The cult-rock icon has always been the
fiercest of artists, independent and unyielding, but was he up to the
difficult task of recording another album in the wake of personal
tragedy? In the new indie film, One More Time with Feeling, the filmmaker follows the studio process for Skeleton Tree, and by all indications, it appears to have been both deeply difficult and cathartic for Cave.
For the uninitiated, it must be said that Skeleton Tree can be a difficult first listen, and it is certainly best suited for the late-night hours. Cave lays bare his soul, no, opens up his ribcage and lays his heart on a table. His lyrics are raw and honest and always acute, spinning intense metaphors into masterful songcraft, while his growling talk-singing reaches into the dark night of his soul and conjures up the new ghosts that circle his homefront.
Opening track “Jesus Alone" plumbs the spiraling abyss with menacing tropes, while Cave calls out into the black in terrifying isolation.
You're an African doctor harvesting tear ducts
You believe in God, but you get no special
Dispensation for this belief now
You're an old man sitting by the fire
You're the mist rolling off the sea
You're a distant memory in the mind of your
Creator, don't you see?
He then turns to his shared experience, as his voice on "Rings of Saturn" deftly maneuvers through spinning synths, hailing a woman of potent capabilities, likely his wife, who, by the end of the song, is
disappearing and further up and spinning out again
Up and further she goes, up and out of bed
Up and out of the bed and down the hall
where she stops for a moment and turns and says
"Are you still here?"
Although a devastating scene, Cave praises her strength and conviction throughout the chorus: "And this is the moment / this is exactly where she is born to be / And this is what she does / and this is what she is."
"Girl in Amber" depicts another phase in his wife's mourning, describing her as a "girl in amber trapped forever, spinning down the hall," who is reeling in confusion over the senseless loss. The phone rings no more, and the desire is to drown in sorrow, "to bleed and don't breathe a word." The song's second verse is tragic poetry.
Just step away and let the world spin
And now in turn, you turn
You kneel, lace up his shoes, your little blue-eyed boy
Take him by his hand, go move and spin him down the hall
I get lucky, I get lucky cause I tried again
I knew the world it would stop spinning now since you've been gone
I used to think that when you died you kind of wandered the world
In a slumber till you crumbled, were absorbed into the earth
Well, I don't think that any more
Cave’s suffering hits its zenith with the desperate grief of “I Need You.” He repeatedly cries out in the barest of anguish: “Nothing really matters when you’re gone. …. I need you!” The backing choir lifts his sadness into something just short of grace, a forlorn cry into the gulf. It is a symbolic release of the tormenting demons from the longest of nights, a solitary attempt at touching the void.
For the uninitiated, it must be said that Skeleton Tree can be a difficult first listen, and it is certainly best suited for the late-night hours. Cave lays bare his soul, no, opens up his ribcage and lays his heart on a table. His lyrics are raw and honest and always acute, spinning intense metaphors into masterful songcraft, while his growling talk-singing reaches into the dark night of his soul and conjures up the new ghosts that circle his homefront.
Opening track “Jesus Alone" plumbs the spiraling abyss with menacing tropes, while Cave calls out into the black in terrifying isolation.
You're an African doctor harvesting tear ducts
You believe in God, but you get no special
Dispensation for this belief now
You're an old man sitting by the fire
You're the mist rolling off the sea
You're a distant memory in the mind of your
Creator, don't you see?
He then turns to his shared experience, as his voice on "Rings of Saturn" deftly maneuvers through spinning synths, hailing a woman of potent capabilities, likely his wife, who, by the end of the song, is
disappearing and further up and spinning out again
Up and further she goes, up and out of bed
Up and out of the bed and down the hall
where she stops for a moment and turns and says
"Are you still here?"
Although a devastating scene, Cave praises her strength and conviction throughout the chorus: "And this is the moment / this is exactly where she is born to be / And this is what she does / and this is what she is."
"Girl in Amber" depicts another phase in his wife's mourning, describing her as a "girl in amber trapped forever, spinning down the hall," who is reeling in confusion over the senseless loss. The phone rings no more, and the desire is to drown in sorrow, "to bleed and don't breathe a word." The song's second verse is tragic poetry.
Just step away and let the world spin
And now in turn, you turn
You kneel, lace up his shoes, your little blue-eyed boy
Take him by his hand, go move and spin him down the hall
I get lucky, I get lucky cause I tried again
I knew the world it would stop spinning now since you've been gone
I used to think that when you died you kind of wandered the world
In a slumber till you crumbled, were absorbed into the earth
Well, I don't think that any more
Cave’s suffering hits its zenith with the desperate grief of “I Need You.” He repeatedly cries out in the barest of anguish: “Nothing really matters when you’re gone. …. I need you!” The backing choir lifts his sadness into something just short of grace, a forlorn cry into the gulf. It is a symbolic release of the tormenting demons from the longest of nights, a solitary attempt at touching the void.
While there are no clear-cut answers in Skeleton Tree's bewildering landscape, dawn finally comes on the beautifully rendered “Distant Sky.” The spare piano ballad, set aloft by Else Torp's superb
voice, is an invitation to move on, depicting the possibility of loving
companionship grasping hands and heading toward the horizon. The song is
gorgeous, wide-lens cinema, evoking cloudless, endless skies, and it is the
first sound of solace on the record, Cave’s turn to the future and a life beyond tragedy.
After such an arduous journey, closer "Skeleton Tree" reaches some measure of acceptance, although it is still couched in the absence of certitude. "And I called out, I called out / Right across the sea / But the echo comes back empty / And nothing is for free." Nevertheless, as the music fades, Cave sings in affirmation: “And it's alright now.” Although perhaps not a signal of redemption, the gentle folk ballad is a source of resolution. Cave stands at the edge of the ocean; whether it’s the site of his precious son’s fall is left unsaid. But the scene is a moving visual, representing the divide between us and our loved ones in the great somewhere. Will we see them again? Cave does not know. But he is facing forward, wind at his face, ready to walk again.
After such an arduous journey, closer "Skeleton Tree" reaches some measure of acceptance, although it is still couched in the absence of certitude. "And I called out, I called out / Right across the sea / But the echo comes back empty / And nothing is for free." Nevertheless, as the music fades, Cave sings in affirmation: “And it's alright now.” Although perhaps not a signal of redemption, the gentle folk ballad is a source of resolution. Cave stands at the edge of the ocean; whether it’s the site of his precious son’s fall is left unsaid. But the scene is a moving visual, representing the divide between us and our loved ones in the great somewhere. Will we see them again? Cave does not know. But he is facing forward, wind at his face, ready to walk again.
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