Watch Nick Cave debut piano-led song ‘To Be Found’ in Chicago
Australian hero Nick Cave debuted a new song at his recent show in Chicago. He later revealed on his long-running forum The Red Hand Files that it is an older composition that didn’t make the cut for an album, and although untitled, he says: “I think I’ll call the song ‘To Be Found’.“
When performing in Chicago on September 29th, Cave performed the introspective piano-led number, which then prompted a question from fans on his website, The Red Hand Files. This follows him saying earlier in the year that he was “finishing” the new Bad Seeds album, with their last release being 2019’s Ghosteen.
For Issue 255 of The Red Hand Files, Cave was asked if the song played in Chicago would be on the new Bad Seeds record by one user, with another calling it “spellbinding” and asking for its ID.
“When I’m working on an album with The Bad Seeds, I occasionally record a song alone at the piano,” he wrote. “Stylistically, these songs usually sit outside the new record, and they are generally fragmentary things, circular in shape, softly sung, unspectacular and unformed. There is little love for them from the band, and they aren’t strong enough to compete with the larger, more imposing songs – consequently, they tend to fall by the wayside.”
“When I listen back to the recordings, I’ll come across one or two of these songs, languishing in some forgotten corner, and I will find myself secretly moved by their unassuming loveliness. As a result, I become very attached to them. ‘Euthanasia’, which I played in Asheville, is a song that I wrote around the time of Skeleton Tree, and is a perfect example — dismissed at the time, it has now become one of my favourites,” he continued. “The song that I played in Chicago is another such song, but this one didn’t survive long enough to even warrant a title.”
After providing the lyrics for the song, he added at the end of the post: “The sentiment is simple and softly spoken, the song unable to even declare its name, but still it is a special song, full of unspecified emotional impact and a great pleasure to play. Ansel, I am glad you enjoyed it. I think I’ll call the song ‘To Be Found’.”
In other Nick Cave news, when reflecting on his songwriting process in an interview with Rolling Stone at the end of September, the Bad Seeds leader called it “excruciatingly solitary work”.
Watch Nick Cave perform ‘To Be Found’ in Chicago below.
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