God is dead Thus spake Zarathustra But we knew it already Have known it long since This endless Saturday This awful miracle This self-birthed cruelty This tedious horror This holy blasphemy This is what it takes This is what you'll get You cannot forget You cannot un-see But then you couldn't die Not if death were death Harder it is To breathe, to choose breath In the face Of such possibility
How lonely it is Trapped in these walls Knowing not even that there is one other Not for sure
How miraculous it is That somehow love trickles through, nonetheless
Some day the trickle will become a flood And these walls will float away I can feel it And I will be free To know and be known To swim
Thanks be To the author of trickles
The wintergreen, the juniper The cornflower and the chicory Well all of the words you said to me Are still vibrating in the air The elm, the ash and the linden tree The dark and deep enchanted sea The trembling moon and the stars unfurled Well there she goes, my beautiful world
Chorus: There she goes, my beautiful world There she goes, my beautiful world There she goes, my beautiful world There she goes again
So begins Nick Cave's raucous, tumultuous, erotically charged ballad in praise of the glory of the created order (and, FWIW, the fourth and final song I had played at my baptism).
Or maybe it's an ode to a (possibly ex-) girlfriend? Among the roll call of natural wonders, we have the stark contrast of the couplet “Well all of the words...”. This could, admittedly, refer to almost anything while stripped of wider context as it is at this point; but it does perhaps have the air of a regretted or resented conversation with someone close. More to come.
John Wilmot penned his poetry riddled with a pox And Nabokov wrote on index cards at a lectern, in his socks St John of the Cross, he did his best stuff imprisoned in a box And Johnny Thunders was half alive when he wrote Chinese Rocks
Oh me, I'm lying here, with nothing in my ears Oh me, I'm lying here, with nothing in my ears Me, I'm lying here, for what seems years I'm lying on my bed, with nothing in my head Send that stuff on down to me, send that stuff on down to me Send that stuff on down to me, send that stuff on down
(Chorus)
OK, so the song is also about writer's block? This is getting... unwieldy.
In one sense Cave is showing a distinct lack of false modesty, daring to implicitly compare himself to the ranks of assorted historical genius. (For the record, it seems Johnny Thunders only tried to claim credit for Chinese Rocks, but Cave may be well aware of this.)
But then, the comparison is unfavourable – look at the impossible circumstances these writers overcame, and look at me, lying here, not able to so much as put put pen to paper. How feeble! How impotent!
He ends with a prayer for inspiration – although its not fully clear who he's praying to.
Well Karl Marx squeezed his carbuncles while writing Das Kapital And Gauguin, he buggered off man, and he went all tropical And Phillip Larkin, he stuck it out in a library in Hull And Dylan Thomas, he died drunk in St Vincent's Hospital
More great creators of the past, although now the territory is more ambiguous – not simply triumphs over adversity but a variety of fates awaiting those who make a life of what they create. What might become of me, you can almost hear Cave wonder.
I'll lie at your feet, I'll kneel at your door I'll rock you to sleep, I will roll on the floor
Back to the girlfriend. The imagery, intimate, even passionate, while only hinting at sexuality. Submissive... and yet somehow not.
And I will ask for nothing, nothing in this life I will ask for nothing – give me everlasting life I just wanna move the world, I just wanna move the world I just wanna move the world, I just want to move
Again Cave is the supplicant, asking now not just for inspiration but for inspiration enough to shake the whole world; asking for nothing and yet asking for eternity in the same breath. It is brazen and vulnerable at the same time – and indeed, if you are to prostrate yourself before the Creator why ask for anything less?
Cave often seems to sing “rule the world” for “move the world”, as have artists covering the song. Neither lyric invites an accusation of humility. Nor does the juxtaposition of “ask for nothing ... / ... everlasting life.” although its not clear if Cave's playful mockery here is directed more at himself or the religious, esp. the Christians whose faith he has obsessed with over the years.
(Chorus)
So if you got a trumpet, get on your feet brother and a-blow it And if you got a field, that don't yield, then get up now and a-hoe it I look at you, you look at me, and deep in our hearts babe we know it That you weren't much of a muse, but then, I weren't much of a poet
Now we move from prayer to exhortation – from asking for the power to create, to admonishing others to find theirs. The field that don't yield echoes back to the earlier barrenness of Cave's writer's block, while of course both the trumpet and the hoe would be no means be out of place in a biblical text.
