Stranger Than Kindness

Back in the early days of The Bad Seeds Anita Lane was for a short time a member of the band along with Nick Cave, Mick Harvey, Rowland S Howard and Blixa Bargeld. She painted, wrote and contributed to lyrics- she co- wrote From Her To Eternity, a key early Bad Seeds song- and wrote one Bad Seeds song in its entirety, Stranger Than Kindness, from 1986's Your Funeral... My Trial. 

Stranger Than Kindness is a key Bad Seeds song, the lyric a list of the problematic issues of being in a close personal relationship with an addict with some vivid imagery- 'bottled light from hotels', 'soft cold bones', no home and no bread, passion dying in the light and being a stranger to kindness. Musically its wired and tense, Cave's voice deep and flat over detuned strings and guitars. It's a powerful and moving song, one that seems to retain its mystery no matter how many times you hear it (although Nick says that it has revealed more of itself to him over time).

Stranger Than Kindness

The Bad Seeds have performed it live since the mid- 80s,  In 2013 they played it at KCRW, a Santa Monica radio station set that became a full live album release. Over the decades and line up changes it's changed a little, slightly less of the edge of chaos feel of the original version. 

Stranger Than Kindness (Live at KCRW)

Anita was from Melbourne and went to college with Rowland S. Howard. When she first met Nick in 1977 they began a relationship. She was in The Birthday Party and moved to London with Cave and the band, leaving The Bad Seeds after the release of their first album and the group's relocation to West Berlin. Her impact on Nick was profound and even after their personal (and intermittent) relationship hit the rocks she remained a presence in his life- and the lives of various related bands. She released two solo albums, played and recorded with Mick Harvey and returned to The Bad Seeds with vocals on two songs on Murder Ballads in 1996. Mick's song from last year, When We Were Beautiful And Young, a moving lament for the power of youth and reflection on aging and mortality, is at least partly about her. 

Anita died in 2021. She appears on last year's Bad Seeds album Wild God, on the song O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is), a celebration of her with her voice (taken from an answerphone message) speaking for the final minute of the song about a flat she and Nick shared next to Brixton Prison and how they attempted to write a contract of love but never got beyond drawing the border on the piece of paper. The song also contains an opening line that jars somewhat, each time I hear it- apparently I'm not the only one who was a bit thrown by the line. Nick recently wrote about it at The Red Hand Files. 

When We Were Beautiful And Young

This song has featured at a few blogs over the last week, a new song from Mick Harvey called When We Were Beautiful And Young. It's dusty, mournful and slow paced, acoustic guitar and organ and Mick's time worn vocal eventually joined by cello and horns. As the video plays, a montage of Mick and friends in younger days from the 1970s onwards, Mick's lyrics unpick the sadness and regret of looking back and the loss of those who have not survived the journey- former bandmates and friends Anita Lane, Tracy Pew, Rowland S. Howard and Conway Savage. 

Mick isn't being entirely nostalgic here, although with lines like 'When we were beautiful and young/ there was time for anything/ And the days slipped through our fingers like golden sand... a thousand verses not yet sung', he's certainly nailing the arrogance and surety of youth, the not caring about the future or of what may happen down the line. He ruefully acknowledges those Bad Seeds who died along the way and the role drugs played in that- 'It all just turned to junk... and there were some who came undone'- and having looked back he concludes that he's fine where he is, late middle age has it's benefits- 'I'm having my time in the sun/ Now I'm not beautiful and young'.

Stirring stuff. You'd expect nothing less from a man who served time as a key member of The Birthday Party, Crime And The City Solution and as a Bad Seed from 1983 to 2010, Nick Cave's co- writer and arranger, a multi- instrumentalist and key driver in the group. When We Were Beautiful And Young is on Mick's forthcoming solo album, Five Ways To Say Goodbye, out in May, a mixture of new songs and covers that you can find here.