Who is talking on the Nick Cave song ‘O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is)’?
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ 18th album, Wild God, is now out in the world. Continuing the band’s decades-long evolution from punk wild cards into one of the most respected outfits in music history, Cave’s position at the helm has made him into an icon. It’s clear he guides the ship as his voice, his lyricism, and his experience lead the way. On this new album, alongside contemplations of his grief, family life and spiritual side, Cave pays respects to one of the most important relationships in his life.
One of the stand-out moments from the album comes on its penultimate song, ‘O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is)’. It’s worlds away from the Cave that the world first met. The raging, violent punk is long gone. Instead, the track is beautiful and distinctively light. With production reminiscent of Justin Vernon’s work, Cave and Warren Ellis seem to be taking notes from modern indie for the track, expanding their sound into something fresh and more open than anything they’ve done before.
As the instrumental builds to a beautiful climax of gentle guitars, keys and production details, a voice floats in. Unlike anything heard in the Bad Seeds’ discography before, the band used field recordings as a woman’s voice comes through, captured talking about happy memories and laughing as the band plays around her.
It’s starkly different from the kinds of fictional characters and made-up tales that have always populated Cave’s work. Instead, this new track is deeply personal as Cave revealed the song’s dedication, and the personnel attached to the album share the role one lost friend of the band had on the track.
Who is talking on the Nick Cave song ‘O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is)’?
At the end of ‘O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is)’, a woman’s voice sparks up. “Do you remember we used to really, really have fun?” she begins, speaking during what seems to be a recorded phone call. It’s the voice of Anita Lane, a singer-songwriter who was briefly a member of the Bad Seeds as she and Nick Cave were a couple back in the 1970s and ‘80s. But even after their romantic connection ended, Lane and Cave continued to collaborate.
They stayed in contact, and in April of 2021, Lane’s death hit Cave hard. “You think you know grief, you think you’ve worked out its mechanics, you think you’ve become grief-savvy — stronger, wiser, more resilient — you think that there is nothing more that can hurt you in this world, and then Anita dies,” he wrote on his Red Hand Files newsletter.
In a recent Q&A to celebrate the release of the album, Cave revealed that the song not only features Lane’s voice talking to Cave about their happy memories together, but the whole song was written to honour his late friend. As he repeats, “O wow! O wow! How wonderful she is!” Cave traces through the years he spent knowing and loving Lane, attempting to capture some of her incredible spirit in the song.
Then, once he’s done trying, he seems to pass the mic to Lane. In her own words, she talks of her own memories of Cave, the songs they wrote together and their vibrant love.
So, who is Anita Lane?
Anita Lane was an Australian singer-songwriter. Born in Melbourne, she was around when Cave’s earlier band, The Birthday Party, started up in the city. In 1977, right as the group were beginning, Cave and Lane met and began a relationship that was both romantic but also deeply creative and collaborative. Lane co-wrote ‘A Dead Song’, which appeared on The Birthday Party’s debut album, and several other songs for the band’s discography.
When that band collapsed, and the Bad Seeds started, Lane was still an impactful voice and source of inspiration. As well as having a solo career which included tracks like ‘Bedazzled’ that Cave featured on, she also wrote the lyrics to a few Nick Cave songs, including ‘From Her to Eternity’ and ‘Stranger Than Kindness’, helping to shape his twisted love stories. As she and Cave shared life for these years, her influence was insurmountable through her love, energy and talent.
“She was the smartest and most talented of all of us, by far,” Cave said, calling her “the brains behind The Birthday Party.” He listed all the beautiful things she was, stating that she “Despised the concept of the muse but was everybody’s. Spoke in a child’s voice and was my best friend.”
He said, “It was both easy and terrifying to love her,” remembering her intense and infectious aura that he greatly mourns and misses.
What does Anita Lane say on ‘O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is)’?
Recorded during a conversation about her memories of Cave and the years they spent together, Lane’s voice on the new track is a beautiful snapshot of their life together. After spending the 1970s and ‘80s as a couple, the duo were not only a romantic partnership but a creative one, too, as they co-wrote some of the Bad Seeds’ earliest songs together.
In the track, she says:
Do you remember we used to really, really have fun?
‘Cause we’d be just by ourselves, mucking around, really relaxed, not under pressure
I guess that’s how we’d make up songs!
I… I remember we were in bed, and then we imagined somebody upstairs
I don’t even know if we heard footsteps, or imagined footsteps and then imagined the story
That was in that little place opposite Brixton Prison
I didn’t even realise that everyone wasn’t like that
We tried to write a contract of love
But we only got as far as doing the border
There was never any words in it
Which I thought said a lot more than anything else
