What is Nick Cave referring to in ‘The Mercy Seat’?
Despite Ozzy Osbourne’s solid claim, if anyone deserves to sit on the throne as the ultimate master of darkness, it’s got to be Nick Cave. He’d take the crown for a completely different reason, of course, with the kind of darkness that reaches far and deep, tickling the underbelly of existence and pulling it up to the surface. Thorns sticking out in all kinds of different directions, and a face like thunder.
While it’s easy to look at all the different variations of Cave’s darkness and how it manifests in everyday life, one of the biggest through lines is his fixation with death. That’s not to say it’s trivialised in his world, or used as a conduit to access other facets of artistry as background noise. Rather, he’s lived it, he knows it all too well, enough to know all the creases on its face, and what it looks like in any given scenario, real or otherwise.
Suppose that’s the crux of it, too. Isn’t it? It’s always real. That’s the point of art, especially art that ventures into darker territory: It’s real even when it’s not. It’s real because it evokes emotional responses, even if we’re initially unsure as to why. But this is the point of entry for almost any of Cave’s songs: it’s often deeply personal musings straight from the core of his own heart, which makes us feel let in on something heavy and important, even if it’s not entirely for us.
That’s probably also why ‘The Mercy Seat’ lands: morbid fascination aside, there’s something about it that pulls with a vicious fervour, dropping you smack bang in the middle of a story you’re not even sure you want to observe, let alone be a part of. So, what’s it actually about, then? Is it as dark and tense as it sounds? The short answer is yes, but let’s dive into the why.
What is ‘The Mercy Seat’ about?
Firstly, it’s about death. As we know, that’s something Cave’s well-versed in, but in ‘The Mercy Seat’, it comes more from a place of resigned acceptance than anything else. But it’s also tinged with a kind of nonchalant acknowledgement, like looking at it directly in the eye with a smirk and a tip of the hat.
As Cave later said: “Before I was able to write things like, ‘I’m not afraid to die’. And kids come up to me and say, ‘Hey, that line means so much to me’. And I have to sort of say I don’t feel that way any more. I don’t feel as cocky about death as I used to. I wake up in mad panics about death approaching.”
In the song, the “mercy seat” refers to two things. In the song, the narrator is waiting to face the electric chair, so an obvious suggestion would be that the “mercy seat” means this. However, with religious references sprinkled throughout the whole song, Cave could also be using it to represent what’s referred to in the bible as the lid on the Ark of the Covenant, relating to the value of forgiveness and reserving judgment.
Thus, in the song, Cave uses the imagery to bolster the themes of the story, especially as the narrator moves further towards admitting his crime after effectively pleading innocence. This remains unclear, though, something that Cave wishes to maintain, suggesting that the ambiguity was intentional to challenge the listener to think about what it could all mean on a deeper level.
As he later explained: “Do I know what the fuck I’m talking about? I think that’s why we can continue to play it at pretty much every concert. It remains mysterious and ambiguous but genuinely thoughtful.”
