I understand where atheists are coming from. But I think the relentless shutting down of the idea of the divine is, for me, just bad for the business of songwriting. It feels limiting and uncreative. I think that many musicians are more prone to spiritual ideas because they are naturally closer to the mysterious act of creation. It’s part of our occupation to inhabit a place that is at least adjacent to these ideas. So many musicians I know have a sort of unspoken, unannounced spirituality, which they experience naturally through the making of music.

Cave described the album as “an artistic rupture” and “the compensatory largesse for a broken heart” , saying it “cured me of Polly Harvey” and “changed the way I made music”. The break-up, he wrote, “filled me with a lunatic energy” and gave him the courage to write about his own experiences, in place of the character-driven stories that had dominated his work until then.I’m not so sure I need to say goodbye anymore. It doesn’t really work, anyway. [ Laughs.] It’s not like by saying goodbye the intimated presence of your lost ones wave to you and disappear. They’re all around. And this is O.K. I think this is quite a beautiful thing. Everyone kept telling me that Arthur lived in my heart. Everyone said that, all the time. My belief in God—well, that’s a little complicated. I’m full of doubt in that respect, but replete with belief, too. Full of both things. Mostly, I inhabit a space between belief and unbelief. But, look, even if it turns out there is no actual divine dimension, music feels touched by something else. The creative process—especially original creation, which, for me, is writing words and music—can feel like hard labor and much of the time is as far away from anything you might call spiritual. I find it can be an agonizing and debilitating and solitary business. But there are sudden mystifying moments of spiritual freedom, where I am lifted from my feelings of inadequacy and I am suddenly flying around the room like a giggling fool, rapturously transported. That’s not just the creative process—that’s life in general. We lead our common lives, but all around there are hunches and intimations and whisperings of something else. These small, softly spoken suggestions are enough for me to feel that there is some enigmatic otherness to be experienced, and that’s where my belief lies. Cave and his bandmates also pursued other creative ambitions around this time. In 1987, the Bad Seeds appeared in the Wim Wenders film Wings of Desire, [18] and Cave was featured in the 1988 film Ghosts... of the Civil Dead, which he and Race co-wrote. [19] Cave's first novel And the Ass Saw the Angel was published in 1989. [20] Growing success (1989–1997) [ edit ] We have to be careful with that, because it drives people away. I mean that also on a professional level. Sadly, grief has its sell-by date, to some degree—not to the person who is grieving but to other people. We are expected to just get on with things. One of the reasons I keep doing “The Red Hand Files,” week after week, is that people often write in to talk about losing someone and the very real pain they’re in. . . . I’m sorry, this is quite difficult for me to talk about. Suddenly, you realize, Hang on, the person they are mourning died, like, fifteen years ago. It is extremely moving. The production and arrangements are sparse and unassuming, offering the perfect pillow-propped platform for Cave’s dreamy wordplay. There is not much to report in terms of soundscape and on this instance, that is a glowing appraisal. There is no use for the chaos of noise in a message this clear.

In 2015, when Cave was fifty-seven, his fifteen-year-old son, Arthur, died after accidentally falling from a cliff near the family’s home, in Brighton, England. In the aftermath, Cave turned his focus to another taboo experience: grief. “Skeleton Tree” (2016), the first record he released following Arthur’s death, opens with a declaration: “You fell from the sky, crash-landed in a field near the River Adur,” he chants. “With my voice, I am calling you.” The album was followed, in 2019, by “Ghosteen,” a singular and profound meditation on loss and the afterlife. I have never heard anything like it. On “ Bright Horses,” Cave occasionally breaks into a pure, spectral falsetto that sounds only partially human. “Everyone has a heart, and it’s calling for something,” he sings in an early verse. Greg Moskovitch (1 December 2013). "ARIA Award 2013 Winners – Live Updates". Music Feeds . Retrieved 1 December 2013.Am I asking too many questions about grief? I have found it to be an excruciating but nonetheless fascinating experience. The ARIA Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony that recognises excellence, innovation, and achievement across all genres of Australian music. They commenced in 1987. The song was also nominated for Single of the Year at the 1997 ARIA Awards, [7] and came No. 18 in the Triple J Hottest 100 of that year. [8] It was No. 84 in the 1998 Hottest 100 of All Time, and No. 36 in the 2009 Hottest 100 of All Time. [2] Music video [ edit ] The ‘90s, however, brought new horizons for The Bad Seeds. The Good Son, marked the beginning of their decade with a remarkable stylistic departure, substituting Cave’s bloodlust for something unusually tender and heartfelt – a clear progenitor to the Boatman’s Call.

People often comment on your willingness to engage directly with grief, first via the Conversations tour, and then with your writing of “The Red Hand Files”—you are uncommonly generous in this regard. Grief can feel burdensome for everyone, and yet I have also found that not engaging with it can be so lonesome. Cave urged the group to embellish as little as possible, seeking to maintain the primary focus on his lyrics and stark solo piano playing, allowing their naked and vulnerable emotional qualities to shine through unvarnished. O'Donnell, John; Creswell, Toby; Mathieson, Craig (October 2010). 100 Best Australian Albums. Prahran, Vic: Hardie Grant Books. ISBN 978-1-74066-955-9.Creswell, Toby (2006). 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time and the Artists, Stories and Secrets Behind Them. Thunder's Mouth Press. ISBN 1-74066-331-4. However, it would be a mistake to think that these personal reflections resulted in a more insular album with The Boatman’s Call. By contrast, the record is a singing invocation that proves deeply affecting, not just as a document of Cave’s hardships, but also in a wider reflective sense. The personal is transposed into something universal by the transcendent manner in which Cave approaches his inner turmoil. The battles he was facing in his private life leading up to the album may well have acted as fuel, but they are tantamount to nothing more than impetus when it comes to the resultant evolving mass. The recording of the album began in the Sarm West Studios of London in the middle of 1996, with “The Garden Duet”, one of the discards of the album, being the first song recorded. Although much of The Boatman’s Call was recorded at Sarm West Studios, subsequent sessions, including overdubs, were made at Abbey Road Studios. Recording for the album began at Sarm West Studios in London, United Kingdom in mid-1996, with "The Garden Duet", one of the album's outtakes, being the first song recorded. Though the bulk of The Boatman's Call was recorded at Sarm West, further recordings—including overdubs—were later done at Abbey Road Studios.