Brides of Criminals – Chastized and Executed Innick Cave's ”Murder Ballads”
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
I.Boldea, C. Sigmirean, D.-M.Buda LITERATURE AS MEDIATOR. Intersecting Discourses and Dialogues in a Multicultural World BRIDES OF CRIMINALS – CHASTIZED AND EXECUTED INNICK CAVE’S ”MURDER BALLADS” Puskás-Bajkó Albina, Phd, Colegiul Național „Unirea” Abstract: In 1996, controversial singer-poet Nick Cave released a brilliantly dark album, Murder Ballads, an album as shocking as it is seductive in its enterprise: a sequence of obsessively haunting accounts of legendary tales of crime, in ten gruesomely macabre songs. ŗEach one is like a crime scene photo with a soundtrack; a sad tale of life taking a truly tragic turn.ŗ1 This album has been the artistřs most successful one, amazingly enough. The commercial and artistic accomplishment might be due to the singer-poetřs experience Ŕ he already had eight albums with his current band, Bad Seeds, not to mention his previous band, Birthday Party; but also to the perennial fascination of the audience with the morbid and the macabre. Keep in mind Nick Caveřs attitude towards love songs: ŗThe Love Song must be born into the realm of the irrational, the absurd, the distracted, the melancholic, the obsessive and the insane, for the Love Song is the clamour of love itself, and love is, of course, a form of madness.ŗ2 The album starts off with ŗSong for Joy,ŗ a bizarre tale of a domestic crime: Joy, a housewife and her three daughters are killed by an obscure serial killer Ŕ his true identity remains an enigma: presumably he is the victimřs husband, also the father of the three girls. The band then switches to ŗStagger Lee,ŗ a song about a man who turned into a serial killer the moment he was not taken seriously. This gruesome account of Stagger Leeřs murderous spree is followed by the ballad of ŗHenry Lee,ŗ this time presenting a woman turned into a murderer, because she was scorned. ŗAll Godřs children , they all gotta dieŗ Ŕ repeats the next serial killer girl so many times it seems to become an incantation: the title of this ballad is ŗThe curse of Millhaven.ŗ The criminal, fifteen year old Lottie seems to be the epitome of evil, she murders anybody in town, old ones, young one, rich ones and poor ones alike. Her lack of compassion or any repentance is contrasted by the utter desolation present in ŗThe Kindness of Strangers,ŗ in which Mary Bellows is seduced and then her life is taken in 1http://diffuser.fm/nick-cave-murder-ballads-anniversary/, 21.06.2018. 2Nick Cave, The Complete Lyrics: 1978-2013, Penguin Books, London, 2013, Print. 10-11. 551 I.Boldea, C. Sigmirean, D.-M.Buda LITERATURE AS MEDIATOR. Intersecting Discourses and Dialogues in a Multicultural World an appalling manner; all she wanted was to see the ocean. She paid with her life for her dream. 1. Song for Joy 2. Stagger Lee 3. Henry Lee 4. Lovely Creature 5. Where the Wild Roses Grow 6. The Curse of Millhaven 7. The Kindness of Strangers 8. Crow Jane 9. OřMalleyřs Bar 10. Death is not the End Death, aggression and lust combine to make one more masterpiece under the auspices of this sinister dichotomy of abject/attractive, also a duet with a famous female singer, Kylie Minogue: ŗWhere the Wild Roses Growŗ. A tale about the loss of innocence, but also about transcendence in the act of dying, this song defined the success of the whole album, which ŗwas hailed by critics as a masterpiece of cynicism and satire, a considerable achievement in the controversial singer and songwriterřs career.ŗ3 In these songs, Cave plays many roles, being narrator, bard, victim, but also murderer, all againts a background that is tragic and beautiful, but frightening , too. These narratives of vicious characters like Stagger Lee and disturbed teenage killers ŗWrithe with bone- chilling dramatics and dark psychological innuendo.ŗ4 Pushing the limits, the artist seems to be questioning his audience: how much is too much? How much cruelty can the poetic licence allow him to infuse his lyrics with? Descriptions of appalingly outrageous crimes in detail Ŕ can they appeal to the public? Apparently he received a positive answer: the album was paramount in his career, everybody appreciated it. As Stuart Berman puts it in his Pitchfork Review from 2011: ŗIn fact, with its densely detailed storylines, heart-racing epics (ŗSong of Joy,ŗ ŗThe Curse of Millhavenŗ) and cheeky curtain-closing cover of Bob Dylanřs brn-again anthem ŗDeath Is Not the End,ŗ 3 Bill Van Parys, Nick Cave Murder Ballads, Review, Rollingstone.com, at www.rollingstone.com/artists/nickcave/albums/album/95285 4LorraineAli, Bone-Chilling ’Murder Ballads’ From Cave, http://articles.latimes.com/1996-02- 17/entertainment/ca-37075_1_murder-ballads, 21.06.2018. 