album // Let Love In
So this was where I got on board - this was my first Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds album, my first exposure to the unclassifiable music made by Cave and his loyal band of musicians. It was a late Sunday night in 1994, and my sister and I were waiting patiently for our parents to drive us up to our high school to catch a coach that would take us to Germany for a school trip. While we were waiting for dad to reverse the car out of the garage, I remember Jools Holland being on the TV, introducing Cave performing 'Red Right Hand'. I was transfixed - I'd never before witnessed or heard such music, and from there on in I was hooked. (I have tried desperately to obtain a recording of this performance, but to no avail.) Not hooked enough to buy the album straight away, because money wasn't exactly free-flowing at the time, but hooked enough to buy the 'Red Right Hand' single when it was released later that year, and to begin a conscious quest to learn more and more about this most compelling of bands, and ultimately reaching this point some ten years on where I'd consider myself a fully paid-up fan.
In actual fact, my first exposure to The Bad Seeds came a year earlier with a purchase of the Mute compilation International, which included the track 'The Train Song', which I'm ashamed to admit was one song I used to skip - I'd reached Mute through synth pop, and the faintly easy listening vibe of that track just didn't fit my tastes at the time. Things had changed a year on, and all of a sudden my ears had become more eclectic, less parochial in their decision over what was 'acceptable' listening.
Even despite the seismic effect that this album was to have on me personally, it is not difficult to discuss it in non-emotional terms. As part of Cave's larger body of work, it stacks up as one of the best-realised of his creations - it is mysterious, clever, fraught with love and fear, raucous and - I presume - biographical. Despite its rather pretty title, it is far from a beatiful album of love songs (we had to wait a further three years for that), although it does have its tender moments, such as the title track. The song 'Let Love In' is not, as its title infers, a plea to allow romance into one's life; rather, it is Cave's version of helplessness in the path of Cupid's arrow, fear of love's ensnaring ways, a word of caution for any unsuspecting listeners who may be caught out like our sagely narrator. It also features some of Cave's finest wordplay to date. If 'Let Love In' deals with undesired love, then 'Nobody's Baby Now' is its polar opposite, being a tale of regret, sorrow and lost love, of someone who you mistreated and let slip away. Magnify that loss by a factor of a hundred, and you have the mournful track, 'Ain't Gonna Rain Anymore', which is just plain depressing, the tale of someone most definitely gone for good, with Cave intoning the words at times in a hoarse, cracked whisper that appears just a step away from tears.
Despite the photograph of Cave throwing his head back and laughing out loud on the inner sleeve, this is a miserable piece of writing at times, finding Cave imagining the reaction to his death ('Lay Me Low'), and uncertainly questioning the extent of a lover's affections (both parts of 'Do You Love Me'). There is also another hint toward Cave's growing love of the murder ballad in 'Jangling Jack', a rambunctious sprawl of a track that is nothing short of maniacal. But for me, one of the highlights has to be 'Thirsty Dog', which is a rampaging punk guitar-driven apology by Cave - presumably to his then-wife or the world in general - for pretty much everything he'd ever done, including 'that book', presumably And The Ass Saw The Angel.
As always, The Bad Seeds are on top form, this time featuring regulars Mick Harvey (guitar, organ, drums, shaker, bell, tambourine, strings), Blixa Bargeld (guitar), Martyn P Casey (bass), Conway Savage (piano), Thomas Wydler (drums, percussion), as well as Tex Perkins (backing vocals), The Birthday Party's Rowland S Howard (backing vocals on 'Do You Love Me part 1'), Mick Geyer (backing vocals), Nick Seferi (backing vocals), Spencer P Jones (backing vocals), Robin Cassander (violin), Warren Ellis (not officially in the band at this time but here contributing violin), the late Triffids singer David McComb (backing vocals) and Katherine Blake (backing vocals). The album was produced by Tony Cohen and The Bad Seeds.