Nick Cave woke up on Jan. 1 with a resolution to work on a new Bad Seeds album in 2023, as he reveals in a new post on his Red Hand Files blog, published yesterday (Jan. 6).
Answering a question from an Irish fan about what Cave has ahead for 2023, the artist answered, “My plan for this year is to make a new record with the Bad Seeds. This is both good news and bad news. Good news because who doesn’t want a new Bad Seeds record? Bad news because I’ve got to write the bloody thing.”
Cave gave a very open window into his writing process, sharing that he had jotted some thoughts down while simultaneously debating the merit of the new material.
“A kind of doldrums has set in, perennial and predictable. It’s the same with every record, I feel that familiar feeling of lack, like I’m a big, dumb blank thing in a suit,” he revealed of the new songs. “I’m grumpy as fuck and Susie has decamped for a week. Anything that resembles a creative impulse is burrowed way down in some mossy, froggy hole, asleep, I hope, not dead. I have to call it forth, provoke it from its slumber. It becomes a nasty, punishing, baggy-eyed business. I’m starting to get an infuriating sing-song voice in my head that actually rhymes, like a madness. Like sadness.”
Cave also shared the first lyrics he has written:
Ushering in the new year he knelt down / And crushed his brother’s head with a bone / It’s my great privilege to walk you home / In the rain. Hop inside my coat. / The frogs in the gutter are jumping for God / Amazed of love, amazed of pain / Amazed to land back in the gutter again.
In the blog post, Cave admitted that, for him, “Writing lyrics is the pits” and wrapped up the message with his own rhyming conclusion: “It actually hurts. It comes in spurts, but few and far between. There is something obscene about the whole affair. Like crimes that rhyme. I hope this doesn’t last long. I’m actually scared. But it always does. Last long. To write a song. You hope to God there is something left. You are bereft. I’m going to stop this letter. It isn’t making things better. It’s like flogging a dead horse. Worse. It’s a hearse. A hearse of dead verse.”
The last time Cave released an album with the Bad Seeds was 2019’s acclaimed Ghosteen, though group issued B-Sides & Rarities Part II in 2021. Cave also released his book Faith, Hope & Carnage last September, in which he discussed his artistry, living through the pandemic, and the loss of his sons.
