Some words on Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - The Boatman's Call

I am not going to lie. The first time I heard Nick Cave was when I was 18, watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. Yes, it’s not an amazing story, but nonetheless, I find that those stories are usually overrated. You might know which song that is (if you’ve watched the film), “O’Children”, from his 2004 album Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus. I very much liked it and I very much certainly fell immediately in love with his voice. Let’s just say I didn’t listen to much else the next following weeks.

My following Youtube and Wikipedia searches consisted mainly of Nick Cave’s name and that is how I came across The Boatman’s Call, 1997. It started gradually, listening to “Into My Arms” and “(Are you) The One I’ve Been Waiting For?”, a couple of times and then it evolved to buying the album and listening to it everywhere I went.

I must say, being 18 is amazing. Responsibilities outside of school are pretty much non-existent and all your free time is dedicated to the things you absolutely love. This was around the time I was doing a short film with my best friends for one of our classes in 2011, and I still recall that year as the best one in my life. Going to school in the morning (or to shootings in the afternoon) included a 30 minute bus drive from my home in the mountains to our small sea-side city. This drive was one of my favourite parts of the day: Sitting on the last seat on the left, if going down, and last seat on the right, if going up - in order to get the best view possible of the mountains - and listening to music on my iPod.

Being 18 and in school also includes living with your parents and going out with them every Sunday or so. Our fun times together usually included my dad driving us around the island, seeing beautiful landscapes and stopping in a few bars to get delicious food and drinks. All the while, of course, my parents would be having some sort of conversation and I would be on the back seat, looking out my window, and again – listening to music on my iPod.

Surely you’ve already guessed what music I was listening to: The Boatman’s Call, the album that came to be the hymn to everything that is beautiful in my life. I tried listening to his other albums, but I simply couldn’t. They were nothing like this one, several completely different genres – that was the thing I did not understand about Nick Cave at the time, and I feel ashamed it took me so long to appreciate it.

Usually people only cherish certain times of their life when they become memories, but for this one short time, I was fully aware of how special it was. This caused me to irrationally try to extend it as much as I could, and that included surrounding myself with the same things over and over again, trying to cling to that particular feeling. That’s why there was no room for Murder Ballads or Henry’s Dream, there could only be The Boatman’s Call.

Fast forward a few years, I’m no longer 18 (obviously) and I no longer live with my parents (also obviously). All my friends scattered away to different universities outside of the country, and eventually, so did I. Things changed, it became impossible to cling to that perfect blissful feeling, and real life finally started.

Currently in London – alas, living with one of those friends and my partner, I am still very much in love with Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. However, since 2011 and now a lot has happened, and that included room for other things that were more in touch with my current situation. This has included many genres, many artists and many albums. But this text is not about those other artists, it’s about Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

I don’t have a 30 minute bus drive through the mountains anymore, but I have been commuting by train, tube - and yes the occasional bus – for some years now and even though my iPod has been retired, I have other ways to listen to music. I don’t remember when it was I thought: “Let’s give Nick Cave’s other albums a go”, but it surely must have been a good day.

Murder Ballads, Henry’s Dream, Let Love In, all these have become part of my life’s soundtrack and I love them to bits. I can still see myself walking home from work one day, listening to “The Curse Of Millhaven” and dancing like an absolute maniac – granted, the street was empty, but still…

Thing is, I was recently listening to PJ Harvey’s White Chalk, and it reminded me of her short love story with good old Nick, and therefore of his alleged post-break up album for her, The Boatman’s Call. As soon as her album was finished playing, I switched to it and so it began: “Into My Arms”, followed by “Lime Tree Harbor”, “People Ain’t No Good”, and so forth. That’s when I realized, this album was still the one I was looking for (heh), and I felt like I was falling in love all over again.

Nick’s solemn voice, over melancholic and brutally honest tunes, brought me back to those Sunday afternoons with my parents in my dad’s car, or to turning off my iPod mid song when arriving at school to shoot another unbelievably fun scene with my best friends. However, it also brought new things, as most timeless things do. There are always new experiences and knowledge in one’s life that can be reflected through art and the older you get the more you can relate to.

The Boatman’s Call is about coming to terms with your past, your present, who you were and who you are. It is atonement and regret, but also love, lots and lots of it. And I am still thankful for that lazy afternoon watching Harry Potter and discovering something that would have such a positive impact in my life: “a beauty impossible to define, a beauty impossible to believe”.

Images taken from:
http://www.nickcave.com/music/nickcaveandthebadseeds/the-boatmans-call/
http://mute.com/artists/nick-cave-and-the-bad-seeds
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/96475616988918070/
https://crackmagazine.net/article/lists/nick-cave-track-by-track/