Ian Rankin his favourite songwriter Nick Cave: “One of our very best lyricists and storytellers”
Ian Rankin, the acclaimed author celebrated for his Inspector Rebus novels, possesses a remarkably eclectic palate when it comes to his musical preferences. His life is woven with a rich tapestry of songs, each serving as a melodic gem that reflects a facet of his life or evokes powerful pangs of nostalgia. This array embraces everything from the soul-stirring ballads of rock legends to the pulsating beats of electronica’s avant-garde.
Before Nick Cave became a household name, he was in a band called The Birthday Party, a post-punk band which had a six-year run from 1977 to 1983. Their music was characterised by their unconventional soundscapes that carried a sense of bleakness and noise. It also blended elements of blues, free jazz, and rockabilly, serving as the canvas for vocalist Nick Cave’s unsettling narratives that delved into themes of violence and perversion.
One of their biggest songs, ‘Sonny’s Burning’, begins with Cave’s exclamation: “Hands up! Who wants to die?” This was incidentally the first words Rankin heard Cave sing. “From the beginning, Cave was an artist who immersed the listener in revelatory imagery and creeping doom,” he told The Guardian. “The Old Testament, delta blues, and Sergio Leone westerns infused his songwriting. He could be urgent and kinetic or mellow and thoughtful.”
For Rankin, it’s Cave’s prowess as a songwriter that particularly impresses him. “‘The Ship Song’ could have been penned by Leonard Cohen,” he claims, “But it’s hard to imagine anyone other than Cave creating darkly compelling narratives such as ‘Red Right Hand’ and ‘Jubilee Street’, while his album Murder Ballads has a body count that would shame Tarantino.”
Like many others, Rankin draws attention to Cave’s ability to transform tragedy and grief into creative artistry that resonates. He picks out Skeleton Tree as the prime example of this, adding that his artistic ability “is testament to his sense of duty to the songwriter’s craft, and the title track (which closes the album) is full of quiet yearning, along with acceptance and resolution”.
Rankin even goes as far as to compare Cave with the works of Bob Dylan, particularly when it comes to his album Blood on the Tracks. He concludes by expressing his excitement about being a follower of Cave’s career: “[He] may not be getting the Nobel any time soon, but right now he is one of our very best lyricists and storytellers. It will be fascinating to see what he does next.”
It’s easy to see why Cave has such a profound influence over many writers, poets, and fellow musicians. As Metallica’s James Hetfield once put it, some of the best songwriters are those who “write fucking poems and then put music to them”. In his mind, Cave is one of the ultimate masters of this art, adding: “I wanted to understand other people’s ideas about how to write lyrics. Nick Cave’s Murder Ballads are the coolest, and I dig all the Tom Waits stuff. I‘ve even listened to some Leonard Cohen. I mean, I hate the fucking music. But his lyrics are very cool. You do a lot more ‘acting’ with your singing.”
