I ain't down here for your love or money, I'm down here for your POLL: The ILM Nick Cave Poll RESULTS Thread (#106 in a series)

Rowland didn't write a ton of songs, but everything he released was excellent. Teenage Stuff Film and Get Lost Don't Lie are tied with Your Funeral, My Trial in my book.

Always surprised at how low The Firstborn is Dead tends to gets ranked among Nick Cave albums, but 17th position in this poll is baffling. It's probably my favourite Bad Seeds record, along with Your Funeral... My Trial, after which Cave's albums get a bit patchy for me.

Firstborn is the album where he sticks to exploring the blues, and White Guy Explores the Blues isn't the most fascinating avenue of musical styling for the last twenty years. I got into Firstborn is Deadand Get Lost Don't Lie at the same time, and what entranced me about both the Bad Seeds and Immortal Souls was that both were exploring the blues in different ways, and both ways were unique to the history of white guys doin' the blues (at least up to that point.).

THERE IS A WAR COMING

Huh, whatever happened to Tom DiCillo?
He's still around NYC making art. I've run into him twice within the last 8 years, once at a screening of what was then a newly restored print of Howard Brookner's Burroughs: The Movie (DiCillo shot it), and another time at an art fair where he was exhibiting his work.

Theres currently a torrent war on the birthday party on dime just in case you;re interested like

Covers poll / listening thread is halfway through, if anyone missed it: TOWERS OF SONG: a Nick Cave Sings Covers listening thread and poll

CAVE COVERS as voted by a vast swathe of the ILM audience:

bubbling under

23. Patripassian
21 points, 2 votes
closing track of Current 93 album, 1996

21= What A Wonderful World
23 points, 2 votes
Nick Cave & Shane MacGowan single, 1992

21= She’s Not There
23 points, 2 votes
Neko Case & Nick Cave soundtrack contrib, 2011

and

20. All The Pretty Little Horses
23 points, 3 votes
title track of Current 93 album, 1996

lullaby
Current 93 with Nick Cave

19. The Hammer Song
25 points, 3 votes
Kicking Against The Pricks, 1986

The Sensational Alex Harvey Band
Bad Seeds

18. Long Time Man
26 points, 3 votes
…My Trial EP, 1986

Tim Rose
Bad Seeds, RFH 1999 (audience video)

love the Ling Time Man cover so much ... so eerie & cool sounding

*Long

Lingam Man

yay, glad my C93 votes made it

17. Helpless
27 points, 3 votes
tribute album The Bridge, 1989

Neil Young, Massey Hall 1971
Bad Seeds, KCRW 1989

ugh so great!

16. Disco 2000
27 points, 2 votes
B-side to Bad Cover Version by Pulp, 2002

Pulp video, 1996
Pulp reunion, 2011
Nick Cave
Nick Cave (Pub Rock Version)

15. Lost In Music
28 points, 2 votes
Dirty Sings EP by Anita Lane, 1988

Sister Sledge / Chic, 1979/84
Anita Lane with four Bad Seeds

14. Hey Joe
30 points, 2 votes
Kicking Against The Pricks, 1986

Billy Roberts demo, 1961
Tim Rose, 1969
Billy Roberts & Grits, 1975
Nick Cave, Mick Harvey, Toots Thielemans, Charlie Haden, David Sanborn, Hiram Bullock, Philippe Saisse and Omar Hakim, 1990

I didnt vote for Hey Joe but I love how creepy it is

Better believe that last one was from a Hal Willner TV series. Here's Nick & Mick doing The Mercy Seat on the same episode with Don Alias, Tom Barney and Saisse.

And just in case anyone wants to see Paul Shaffer wailing on organ with Nick, Mick and the CBS Orchestra on another song about Joe

Somehow it only dawned on me RIGHT NOW that the Bad Seeds recorded a cover *and* an original composition both named "The Hammer Song." That'll learn me for not knowing "Pricks" all that well.

The worst part of it is that Nick renamed "Hammer Song" to "The Hammer Song" and then went and wrote his own "The Hammer Song."

That "Hey Joe" rendition is kinda amazing, no? I'm belatedly wishing I'd studied for this exam now, dammit.

It seems the collaborations on that Night Music program were frequently a bit bonkers. (Not *entirely* off-topic, given the title of the initial polling thread, lol.)

I haven't ever seen that Hey Joe performance. Fucking brilliant. He looked so cool around then.

The sound is bizarrely excellent for a 1990 TV appearance on YouTube as well.

