
Seldom Scene’s tale of running away from the flooding river that is threatening to swallow your house may very well have had a metaphorical side also in the original. But where Johnny Cash’s version stays more or less true to the original, mainly adding his deep, sad baryton, the The Bad Seeds’ slow, dragging beat, weeping strings and insistent reverb guitar picking gives the story proportions of the great biblical Flood, more than merely a personal struggle.
Seldom Scene – «Muddy Waters»:
Nick Cave – «Muddy Water»:
The Hammer Song
Another great example is his version of The Hammer Song, by Scottish 70′s rocker Alex Harvey and his Sensational Alex Harvey Band (SAHB). Initially tied to the early glam rock era, the SAHB went in many wild directions. The Hammer Song is from their debut album Framed from 1972, a great album mostly circling around dirty, potent blues rock – and mind you, this was at a time where «blues rock» could still be taken as a compliment.
At times, the SAHB album goes outside the more direct rock, and leans more towards the prog and folk movements of the early 70′s. But more than just being inspired by the different genres of the time, it seems like it’s just as much mocking them for the self-conscious seriousness of it. The Hammer Song, Cave’s choice for a cover, is such a song – with its folksy feel and fairytale lyrics, it could have been the less heaven-bent flipside of Led Zep’s Battle of Evermore. In Cave’s hands, though, it seems more like a march through purgatory’s strangely inhabited quarters.
Sensational Alex Harvey Band – «The Hammer Song»:
Nick Cave – «The Hammer Song»:
Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart
There’s some better-known songs on the album too – some are on the more obvious side, like Velvet Underground’s «All tomorrow’s parties». Other’s are a bit more surprising, to say the least. For instance Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart, which was originally recorded first by David and Jonathan, but then in the classic version by Gene Pitney in 1967. It made a decent hit in UK, and was also released the following year, in french as Quelque Chose Tient Mon Cœur and in italian as Uomo, Non Sai. Even a Greek version was released by Vicky Leandros, who made a local hit with it.
Ultimately, though, it’s highest chart position actually came after Nick Cave’s cover version, when Marc Almond did a rather cheesy cover of the song, together with the original singer Gene Pitney, and took it to the top of the UK charts in 1989. Although Cave’s desperate, raw voice is more or less the exact opposite of Gene Pitney’s high pitched, exceptional tenor, a great thing with his version is to hear how close he still follows the original, and how deadly serious he takes the Love Song. This dualism, the mix of beauty and ugliness, love and murder has followed Cave’s work throughout his career.
Gene Pitney – «Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart»:
Nick Cave – «Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart»:
Digging further
For those that want to dig even deeper into Nick Cave’s musical roots, two compilation albums were released as Original Seeds vol 1 & 2. The albums consists of originals of songs Nick Cave has covered at one point, including seven of the tracks from Kicking Against the Pricks.
But now I want to hear from you – what are your favorite cover songs/albums? What new artists have you discovered because some favorite of yours covered them at one point?
