Cover of “The Boatman’s Call” by Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds
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The donkey had seen the angel, but the angel was just the stone figure on the church where Nick Cave went on Whit morning.
“And I wish that I was made of stone/ So that I would not have to see/ A beauty impossible to define”, he sings in “Brompton Oratory” on “The Boatman’s Call” and of course means the beauty of a woman.
Like a Büchner protagonist, the lyrical self staggers on this record between belief and doubt, observation of nature, reflection on love, non-love and how everything is connected.
The locations are similar to those of Murder Ballads, but this time Cave sounds like it’s safe to approach. The obvious fallacy: a denominational record on which he questions his own poetic images of falling leaves and dripping blood. Again, a pose, of course, but Boatman is easier to love.
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