The Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds song written in five minutes
Nick Cave has always been characterised by his intensity. From the explosive live presence of his early post-punk project, The Birthday Party, to the profound poeticism of his lyrics at the helm of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, the Australian songwriter is uniquely and unrelentingly devoted to his craft. To forge that sonic intensity, Cave has been known to mirror it in the studio.
Cave once dubbed the songwriting process “excruciatingly solitary work” in a conversation with Rolling Stone. “I have to be alone to write lyrics,” he explained, “Sadly, there is no one that can help me with this task. It is excruciatingly solitary work and takes a great many hours to write my songs.” From his deeply personal and detailed lyrics to his exquisite soundscapes, that isolation and lengthy process has continually contributed to his sonic intensity.
However, there is one song that didn’t require that excruciatingly lonely and lengthy process. In 1994, Cave found himself working with Warren Ellis for the first time on his eighth studio record as Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Let Love In. Initially contributing to the string section for several songs, he eventually became a permanent member of the band.
A characteristically intense environment for Cave, Ellis recalls the frontman running between multiple studios in use at the same time and sticky-taping his lyrics over the wall with “Don’t touch my stuff” notes to avert the cleaners. “It seemed incredibly kind of creative and productive but I was also given this window on this kind of world that had seemed so mysterious to me as a listener,” he recalled to BBC 6 Music.
One of the songs to be born out of that creative and productive environment was ‘I Let Love In’. The title track for the album featured twangy, western-inspired guitars and intense imagery amidst the repeated refrain of “I let love in”. Despite the song’s complexity and intensity, it took Cave just five minutes to pen, according to guitarist Mick Harvey.
As Harvey recalled to Uncut, “Nick wrote it in five minutes, but he didn’t feel any relationship with it, like it wasn’t important to him because he hadn’t had to struggle with it or something. It was the Bad Seeds who insisted we record it.”
Forgoing that solitary struggle and artistic suffering that he believed to be integral to great art, it seems that Cave consequently thought less of the song. Despite this, it still contained all the attributes of a Cave number – religious imagery, emotional intensity, masterful lyricism – and perhaps it’s all the more impressive for its speedy assembly.