And then the girlfriend makes her most explicit appearance. You weren't much of a muse but I weren't much of a poet? Cave has recovered some false modesty after all. Or maybe he is just airing his regrets from a time in a life he struggled both relationally and artistically.
I'll be your slave, I'll peel your grapes Up on your pedestal with your ivory and apes With your book of ideas and your alchemy Oh come on – send that stuff on down to me
The lyricism of the song reaches a fabulous crescendo. Cave is debasing himself completely – I'll be your slave, I'll peel your grapes, up on your pedestal. But who is he even talking to? God? His muse? Creation itself? Creativity itself? I don't think he knows and I don't think it matters. Everything is bound up in the asking.
Send that stuff on down to me, send that stuff on down to me Send that stuff on down to me, send that stuff on down to me Send it all around, send it all around the world Coz here she comes, my beautiful girl
(Chorus x 2)
And finally, bringing it all together, to send the stuff down but now to send it all around the world. It's worth dwelling on Cave no longer asking just that he might create, or even that he might move the world; he is asking for the divine spark for all, on behalf of all, for creation to overflow with creativity.
“Here she comes, my beautiful girl.” The triptych is complete – creation as muse, muse as lover, and now lover as creation. It evokes the Christian concept of the Bride of Christ, where the Lord is a the bridegroom and the church or the new creation or some aspect thereof is the bride.
Alright, I'll admit it, I think he managed to wield.
Weakness washes over me Permission I never asked for To not cope
What is this, though? This... spark of wonder It breaks my broken heart
I cry sober tears From eyes long numbed To all this world has to offer
How it all shines Through the wetness I had forgotten
Who could really love this? And yet
If this is what it takes To make something beautiful Is it worth it? I don't know I catch a glimpse Of a reflection Distant and strange A maybe That something in me feels meant for
If this is weakness May strength take its time To find me
The song says that they say Nobody deserves to die Paul says Everybody deserves to die I'm beginning to think Those are almost the same
All my boundaries Being dismantled With my grudging consent As gently as possible Not gently enough
Like ripping off a band aid Why does it have to hurt?
The promise of new boundaries The better to delineate This thing called me
And then We'll do it all again
No death too small to go unnoticed
Until some strange day No boundaries are needed At all
To assail the by all accounts unassailable To muster armies of baseless hope To cry No To proclaim that cruelty ends here Though it does not How could it? But maybe the ending has its beginning Here among the ashes
You are seen Because you are seeing
Everywhere you are There is God Not because you are God But because you are you And God is God
Your spirit Has a place Among these trees They are not a prison
Your tears Have a place Among these trees See how tall they are!
You are seen And that is OK
I lie to myself I don't want it I don't need it I'm above it But I lie to myself I dream of it Long for it Try to grasp it Though I cannot hold on to even a vanishing speck of it For thine is the glory
There is no me Not really, at least, I don't think so On reflection Yet all those “I”s that think they are me Seem to separately dwell Under the further illusion Of their total control But there is no control Not beyond you Not in the end For thine is the power
But This truth, which you sent seeping Toward core of who I really am I try my best to remember That you have such love For the world, for us, for me Such love that I can hardly stand it That I can barely face it But if I can Ah, if I can Then it's all mine All that matters For thine is the kingdom Amen
How strange it is To walk in the presence Of the Living God
And how exactly the same it is
For every epsilon A delta of holiness
For every moment Boundlessness If we are just ourselves Present
I need an outlet But for what? What is this I must let out?
I need connection Or so goes the messaging That I have sold myself
I want to write Though I have nothing To write about
I need you Though I couldn't say for sure Who you are Or if you even exist
I want to be Anywhere else But in this place, this state of being Though really It's not so bad
I have to express
Something inexpressible
I feel an urge
To try to put into words
The despair and the grief
Of lacking expression
My inarticulateness
Merely reflecting
A deeper lacking
Some subtle wound
I just came here to say That there isn't anything left to say Not now, at least But still, I wanted to say that much, anyway