Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds documented a period of tremendous artistic growth with the heart-bearing balladry of the Gospel-infused The Good Son.
By the time Nick Cave’s sixth album appeared, the theatrical depravity of his earlier group, The Birthday Party, had given way to a considerably more refined and nuanced style with the Bad Seeds.
That’s not to say he had mellowed. Look no further than 1988’s certified classic TENDER PREY ★★★★★, for relentless death-row confessionals (The Mercy Seat), chilling tales of a life of sin (Up Jumped the Devil), and a twisted 50’s rocker (Deanna) – and that’s just the first three songs!
However, on the acclaimed follow up THE GOOD SON (1990) ★★★★★, the singer infiltrated the pop-cultural establishment through a sudden artistic reinvention as a dignified piano balladeer, turning towards more spiritual and tuneful endeavours.
Hinted at on the LP sleeve, Nick at the piano dressed in a white suit surrounded by angelic girls, the album consists of a series of breathtaking piano-led ballads (‘Sorrow’s Child’, ‘The Ship Song’) and cinematic brilliance that wields gospel (‘The Witness Song’), and cabaret-tinged balladry (‘Lament’). Cave uses the songs as vehicles to make him a better singer, and The Bad Seeds a more sophisticated, stylistically diverse band.
This collection includes four tracks that keep their working titles (‘The Weeping Song’, ‘The Ship Song’, ‘The Witness Song’ and ‘The Hammer Song’), and many reflect a heart-bearing tenderness almost unheard of up to that point, although the 33-year old singer complicates the soothing beauty with a sense of unease through tense storytelling (‘The Hammer Song’) and his own nuanced crooning (‘Foi Na Cruz’).
“A lot of stuff started to come quite quickly: ‘The Weeping Song’, ‘The Ship Song’, ‘Foi Na Cruz’ – these extremely sweet love songs appeared.”
Recorded in São Paulo, and mixed at Hansa Studios in Berlin, the album bears none of the technical sheen, studio gimmickry and drum compression that dates many records of the era.
The band includes reliable multi-instrumentalist Mick Harvey who is essentially on bass, but adds a steadiness of musical professionalism be it adding guitar, background vocals or vibraphone textures. He also orchestrates the exquisite string arrangements that adorn much of the music.
The vampiric German artist Blixa Bargeld lends a sinister depth to the piano-led ballads and the primeval rockers with his mere presence and lacerating guitar treatments. He also sings co-lead vocals on single, ‘The Weeping Song’.
Ex-Cramps and Gun Club guitarist Kid Congo Powers, and long-serving Swiss drummer Thomas Wydler, complete the quintet. Roland Wolf plays on, and co-wrote, the exquisite closing track ‘Lucy’, and he would soon join the band full time on keyboards.
The Good Son was something of a line in the sand for the artist. On one hand he was drawing to a close the Old Testament songwriting style that characterised his earlier compositions, filled with blood, sacrifice, fire and brimstone, while on the other, he was a man orienting himself with the application of his craft in a new world, no less bohemian, living as a Brazilian resident after a four-year stay in Berlin, and embracing a life of sobriety, marriage and impending fatherhood.
The Bad Seeds explore the kind of music that can be fashioned from these unlikely materials with peak-form precision, and this superbly structured, singular work brings to light another facet of Nick Cave’s artistry, setting the course for an entirely new phase into the 1990s and beyond.
Today marks the great man’s 66th year.
The album was remastered and reissued in 2010 and can be purchased from the band’s official store.
The sessions for The Good Son were disciplined. Nick Cave was laser-focused. As a nod to our Brazilian hosts, he recorded a song in Portuguese, a traditional spiritual called Foi Na Cruz, which would open the album. They brought in some Brazilian singers to provide backing vocals. Nick had a very particular idea of how he wanted them to perform the words. They kept telling him, “We can’t sing it that way. If you know the language, you’d know that nobody would do it that way.” So there was a little push and pull with that. Nick insisted and pre-vailed. One of the vocalists didn’t react well to being told how to sing in his native language. “OK, then,” he said, “I’ll just pretend I’m dead.” It was a revelation to me that you could go to a recording studio, not be stoned or drunk, and still be creative. Even so, I didn’t feel I was contributing much. A running joke among the hired hands in the Bad Seeds went something like this: Someone would ask, “What did you do at the sessions today?” and we’d reply, “We sat around watching Mick Harvey play everything.” Even Blixa Bargeld was in on the joke. The Good Son was an album full of light and hope, even joy, reflecting both Nick’s sobriety and his new relationship with Vivi. Almost the antithesis of the dark, brooding nihilism of Tender Prey – Kid Congo Powers, 2022
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – The Good Son (1990)
All songs written by Nick Cave.
- Foi Na Cruz
- The Good Son
- Sorrow’s Child
- The Weeping Song
- The Ship Song
- The Hammer Song
- Lament
- The Witness Song
- Lucy (words: Cave; music: Cave, Bargeld, Roland Wolf)
Top photo: Ross A. Waterman
Further Reading:
♥ Nick Cave Fixes | A Tribute Blog
♥ Mutiny in Heaven | The Birthday Party Movie
♥ Welcome to the Car Smash | The Best of The Birthday Party
♥ The Road to God Knows Where | Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds on tour in 1989
THE PRESS | Music Reviews 
That’s a great album I’ve discorvered lately.
Great to hear prince. It’s still my favourite Nick Cave album, and he has plenty of great ones. Perhaps because it was my introduction and opened up the whole Nick Cave world to me.
He let me in with “Henry’s dream” and I’ve explored the rest with a greedy delectation.
Great to hear prince. Henry’s Dream came out at the height of my fandom and I really love it still to this day. I can get enough of Straight To You. Once of his best classics.
I don’t know the album; have a couple of his later ones but will check it out on your recommendation.
Yes it’s a really good one. I bought it when it came out and it opened up a whole word of Nick Cave for me, so I went back and got everything up until that point. Then I bought the follow up Henry’s Dream which I quite liked but for some reason dropped off around Let Love In, maybe because everyone was on board by then and MY Nick got really popular. You know how it is. I’ve only dabbled since then, but appreciate the man as a top-drawer performer and songwriter. Actually I probably listen to The Good Son, The Birthday Party and Tender Prey the most these days.
Thanks! I often regret not flying from Winnipeg to Toronto in 2017 or so when he and the Bad Seeds played there.