His brief dalliance with Polly Harvey, whom he became infatuated with after their Henry Lee duet on Murder Ballads, is referenced on Green Eyes, Black Hair and the more direct West Country Girl. As Cave stated, this was ‘the sort of record I’ve been wanting to make for years […] a record which is slow from beginning to end… Very sparse, very raw and beautiful. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Many of the lyrics seem to reflect on Cave's personal relationships and spiritual yearnings at the time of writing.

Cave performed "Into My Arms" at the 1997 funeral of INXS vocalist Michael Hutchence, an old friend from Cave's youth, and requested that the TV cameras be shut off for his performance out of respect for Hutchence.Classic Album Sundays tells the stories behind the albums that have shaped our culture and in some cases, our lives.

After a career spent tearing down the world with horror and disgust, Nick Cave finally sounds ready to start rebuilding from scratch. It’s a battle we can’t help but feel privileged to witness, and one that we hope Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds will continue to fight for years to come. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.and " Black Hair" have invisibly possessed my sub-conscious - I wake up with these tunes and lyrics in head. Having collaborated previously on the Murder Balladsfolk-cover ‘Henry Lee’, the pair had hit it off on the video shoot for that very song – an erotic, bare-bones scene which found the two-singers wrapped around one-another, locked deep in lustful stares and lyrical whispers. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. A album about the despair of breaking up, this album is one that suits a certain mood, at 48 years old I found myself in similar situation. With only the sparest accompaniment--often just a piano or organ, light percussion and violin (courtesy of Dirty Three's Warren Ellis)- -Cave employs traditional folk song structure and simplicity to weave tales saddened less through tragedy than through emptiness.

The religious motifs of Brompton Oratory, an album highlight, and There Is a Kingdom lend an air of a man coming to terms with his place in the world, with subtle churchy murmurs over drum machines.

Originally released in 1997, gone were the menacing, troubled tunes of yore; instead, here was a selection of graceful, minimal, melancholic numbers that saw Cave reflect on spirituality, loves past and present, and almost atoning for past indiscretions.