Nick Cave & Charlie Haden. *head explodes*

13. Stagger Lee
31 points, 2 votes
Murder Ballads, 1995

Stack o' Lee Blues by Waring's Pennsylvanians, 1923
Skeeg-A-Lee-Blues by Lovie Austin, 1924
Stagolee by Mississippi John Hurt, 1928
Stagger Lee by Lloyd Price, #1 on US R&B and pop charts in 1959
Bad Seeds, Austin City Limits, c. 2014

12. Cosmic Dancer
31 points, 3 votes
tribute album AngelHeaded Hipster, 2020

T Rex, Wembley Arena, 1972
Nick Cave video

11. Wanted Man
39 points, 3 votes
The Firstborn Is Dead, 1984/85

(c.2019 remix of) 1969 demo by Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash at San Quentin, one week later
Johnny Cash on his own variety TV show, six months later
Bad Seeds in Marseilles 2008, Cave on guitar (audience video)

my no. 1.

Entering the top ten with a tie.

9= Long Black Veil
40 points, 3 votes
Kicking Against The Pricks, 1986

Lefty Frizell, 1959 - plus sequel record by same writers, unissued until 1994
Johnny Cash & Joni Mitchell, 1969 (also on Cash's TV show)
Bad Seeds

9= Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart
40 points, 3 votes
Kicking Against The Pricks, 1986

David & Jonathan, 1967
Gene Pitney, 1968
Olivia Colman, Ben Whishaw, John C. Reilly, Nick Cave & Garry Mountaine

I loooove Somethings Gotten Hold of My Heart so much!! so much drama, terrific cover

i love the Pitney/Marc Almond version too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZTX0RBlqnM

8. By The Time I Get To Phoenix
40 points, 4 votes
Kicking Against The Pricks, 1986

Johnny Rivers, 1967
Glen Campbell c. 1969 on The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour
songwriter Jimmy Webb, BBC 1971
Isaac Hayes live in Atlanta, 1973 (22 minute video)
Bad Seeds, Philadelphia 7//2/1989 (audience audio)

yesssss <3

7. Avalanche
41 points, 3 votes
From Her To Eternity, 1984

Leonard Coheh, 1971 (from his 1966 poem)
Bad Seeds
Nick Cave 2015 version for "Black Sails"

Seemed a tad peculiar to open your band's first LP with someone else's song. I may even underrate this as a result. (Peculiar post-punk, at least; obviously not at all peculiar if you're, say, Barbra Streisand.)

I think it’s a baller move & a great cover

6. The Singer
45 points, 3 votes
Kicking Against The Pricks, 1986

The Folk Singer by Johnny Cash, 1968
Bad Seeds, live on The Tube 1986

5. Black Betty
45 points, 4 votes
b-side to The Singer, 1986

Iron Head, 1933
Leadbelly,
Looky Yonder by Odetta, 1954
Bad Seeds at Pinkpop, 1990

4. Tower of Song
50 points, 4 votes
tribute album I'm Your Fan, 1991

Leonard Cohen, 1988
Laughing Len on Night Music, 1989 with David Sanborn, George Duke, and Robben Ford, plus his own backing singers Perla Batalla & Julie Christensen
Bad Seeds, 1991

The full episode of Sunday Night / Night Music includes perfs by Was (Not Was), Ken Nordine, and a Cohen / Sonny Rollins collab.

Seemed a tad peculiar to open your band's first LP with someone else's song.

what about your first solo single

3. In The Ghetto
54 points, 4 votes
single, 1984

Elvis Presley, April 1969
Bobbie Gentry, April 1970
Bad Seeds, April 1984 at the Electric Ballroom in Camden
Nick Cave video
The Blizzard King, 3am somewhere

Ha!

i have zero idea what the top 2 will be.

Bad Seeds in Amsterdam, 1992, from the Paradiso VHS, is also good.

I don't think anyone would have predicted the #1 tbh, though it's the only one with a big vote jump! Back in an hour or so for the reveal.

I just remembered a GREAT Nick Cave cover version, which is Don't Go Home With Your Hard On, the studio version unlikely ever to be released, but I had a tape of it in 2004-2005 so it definitely exists. Can't find any trace of it online.

Is it possible it was a napster-like misnamed copy of the David McComb & Adam Peters (plus Martyn Casey and Will Sergeant) version from I'm Your Fan?

(Or a bootleg from the Came So Far For Beauty concert, and Nick traded verses with Jarvis Cocker, Rufus Wainwright and Teddy Thompson? I'd love to hear either that or a real studio version, obv)