The Boatman's Call
The tenth album: twelve piano songs about love and longing, and a sharp break from everything the band had done before.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, 1997
- Released
- 3 March 1997
- Recorded
- June to August 1996
- Studio
- Sarm West Studios and Abbey Road Studios, London
- Label
- Mute (Reprise in the US)
- Producer
- Flood and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
- Length
- 52:07
Recording began less than six months after Murder Ballads, from sparse voice and piano demos, and the first song cut was an outtake, The Garden Duet. Cave told Beat in 1997 that he wanted to be very economical with the instruments and keep the record fragile, and told Melody Maker that many of the songs began as letters or poems to a particular person. In the Red Hand Files in 2021 he recalled being disgusted by the record's drama at the time, a feeling he now reads as fear and shame at moving from fiction to writing about himself; he came to hear the songs as a spiritual liberation from the self.
Reviews were close to unanimous: NME called it a stark look at all he had been through, and The Guardian and Uncut gave it five stars. The Quietus later found it sentimental. It reached two in Norway, five in Australia and 22 in Britain, where it went gold, and it is in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. A 2011 remaster added bonus tracks including Little Empty Boat.
Track listing
- Into My Arms4:15
- Lime Tree Arbour2:56
- People Ain't No Good5:42
- Brompton Oratory4:06
- There Is a Kingdom4:52
- (Are You) The One That I've Been Waiting For?4:05
- Where Do We Go Now But Nowhere?5:46
- West Country Girl2:45
- Black Hair4:14
- Idiot Prayer4:21
- Far from Me5:33
- Green Eyes3:32
Personnel
- Nick Cave vocals, piano, organ, keyboards, vibes
- Mick Harvey electric and acoustic guitar, bass, organ, vibes, xylophone, backing vocals
- Blixa Bargeld electric guitar, prepared piano, backing vocals
- Martyn P. Casey bass, backing vocals
- Conway Savage piano, backing vocals
- Warren Ellis violin, accordion, piano, looped violin
- Jim Sclavunos drums, melodica, bells, percussion, organ
- Thomas Wydler drums, maracas, backing vocals
- Flood producer, engineer
- Anton Corbijn cover photograph
More from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Skeleton Tree (2016)
Sources
- The Boatman's Call, Wikipedia
- Nick Cave's The Boatman's Call at 20, Diffuser
- Records revisited: The Boatman's Call, hhv-mag
- What were you disgusted by?, The Red Hand Files (2021-01)