Friday, January 7, 2011

Breathless by Nick Cave






 If I was asked to write an obituary for Nick Cave, it would begin with what is, on the surface, a most unlikely observation:

One of the foremost composers of love songs of his generation passed today: Nick Cave.

Of course, he is also one the foremost composers of songs about hate, about perversion, about dissipation etc. There are a number of songs by Nick Cave which have turned up on love missives, in the form of mixed cds, that I have made for my life mate over the years.  "Breathless" hasn't but, no doubt, it will soon.

From the opening couplet, he had me at "gambolling."  This is followed by the extraordinary three lines

And the red-breasted robin beats his wings
His throat it trembles when he sings
For he is helpless before you


A robin's throat trembling in a rock song - really?   Fer chrissakes, robins don't even make it into popular songs anymore, no less with beating wings and certainly not with throats a-tremble.


The happy hooded bluebells bow
And bend their heads all a-down
Heavied by the early morning dew



Ok, at "happy hooded bluebells" I'm taking off my clothes and lying down.  Followed by "bend their heads all a-down / Heavied by the early morning dew" - damn, you get the idea.  This is deepish lingo for pop, be it stretched syntax or no.


At the whispering stream, at the bubbling brook
The fishes leap up to take a look
For they are breathless over you


This is one song written by someone who has got you on the ground and is not letting you up.


Still your hands
And still your heart
For still your face comes shining through
And all the morning glows anew
Still your mind
Still your soul
For still, the fare of love is true
And I am breathless without you


This chorus is a beauty and serves its function well, particularly when it rolls round again with the songwriter's stock in-trade of minor variances to keep the listener attentive and in this case, which is rare in rock indeed, the changes actually further the understanding and add depth to the meaning.


Still your hands
And still your heart
For still your face comes shining through
And all the morning glows anew
Still your soul
Still your mind
Still, the fire of love is true
And I am breathless without you


All nature ends up bowing to the narrator's love.  In the next three verses we have:

The fox chases the rabbit round
The rabbit hides beneath the ground
For he is defenceless without you

The sky of daytime dies away
And all the earthly things they stop to play
For we are all breathless without you
I listen to my juddering bones
The blood in my veins and the wind in my lungs
And I am breathless without you


Cave has centered all the imagery around the natural world, as one still occasionally finds in some modern Indian Bollywood songs.   He has taken it back to basics, grounding us in the real, leading us away from the morass of modern mind.

Gambolling, juddering, happy hooded bluebells, anything bowed by morning dew, fish leaping out of a brook to take a look - take all these elements and, go ahead, write a pop song.   Go on.  I dare ya.

More likely, you'll write a poem.

Here's the song in its entirety.  Don't be put off musically by the opening, which seems to be an odd amalgam of slightly off-key recorder and flute.  It called to mind for me a sound similar to gagaku, a type of Japanese court music.  Whatever it is, and whatever the intent, by the time it returns at the end, you've forgotten how it began, particularly if you are as stunned as I was at what came between.



Breathless
It's up in the morning and on the downs
Little white clouds like gambolling lambs
And I am breathless over you
And the red-breasted robin beats his wings
His throat it trembles when he sings
For he is helpless before you
The happy hooded bluebells bow
And bend their heads all a-down
Heavied by the early morning dew
At the whispering stream, at the bubbling brook
The fishes leap up to take a look
For they are breathless over you
Still your hands
And still your heart
For still your face comes shining through
And all the morning glows anew
Still your mind
Still your soul
For still, the fare of love is true
And I am breathless without you
The wind circles among the trees
And it bangs about the new-made leaves
For it is breathless without you
The fox chases the rabbit round
The rabbit hides beneath the ground
For he is defenceless without you
The sky of daytime dies away
And all the earthly things they stop to play
For we are all breathless without you
I listen to my juddering bones
The blood in my veins and the wind in my lungs
And I am breathless without you
Still your hands
And still your heart
For still your face comes shining through
And all the morning glows anew
Still your soul
Still your mind
Still, the fire of love is true
And I am breathless without you 
Nick Cave



This brief interlude was brought to you by the fact that I am diligently working on a review of a recent edition of Modern Haiku, which I hope to post next Friday. I was overwhelmed by this song while walking into work yesterday - I played it over a dozen times in a row - and since I knew, literary as it is in tone, it would never fit into the requirements of the Sunday Service, I decided to share it today instead.


----------------------------------------


Here are two poems from Lilliput Review #116, March 2001, both brief, both powerful in their own ways.  Enjoy.


