The one album that “disgusted” Nick Cave: “I experienced a kind of embarrassment”
Nick Cave is incredibly candid and open, whether on-stage or off-stage, but he hasn’t always found it this easy to communicate his emotions without using a thrashing post-punk sound as a comfort blanket. It was daunting for Cave when he stepped into uncharted new territory for the first time, but it made him the artist he is today.
The boldest artistic change of Cave’s career with The Bad Seeds came in 1997 when they released The Boatman’s Call. Compared to the rest of their oeuvre at that point, the album was stripped-back, and Cave’s voice had nothing to hide behind. Although the record is critically celebrated, sharing the Australian feel greatly uncomfortable because it was so raw and intimate.
Cave felt like he had shared too much with the public on the minimalist effort and felt guilty for making such a personal album. However, over the years, his feelings have softened toward the project. Interesteningly, Cave now sees it as the predecessor to his recent output since 2019’s Ghosteen.
In 2021, Cave performed a live-streamed show at London’s Alexandra Palace, which included tracks from The Boatman’s Call. In the next edition of his Red Hand Files, he explained to a fan why he chose to play the songs from the record, which he once hated.
“After The Boatman’s Call came out I experienced a kind of embarrassment. I felt I had exposed too much. These hyper-personal songs suddenly seemed indulgent, self-serving amplifications of what was essentially an ordinary, commonplace ordeal. All the high drama, the tragedy and the hand wringing ‘disgusted’ me, and I said so in press interviews,” Cave explained.
He continued: “In time, however, I learned that the disgust was essentially the fear and shame experienced by someone who was swimming the uncertain waters between two boats — songs that were fictional and songs of an autobiographical or confessional nature. A radical change was occurring in my songwriting, despite myself, and such changes can leave one feeling extremely vulnerable, defensive and reactive.”
His relationship with the album is now positive and no longer fills him with dread or embarrassment. Instead, Cave understands how significant the step he made on The Boatman’s Call has changed his career, and one he believes to be “necessary”.
Cave added: “Of course, I no longer see The Boatman’s Call in that way, and understand that the record was a necessary leap into a type of songwriting that would ultimately become exclusively autobiographical — ‘Skeleton Tree’ and ‘Ghosteen’, for example — but, conversely, less about myself and more about our collective ‘selves’. When I sang the The Boatman’s Call songs for the Idiot Prayer film, they no longer felt like cries emanating from the small, yet cataclysmic, devastations of life.”
Sombre, minimalist and dark, this record marked out Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds as more than just another angry punk group. The album acted as a departure from what had gained the band notoriety and saw Cave move away from characters and murder ballads and instead open himself up to his audience.
While other records may have slightly more punch or have seemingly wider open arms, The Boatman’s Call manages to strike the perfect balance and offer up the cleanest, most succinct image of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds that you’ll find.
As a musician, there’s nothing wrong with feeling uncomfortable, and it’s something you should search for, as Cave did with The Boatman’s Call, which pushed the boundaries of his artistry.
