Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

"Ever since I can remember hearing the Lazarus story, when I was a kid, you know, back in church, I was disturbed and worried by it. Traumatised, actually. We are all, of course, in awe of the greatest of Christ's miracles - raising a man from the dead - but I couldn't help but wonder how Lazarus felt about it. As a child it gave me the creeps, to be honest. I've taken Lazarus and stuck him in New York City, in order to give the song, a hip, contemporary feel. I was also thinking about Harry Houdini who spent a lot of his life trying to debunk the spiritualists who were cashing in on the bereaved. He believed there was nothing going on beyond the grave. He was the second greatest escapologist, Harry was, Lazarus, of course, being the greatest. I wanted to create a kind of vehicle, a medium, for Houdini to speak to us if he so desires, you know, from beyond the grave. Sometimes, late at night, if you listen to the song hard enough, you can hear his voice and the sad clanking of his chains. "I don't know what it is but there is definitely something going on upstairs", he seems to be saying. It is, most of all, an elegy to the New York City of the 70's."

TODAY’S LESSON

“Today’s Lesson is possibly the grooviest, most right-on song I’ve ever written but it is also, arguably, the darkest and most evil. It comes from a story that my wife Susie told me. At 12 years old, Susie suddenly - after feeling completely invisible her entire childhood - became visible. She’d walk into rooms and people would smile at her and men’s faces would become happy. Inspired by this, she would dress up in a pair of tight, lavender-coloured Mr America Jeans’ a very tight T-shirt and high-heels and go to this strange stretch of road near a lorry depot and walk up and down the street and all the lorry drivers would stick their heads out of the window and call things out to her and she would be filled with happiness - at 12 years old. Marilyn Monroe tells similar stories. Marilyn Monroe is famously quoted as saying, a few months before she died, “I’m always running in