COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN
This is like the audio-book of the worst horror story you've ever come across. Most copies had the obligatory "Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics" sticker on the cover, but seriously, it also needed to be sprinkled with holy water, surrounded by garlic and have Max von Sydow put on his Father Merrin robes and perform an exorcism over it. Did little Kylie Minogue know what she was getting into when Elisa Day took the pseudonym 'The Wild Rose' and sang along with Nick about 'Where The Wild Roses Grow'? Though it deals with the seduction of a young woman and her ultimate murder it is probably the mildest track on the album.
"On the third day he took me to the river
He showed me the roses and we kissed
And the last thing I heard was a muttered word
As he knelt above me with a rock in his fist"
It was released as a single along with another album track 'Henry Lee', a duet with PJ Harvey.
'Stagger Lee' is an old American folk song published in 1911 and recorded for the first time in 1923. It was based on a real murder by 'Stag' Lee Shelton and the song has been called 'Stagger Lee', 'Stagolee' and sometimes 'Stack-a-Lee', but trust me gentle reader, none of the previous versions recorded by every man and his dog come anywhere near this one. It's not really a cover to be honest, it's a rewrite taking the narrative deeper and darker and far grosser than anything that came before it.
'The Curse of Millhaven' has the story of a 14 year old girl serial-killer. In a perverse twist, Nick gathers a group of people to sing along on the track and refers to them as 'The Moron Tabernacle Choir'. (yes, MORON)
I'll skip over the rest of the album and go to the last track, a cover of Bob Dylan's 'Death Is Not The End'. Someone wrote that it is "like the equivalent of hearing 'Mr. Sandman' play at the end of the movie Halloween where you’re kind of relieved but still freaked the fuck out." Backing singers on the track are once again Kylie Minogue and PJ Harvey, but also include Shane MacGowan.
Nick Cave himself said about this album .. "I was kind of aware that people would go and buy the Murder Ballads album and listen to it and wonder 'What the fuck have I bought this for?' because the Kylie song wasn't any true indication of what the record was actually like."
If you have a mind to listen, go ahead, but keep the lights on and don't answer the phone - the call could be coming from INSIDE the house.
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