Wicked Songs: Abattoir Blues by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Right, 13 days without posting anything but did anyone notices? Anyway here’s a song for this Friday afternoon. It’s a bit of an old one now, like it’s now 12 years old because it was out back in 2004. It’s most likely my fave track from, well at least that first part of that double album Abattoir Blues / The Lyre Of Orpheus. So what’s your fave song from that album?

It’s one of the two title tracks but because it was pretty epic album with a lot of great songs and a few big ones that have now became very popular because of one reason or other. I remember the song did made the setlist on that tour but he/they pretty much played almost that whole new album at that gig and also some older songs. It’s track number seven out of 17 overall. The lyrics are just totally amazing and I have got to included them all far below because I can’t just quote a line or something, it’s just got to be the whole thing.

So at the top is a live version of the song on the BBC TV show at the time with no less that three pianos played at the same time plus the last time we see Warren Ellis without that beard of his but below is also the studio version. Ellis is song’s music co-writer and even the four members who we now go on to form Grinderman have a few co-written tracks on this album which is three years before that album so I guess you can see where they were heading now. Telling here on this album Mick Harvey is just the guitar player but he’s got only one more Bad Seed album in him after this but in the meantime two Grinderman albums come without him so the writing was already on the wall for him.

So after my little break here, I’m going to try and do a few posts each week now like this post. Wicked Songs which if it’s not a new track it’s one of my fave songs so I’ll see if I can write something about them. They’re heaps of fave songs, off course I love so I’ll have to see just what I will do, OK?

Abattoir Blues lyrics:

The sun is high up in the sky and I’m in my car
Drifting down into the abattoir
Do you see what I see, dear?
The air grows heavy. I listen to your breath
Entwined together in this culture of death
Do you see what I see, dear?

Slide on over here, let me give you a squeeze
To avert this unholy evolutionary trajectory
Can you hear what I hear, babe?
Does it make you feel afraid?
Everything’s dissolving, babe, according to plan
The sky is on fire, the dead are heaped across the land
I went to bed last night and my
Moral code got jammed
I woke up this morning with a Frappucino in my hand

I kissed you once. I kissed you again
My heart it tumbled like the stock exchange
Do you feel what I feel, dear?
Mass extinction, darling, hypocrisy
These things are not good for me
Do you see what I see, dear?
The line the God throws down to you and me
Makes a pleasing geometry
Shall we leave this place now, dear?
Is there someway out of here?

I wake with the sparrows and I hurry off to work
The need for validation, babe, gone completely berserk
I wanted to be your Superman but I turned out such a Jerk
I got the abattoir blues
I got the abattoir blues
I got the abattoir blues
Right down to my shoes

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