This page shows all of my old blog posts that I couldn't bare to get rid of... I think it is important to look back on the growth of a person... And this is like my own personal archive of my late teens.
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Over the course of a week two artists that I love have released new albums. These are Ceres and Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. Right at this very second though as I type this I am listening to "Skeleton Tree" which is Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds new album. It came out today. I haven't felt the best today. My thoughts have been all over the place and I've felt tired and had a bit of a gut ache... Three of the shittest things all at once! Despite all this though I still decided to give this album a listen, even though I could already feel that this would be an extremely powerful, haunting and grief filled masterpiece. "Jesus Alone" is the first song on the album and the first of many tears to come. As any Nick Cave fan would know his son passed away from accidental death... I didn't want to assume that each song on this album would be completely about that. I feel that some of it probably is. I don't want to have that thought in my head though that it is all about his son (whether it is or not). Instead I have merged it to my own experiences of losing someone. If you put yourself in your own shoes (feels weird saying in your own shoes instead of someone elses) you can still walk long as if it were your very own story and album about dealing with grief. So now this album has become my very own story about death and losing someone. I can just feel the connection, the feeling that so many experience and can relate to. All of Nick Cave's lyrics and songs tell a story. I feel like he usually uses other characters to tell a story though in comparison to this album. This album honestly feels like HE IS THE CHARACTER. It is purely him. Not him hidden under the skin of another character. It is Nick in all his pain and glory. For me "I Need You" and "Distant Sky" speak to me the most. "I Need You" is the exact example of emotional suffering. I actually closed my eyes while listening to most of the songs on this album because they all took me into another world. The lyrics in this song that make my heart break are "Nothing really matters, when the one you love is gone". I mean.. FUCK. That line breaks you into a thousand delicate pieces that can't hold together, before floating off into darkness. The feeling of total loss is awful. You struggle to pick yourself up and care about anything. In this song he talks about how he is trying so hard to make something matter but it just doesn't anymore because he is in a pain that is unbearable. As a listener I can only imagine how this song made him feel, how hard it would have been to even sit down and write those things on a piece of paper. He is brave to have made such a personal thing public. I am glad that Nick has. It is a song that thousands and thousands of people will listen to and relate to. We will all experience the feeling that this song portrays at some point in our life, no matter how hard we try to avoid it. "In my heart I need you" is another incredibly strong and painful lyric to listen to. I, however think that this particular line is the most powerful one out of this entire song though... "I'll miss you when you're gone forever". Like I said, I don't want to assume that this song is about his son but to me this song speaks about death and the feelings that come along with coping with that. When I listened to "Distant Sky" I lay on the floor and closed my eyes. I imagined myself on a hilltop, watching the ocean come tumbling in. I was in the grass, the wind was blowing through my hair. I suddenly felt a chill... I turned around and there was a dark figure, just a shadow. Then I see my hand be held by someone. I am then floating away. I am flying next to some seagulls while I feel the sea mist on my face. The sun is going down and I am getting higher and higher. Flying in the clouds. I am not religious but I suddenly see a Church, with light shining through the coloured glass. The woman singing in this song is at this Church singing and saying "let us go now". So I go. I begin to see darkness. That is it. The song is over. I opened my eyes and could just feel the tears in my eyes. There are not many songs that I can close my eyes to and literally imagine and see a story unfold. This song did it to me though. I can fall deep into songs which I love and the experience of listening to this song was truly magical. I actually had a brief conversation today about the album cover. I find it interesting how you can look at something and feel something totally different to someone else. Even if it is just a black background with a title on it. Apparently Nick struggled to get his music to feel the way he felt about his son. After hearing this I see why a black background could fit in with the album. The darkness can be open to complete interpretation. A lot of people were assuming that the entire album would be about his son passing away (which hey I'm sure a lot of it is) however maybe the way he looked at it was he isn't sure what it is about... It is about his son, his grief, his emotions... So the black of this album cover (which could be confusion because of everything going on in his head) sums that up perfectly.
This album is full of so much raw emotion. I cried, I hugged my dogs because I love them, I felt relaxed, confused, taken to a world in my head, suffocated in darkness and pain all in 39 minutes. I feel like this album is something I will hold close to my heart forever maybe as a way to deal with similar experiences... I am not sure. I would recommend to listen to this album if you want to see, hear and feel Nick Cave on a much deeper level than anything else that he as ever released before. This album is truly haunting and beautiful. Try listening to it in the dark or with your eyes closed, let your mind run wild and fall into the dim, dark world that is Skeleton Tree. 10/10.
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