I’m going to review this album differently than I did Speak For Yourself. I’m doing this to see what the contrast is like for myself as the writer as well as what it’s like for y’all as the readers.
Ghosteen is the first album I’ve listened to by Nick Cave and The Bad Apples and when it was recommended to me, I hadn't ever heard of the Australian rock band. I ended up listening to Ghosteen about five complete times and honestly, I didn’t really like it for the couple of listens. It’s not something that I would normally put on as casual listening, and when I sat down with minimal distractions to listen to Ghosteen, I found its ambient synths and poetic lyrics confusing. As someone who listens predominantly to rap, a genre that prides itself on telling vivid stories with subtle word play, I found myself struggling to want to keep listening to this guy sing about burning horses in yet another song. After giving it a couple of blind listens, I decided to read the wikipedia page about the album and learned that it was written in the aftermath of the sudden death of Cave’s 15-year-old son (which I suspect is where the album title comes from, Ghosteen being Ghost teen). As I’ve listened to it since learning that, the album has brought me close to tears on more than one occasion.
One of the moments that hit me hard were these lines in the opening track:
Peace will come, a peace will come, a peace will come in time A time will come, a time will come, and time will come for us
The lyrics combined with the vocal performance created a tragic moment for me in that it sounds like Nick is saying he is trying to accept the message (that he’s likely heard from others and also said himself) that peace will come. He believes it will come in time. But then the next line pushes peace back further because he will has to wait for time to come. It illustrated for me this idea of there being no antidote for the pain he is experiencing except for time and even that isn’t coming fast enough.
Another moment comes from the song Ghosteen:
I'm speaking about love now And how the lights of love go down You're in the back room washing his clothes Love's like that, you know, it's like a tidal flow And the past with is fierce undertow won't even let us go Won't ever let you go
The mental image of Nick Cave’s wife washing the clothes of their dead son is heart wrenching. Something as menial as washing clothes transformed into a tragic yet perhaps sacred ritual; a final washing.
The rest of the album is full of these types of emotional climaxes, both happy and sad, separated and accompanied by beautiful choral, orchestral, and synth lines. It’s moody, ambient, tragic, poetic, and profound.
I’m very glad I didn’t write this album off after a couple of listens. Having just that small piece of knowledge about the death of Cave’s son informed so much of the listening for me. No doubt I am still missing lots from this album. I’m sure that the more one listens to it, the more they will get from it (just as with almost any album). In the end, l I think this album is a beautiful exploration of a father’s grief and love for his lost son that touches on topics such as meaning making, yearning, hope, resilience, faith, and more.
Have you listened to this album? Did you like it? Have you listened to any of the other albums by Nick Cave and The Bad Apples? Do you have an album you think I should review? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
I’m going to ask a couple of questions in the polls below, but there’s not anything else beyond that, so if polls aren’t your thing, thanks for coming! I really do appreciate you taking your time to read these little words I string together. It means a lot :)
P.S. Substack doesn’t show me who answers the polls, so answer with all the honesty you got: I won’t know who you are anyways.