Song Lyric Sunday Theme: Goodbye/Farewell

I walk into the corner of my room
See my friends in high places
I don’t know which is which or who is whom
They’ve stolen each others faces
Janet is there with her hi-hatting hair
Full of bedroom feathers
Janet is known to make dead men groan
In any kind of weather
I crawl over to her
I say “hey baby I say, hey Janet
You are the one, you are the sun
And I’m your dutiful planet”
But she ain’t down with any of that
She’s heard that shit before
I say “ah ha o yeah you’re right”
‘Cause I see Betty X standing by the door
With more news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
And it’s getting strange in here
Yeah it gets stranger every year
More news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
Now Betty X is like Betty Y
Minus that fatal chromosome
Her hair is like the wine dark sea
On which sailors come home
I say “hey baby, I say, hey Betty X
(I lean close up to her throat)
This light you are carrying is like a lamp
Hanging from a distant boat”
“It is my light” said Betty X
Betty X says “this light ain’t yours!”
And so much wind blew through her words
That I went rolling down the hall
For more news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
And it’s strange in here
Yeah it gets stranger every year
More news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
I turn another corner, I go down a corridor
And I see this guy
He must be about a hundred foot tall
And he only has one eye
He asks me for my autograph
I write ‘nobody’ and then
I wrap myself up in my woolly coat
And blind him with my pen
‘Cause someone must of stuck something in my drink
Everything was getting strange looking
Half the people had turned into squealing pigs
That the other half were cooking
“Let me out of here!” I cried
And I went pushing past
And I saw Miss Polly, singing with some girls
I cried, “strap me to the mast!”
For more news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
It’s getting strange in here
And it gets stranger every year
More news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
Then a black girl with no clothes on
She danced across the room
We charted the progress of the planets
Around that boogie-woogie moon
I called her my nubian princess
I gave her some sweet-back bad-ass jive
I spent the next seven years between her legs
Opining for my wife
But by and by it all went wrong
I felt all washed-up on the shore
She stared down at me from up in the storm
As I sobbed up on the floor
For more news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
And don’t it make you feel alone
And don’t it make you wanna get right on home
More news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
Here comes Alina with two black eyes
She’s given herself a transfusion
She’s filled herself with panda blood
To avoid all the confusion
I said “the sun rises and falls with you”
And various things about love
But a rising violence in me
Cut all my circuits off
Alina she starts screaming
Her cheeks are full of psychotropic leaves
Her extinction was nearly absolute
When she turned her back on me
For more news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
And it’s getting strange in here
And it’s getting stranger every year
More news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
I bumped bang crash into Deanna
Hanging pretty in the door frame
All the horrors that have befallen me
Well Deanna is to blame
Every time I see you babe
You make me feel so all alone
And I wept my face into her dress
Long after she’d gone home
With more news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
And don’t it make you feel alone
Yeah and don’t it make you wanna get right back home
More news from nowhere
More news from nowhere, alright
Don’t it make you feel so sad
Don’t the blood rush to your feet
To think that everything you do today
Tomorrow is obsolete
Technology and women
And little children too
Don’t it make you feel blue
Don’t it make you feel blue
For more news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
Don’t it make you feel alone
Yeah and don’t it make you wanna get right back home
More news from nowhere
More news from nowhere
One last time
Yeah I got to say
Yeah I got to say
Goodbye
Goodbye
Goodbye

More News From Nowhere lyrics by Nick Cave and music by The Bad Seeds with co-writing credits to Warren Ellis, Marty Casey and Jim Sclavunos. Which also the closing track on his 2008 album called Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!

Video clip was shot at Raymond Revue Bar, Soho. Ellis is not in the video clip above but Casey, the bass player is wearing a Dirty Three t-shirt which is Warren’s old band. It co-stars English author Will Self, who’s alone doing the crossword at the bar. The socialite Peaches Geldof, who’s getting drunk with her friends BTW passed away on my B’Day in 2014 of a heroin overdose. Also singer/songwriter Beth Orton, who’s knocking all the drinks and bottles over at the bar towards the end of the track plus off course she was who I had as my last weekend’s post in SLS.

Some other fun facts about the song: Marty was told by Cave the song is based on a dream he just had with all his ex-girlfriends turning up were then Casey said in the interview sounds more “like a nightmare” or something along those lines. Mick Harvey who’s playing guitar above in the video leaved the band soon after this and giving away who is who in an interview named all the real names of the woman, some are easier to pick that others. Mick also didn’t seem to like this track and even quoted himself saying/thinking “Oh god” at the time of recording, which as I said before was his last record with the band and Cave. Yet another songwriting trick Mick gave away in the same interview is the moon is always the woman in Cave’s songs.

Anyway I could gibber on about Nick forever and it’s totally amazing he’s not popped up here before in SLS but off course I’ve got piles of posts about him before, if you wanna look?

Performing in the old gay nightclub in Soho! Jim, Mick, Nick and Marty (l-r) line-up of The Bad Seeds

I hope whoever listening/looking/reading this post enjoyed it even at eight minutes long?

Cheers 🙂