By 1996, the Bad Seeds were a band of rarefied, disparate talents, with multi instrumentalist Mick Harvey and Blixa Bargeld handling guitar duties after the departure of Roland S Howard. Neither were orthodox players and their moody, staccato atmospherics help lend Murder Ballads its unsettling aura. “Blixa doesn’t particularly like to be seen as a guitar player, he sees his guitar as an instrument to make different noises with,” said the long-serving Harvey, who took to recording while sat on the floor of Melbourne’s Atlantis Studios playing his Guild Starfire IV, while Bargeld’s favoured instruments included a Fender Jaguar, Mustang and a Hofner 173.
In at the deep end
Nick Cave doesn’t ease us in gently on Murder Ballads. Opener Song Of Joy, originally titled Red Right Hand II, is perhaps most disturbing of all. It’s a chilling account of a father witnessing the murder of his family, soundtracked by a pulsing single note and spectral organ tones. If you wanted a sign of things to come, it’s perfectly foreboding.
The album sessions were already wrapped up when polymath drummer Jim Sclavunos gifted Cave the book of prison poetry that inspired track two. Minutes later, they were hammering out one of Murder Ballads’ highlights, Stagger Lee, inspired not by folk or blues, but gangster rap. Martyn P Casey’s bass groove, gritty overdriven stabs from Bargeld, and thundering ominous low D notes on the piano combine to create a feeling of unease for Cave’s twist on the oft-told tale of the 1895 murder of Billy Lyons by the mythologised ‘Stag’ Lee Shelton. Captured on the second take, it immediately eclipsed versions by Mississippi John Hurt, Woody Guthrie, Duke Ellington, James Brown and The Clash.
The first of the album’s duets, Henry Lee, spanning from 18th Century British folk ballad Young Hunting, features a placid, breathy appearance from PJ Harvey. Mick Harvey picks out the gentle Am/Dm/G7/C chord progression in 6/8, intertwining hypnotically with Conway Savage’s piano chords, a ghostly howl of feedback interrupting Cave’s chilling retelling of the titular character being stabbed and dumped unceremoniously down a well. Next, a cyclone of ambient noise, Mick Harvey’s wind organ and a military snare provide the backdrop for Bargeld’s angular shards on Lovely Creature, recalling English medieval ballad Pretty Polly, Cave whispering evocatively, “Oh the sands my lovely creature, and the mad moaning winds/ at night the deserts writhed with diabolical things”.
Princess of pop meets prince of darkness
Amid the unrelenting malevolence, one song alone made Murder Ballads a commercial success, even landing Cave a disorientating appearance on Top Of The Pops. With Mick Harvey playing on muted nylon acoustic strings in G minor, Where The Wild Roses Grow captures a dialogue between the song’s murderous protagonist and his victim Rose Connolly, recast by Cave as Elisa Day and inspired by traditional folk song Down In The Willow Garden. Cave sent a “seriously creepy” demo with Bargeld on vocals to pop princess Kylie Minogue and, surprisingly, she replied the following day, taking Cave up on the offer of a duet. “I was kind of aware people would go and buy Murder Ballads and listen to it and wonder ‘What the fuck have I bought this for?’,” admitted Cave of the new fans Kylie’s exquisite cameo brought him.
The body count continues to rise throughout Murder Ballads, with 20 children dying on The Curse Of Millhaven, the album’s riotous anomaly, which opens with a cacophonous racket and becomes, in the words of Casey, a “mad polka”. It’s then the turn of 20 miners to succumb in a bloodthirsty act of revenge by Crow Jane on the sultry track of the same name, Sclavunos and Casey laying down a jazzy foundation for the rich raked chords. The 14-minute O’Malley’s Bar is far more personal. Cave, recovering from a hangover by the pool in a German hotel, banana daiquiri in hand, imagines the gruesome execution of each of the noisy holidaymakers disturbing his convalescence.
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