Saint Sebastian
Unless they fly they cannot sing.
Unless they find flesh they have no voice. Silently Sebastian
Welcomes his arrows.
   Tim Robbins



trying to forget
everything else
golden horseshit
Ed Baker





the sliding door's
decorative pattern...
fly shit
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue





best,
Don


Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 84 songs
Hear all 84 at once on the the LitRock Jukebox

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

"He has taken it back to basics, grounding us in the real, leading us away from the morass of modern mind."


what was that last .... BHANG/POP?!!!

"without 'Her'"... "breathless" "helpless"

what was it that W.B. Yeats said (I will NEVER forget it)...
"Don't be a magician. Be magic."

K.

Melissa Allen said...

Am I catching a whiff of Blake in that Nick Cave song, or is that just me?

Charles Gramlich said...

hum, never really made this connection. Interesting. some nice stuff in Nick's songs.

Issa's Untidy Hut said...

Ed, struck a chord, if dissonant.

Melissa, that could very well be, in which case it might be a candidate for the Sunday Service list.

Cave is amazing, Charles.

Jhon Baker said...

Nick Cave is a master of the lyric and often I sit in awe of what he has done with music. You scared the hell out of me with the obit thing. I don't think I can handle a world without his input quite yet. Also, Very nice Haiku at the end there - I particularly enjoyed the lines on St. Sebastian.

Anonymous said...

to me this song is an amazing tribute to that which animates all existence. it's called many names like god, universe, or tao, but this song makes me feel the reverberation of this unnameable force as deeply as i imagine nick cave has felt it.

Issa's Untidy Hut said...

Glad that struck a nerve, Anon.

Jhon, apologies again.

Don

Anonymous said...

Nice analysis. Thanks. If I may add some observations:

As Cave often does, he's conflating God with a love interest. All the elements of nature that he identifies are breathless without God--they wouldn't exist; Cave would be breathless without the woman that he's singing about. Furthermore, his appreciation for nature is enabled/enhanced by the inspiration (another favorite Cave topic) that he get's from his lover. (See "There She Goes, My Beautiful World" for an extended paean to the muse.)

It's kind of all wrapped up there in the chorus. He's telling the listener to calm themselves and see God's glory in everyday of nature, and he's using "still" in two senses, as an verb ("be still") telling his lover to calm herself, and as an adverb, as a means of declaring the persistence/continuation of both her beauty and his love for her (and between them) and, at the same time, his love for and reliance on nature/God. Simply masterful.

There's a similar sort of earthly/divine conflation in "Lazarus Dig Yourself". Cave sings about Lazarus in his grave, hearing people praying for him above ground; Larry hears his parents fighting upstairs in his house, or at least some sort of commotion; and there's "definitely something going on upstairs", i.e., in heaven.

Regarding the crazy flute jams in the song, I believe they're imitating the magpie's song--a very random warbling that resembles Chinese flutes--which is a common bird in Cave's native Australia.

Issa's Untidy Hut said...

Well, 5 years later but it's a party no one can be late to. Thanks, A.

Dave Thom said...

Imagine the thrilling noxious but intoxicating Red Right Hand tune (and wanting it to go off in your head every 5 minutes for days) while being late to the mesmerizing Peaky Blinders three seasons, and then hearing Breathless, and wondering what band performed that joyful number - and then discovering it's the same lad who gave us Red Right Hand??!! Can't be! It is! With fat bunnies and bluebells? Nick Cave, you're not such a bad seed after all. I hear/see/feel the love of God for his created mankind: He's Who is in love with us, and breathless around us. Am I hyperbolizing? Not really - I think Cave wrote God's love song for us. (Not that he planned to or would own that interpretation. That's okay, it's what I hear that matters to me.) And now which of the two tunes will win my soul every five minutes? It's like fucking with the Peaky Blinders. And yes, tho 5 years late to the party, thanks very much for your terrific post.

Issa's Untidy Hut said...

Dave, there are just so many Nick Cave cuts that are superlative ... there's this one:

http://lilliputreview.blogspot.com/2009/09/nick-cave-giving-world-another-spin.html

And so many more... thanks for the compliment and engaging .... Don

PS and yeah this one, which disappeared from the blog but still rips a wide one in anyone who thinks they can write rock and roll:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jc0ib5Rh5s

Dave Thom said...

Don, you must have seen/heard Cave in Hell or High Water? Credit for his score goes up early in the film and as you see the name and hear the score you know what you're hearing.

Issa's Untidy Hut said...

I've been meaning to see this but just haven't yet. Thanks for the reminder, Dave. Something I need to do. Also, I understand his new album is excellent. Don