I was just a boy when I sat down
To watch the news on TV
I saw some ordinary slaughter
I saw some routine atrocity
My father said, don’t look away
You got to be strong, you got to be bold, now
He said, that in the end it is beauty
That is going to save the world, now

And she moves among the sparrows
And she floats upon the breeze
She moves among the flowers
She moves something deep inside of me

I was walking around the flower show like a leper
Coming down with some kind of nervous hysteria
When I saw you standing there, green eyes, black hair
Up against the pink and purple wisteria
You said, hey, nature boy, are you looking at me
With some unrighteous intention?

My knees went weak,
I couldn’t speak, I was having thoughts
That were not in my best interests to mention

You took me back to your place
And dressed me up in a deep sea diver’s suit
You played the patriot, you raised the flag
And I stood at full salute
Later on we smoked a pipe that struck me dumb
And made it impossible to speak
As you closed in, in slow motion,
Quoting Sappho, in the original Greek

Years passed by, we were walking by the sea
Half delirious
You smiled at me and said, Babe
I think this thing is getting kind of serious
You pointed at something and said
Have you ever seen such a beautiful thing?
It was then that I broke down
It was then that you lifted me up again

Nick Cave

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

She walks these hills in a long black veil
She visits my grave when the night winds wail
Nobody knows, nobody sees
Nobody knows but me

Ten years ago, on a cold dark night
Someone was killed ‘neath the town hall light
There were few at the scene, but they all agreed
That the slayer who ran looked a lot like me

The judge, he said: “Son, what is your alibi?
If you were somewhere else, then you won’t have to die”
But I spoke not a word, though it meant my life
For I’d been in the arms of my best friend’s wife

She walks these hills in a long black veil
She visits my grave when the night winds wail
Nobody knows, nobody sees
Nobody knows but me

Now the scaffold is high and eternity is near
She stood in the crowd but shed not a tear
But sometimes at night when the cold winds moan
In a long black veil, she cries on my bones

She walks these hills in a long black veil
She visits my grave when the night winds wail
Nobody knows, nobody sees
Nobody knows but me
No, no, nobody knows but me
I said nobody knows but me
Yeah nobody knows but me

Nick Cave

It began when they come took me from my home
And put me in Dead Row,
Of which I am nearly wholly innocent, you know.
And I’ll say it again
I am not afraid to die

I began to warm and chill
To objects and their fields,
A ragged cup, a twisted mop
The face of Jesus in my soup
Those sinister dinner meals
The meal trolley’s wicked wheels
A hooked bone rising from my food
All things either good or ungood
And the mercy seat is waiting
And I think my head is burning
And in a way I’m yearning
To be done with all this measuring of truth.
An eye for an eye
A tooth for a tooth
And anyway I told the truth
And I’m not afraid to die.

Interpret signs and catalogue
A blackened tooth, a scarlet fog.
The walls are bad. Black. Bottom kind.
They are sick breath at my hind
They are sick breath gathering at my hind
I hear stories from the chamber
How Christ was born into a manger
And like some ragged stranger
Died upon the cross
And might I say it seems so fitting in its way
He was a carpenter by trade
Or at least that’s what I’m told

In Heaven His throne is made of gold
The ark of his Testament is stowed
A throne from which I’m told
All history does unfold.
Down here it’s made of wood and wire
And my body is on fire
And God is never far away.
Into the mercy seat I climb
My head is shaved, my head is wired
And like a moth that tries
To enter the bright eye
I go shuffling out of life
Just to hide in death awhile

An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth
And anyway there was no proof
Nor a motive why.
And the mercy seat is melting
And I think my blood is boiling
And in a way I’m spoiling
All the fun with all this truth and consequence.
An eye for an eye
And a truth for a truth
And anyway I told the truth
But I’m afraid I told a lie.

Nick Cave

The wintergreen, the juniper
The cornflower and the chicory
Well all of the words you said to me
Are still vibrating in the air
The elm, the ash and the linden tree
The dark and deep, enchanted sea
The trembling moon and the stars unfurled
Well there she goes, my beautiful world

There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes again

John Wilmot penned his poetry
Riddled with the pox
And Nabokov wrote on index cards
At a lectern, in his socks
St. John of the Cross he did his best stuff
Imprisoned in a box
And Johnny Thunders was half alive
When he wrote Chinese Rocks

Well, me, I’m lying here, with nothing in my ears
Me, I’m lying here, with nothing in my ears
Me, I’m lying here, for what seems years
I’m just lying on my bed with nothing in my head

Send that stuff on down to me
Send that stuff on down

Karl Marx squeezed his carbuncles
While writing Das Kapital
And Gauguin, he buggered off, man
And went all tropical
And Philip Larkin, he stuck it out
In a library in Hull
And Dylan Thomas, he died drunk in
St. Vincent’s hospital

I will lie at your feet
I will kneel at your door
I will rock you to sleep
I will roll on the floor
And I’ll ask for nothing
Nothing in this life
I’ll will ask for nothing
Give me everlasting life

So if you got a trumpet, get on your feet
Brother, and blow it
If you’ve got a field, that don’t yield
Well get up now and hoe it
I look at you and you look at me and
Deep in our hearts babe we know it
That you weren’t much of a muse
But then I weren’t much of a poet

I will be your slave
I will peel you grapes
Up on your pedestal with your ivory and apes
With your book of ideas with your alchemy
O come on send that stuff on down to me

Send that stuff on down to me
Send it all around
Send it all around the world
‘Cause here she comes, my beautiful girl

There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes again

Where is Mona?
She’s long gone
Where is Mary?
She’s taken her along
But they haven’t put their mittens on
And there’s fifteen feet of pure white snow?
Where is Michael?
Where is Mark?
Where is Mathew
Now it’s getting dark?
Where is John? They are all out back
Under fifteen feet of pure white snow
Would you please put down that telephone
We’re under fifteen feet of pure white snow

I waved to my neighbour
My neighbour waved to me
But my neighbour
Is my enemy
I kept waving my arms
Till I could not see
Under fifteen feet of pure white snow

Is anybody
Out there please?
It’s too quiet in here
And I’m beginning to freeze
I’ve got icicles hanging
From my knees
Under fifteen feet of pure white snow

Is there anybody here who feels this low?
Under fifteen feet of pure white snow

Raise your hands up to the sky
Raise your hands up to the sky
Is it any wonder?
Oh my Lord Oh my Lord
Oh my Lord Oh my Lord

Doctor, Doctor
I’m going mad
This is the worst day
I’ve ever had
I can’t remember
Ever feeling this bad
Under fifteen feet of pure white snow
Where’s my nurse
I need some healing
I’ve been paralysed
By a lack of feeling
I can’t even find
Anything worth stealing
Under fifteen feet of pure white snow
Is there anyone else here who doesn’t know?
We’re under fifteen feet of pure white snow

Raise your hands up to the sky
Raise your hands up to the sky
Is it any wonder?
Oh my Lord Oh my Lord
Oh my Lord Oh my Lord
Save Yourself! Help Yourself!
Save Yourself! Help Yourself!

Nick Cave

I stepped into an avalanche
It covered up my soul
When I am not this hunchback that you see
I sleep beneath the golden hill
You, who wish to conquer pain
You, must learn, learn to serve me well

You strike my side by accident
As you go down to your goal
This cripple here that you clothe and feed
Is neither starved nor cold
He does not ask for your company
Not at the centre, the centre of the world

And I am on a pedestal
You did not raise me there
Your laws do not compel me now
To kneel grotesque and bare
I, myself, am the pedestal
For this ugly hump at which you stare

You who wish to conquer pain
You must learn what makes me kind
The crumbs of love that you offer me
Are the crumbs I’ve left behind
Your pain is no credential here
It’s just a shadow of my wound

I have begun to ask for you
I, who have no greed
I have begun to long for you
I, who have no need
You say you’ve gone away from me
But I can feel you when you breathe

Do not dress in those rags for me
I know you are not poor
And do not love me quite so fiercely now
When you know that you are not sure
It is your turn, my beloved one
It is your flesh that I wear

Nick Cave