552 I.Boldea, C. Sigmirean, D.-M.Buda LITERATURE AS MEDIATOR. Intersecting Discourses and Dialogues in a Multicultural World itřs hard not to imagine Murder Ballads as some perverse, alternate-universe West End musical production. But look past its comically over-the-top presentation and you realize Cave isnřt simply indulging in some subversive genre exercise.ŗ5 The traditional murder ballad is reversed on this album, the listener being unable to identify with either victim or criminal. The moment we would feel any affinity with either, the forensic- style details of the murder-scenes stop us from experiencing empathy. Despite this, the songs are alluring and melodious, and numberless fans consider them their favourites, many of whom are women, even if many critics categorized Cave as a mysogyn because of them. The ballads are so graphic in their detail, they seem to be parodies of the fashionable genre, and black humour is indeed omnipresent in the oeuvre, the uniquely dire, while touching song is ŗrendered by the mad voice, marked above all by the elaborate articulation, the lascivious attention to the wordřs own detail, the soft sound of opening lips, a quiver of excitement, as well as moments of intense crescendo and even gravelly breathing (in Lovely Creature). This crazy voice runs through Song of Joy, Curse of Milhaven, Crow Jane and OřMalleyřs Bar. The last, brilliant track also reveals another dimension: the orgasmic edge of the murdererřs voice as he narrates his killings.ŗ6Murder ballads proceed from a rich folklore of murder ballads, the ones on the album portray crimes in which women who experience desire or lust are either chastized and executed for daring or exactly because of their platonic, unrequited romantic feelings, become the ultimate punisher, the murderess.Cave operates with commonly accepted blueprints when it comes to clichéd gender representation, an act obvious in the careful selection of characters and plots: the unsuspecting housewife, Joy, her three daughters, Hilda, Haddy and Holly, the unreliable narrator-father who proves to be the serial killer, the homophobic murderer Stagger Lee who could be a latent homosexual, the seducer Henry Lee telling a woman he has another fairer lover, only to be stabbed to death by the revengeful scorned lover, the innocent girl Eliza Day seduced and killed by the mysterious older man, Crow Jane, the revengeful killer after having been raped, Loretta, the teenager mass murderer , called ŗthe curse of Millhaven,ŗ and of course, the antihero at the centre of the album: the maniac sociopath 5 Stuart Berman, Let Love In, on https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15476-let-love-in-murder-ballads-the- boatmans-call-no-more-shall-we-part/ 6 Roland Boer, Hearing Round Corners: Nick Cave and the Philosophy of Music, Relegere: Studies in Religion and reception I, no.2 (2011): 297-327, p. 319 553 I.Boldea, C. Sigmirean, D.-M.Buda LITERATURE AS MEDIATOR. Intersecting Discourses and Dialogues in a Multicultural World on a ŗLuciferian spree,ŗ7 shooting everybody in a bar. The possibilities of moralizing in the tradition of murder ballads are countless, however, Nick Cave shows no sign of didactic moralizing intention whatsoever. On the one hand, we still witness an uncontrollable, almost anarchic profusion of dialogues and monologues of agressor and victim, individual and local society, but most shockingly, the narrative of the dead body, but on the other hand, death is envisioned as a transcendent act, distancing the characters from the influence of the community. Caveřs critics might have called him a mysogynist because of the gruesome violence Ŕ often against depicted in acts against female victims, however, the murderer in these ballads directs his anger not only towards women, nobody escapes their end. These psychopats are isolated from society, they do not belong to any kind of local or foreign history. ŗFurther, the choice of lyrics exhibits a deeply patriarchal point of view, aestheticising the purity of the murdered maiden and asserting the privileged position of a God-like heroic murderer who kills to liberate the everyday working man/woman of his/her shackles as a subject bound by social institutions and modes of conduct.ŗ8 Death becomes the victim and their perpetratorřs sublime achievement, even more important than the famous Dasein (Being) described by Heidegger. ŗDeath becomes the core of the self, as soon as it reduces itself completeley to itself.ŗ9 Ŕ as Adorno puts it. Killer is metamorphosed into the damned figure of poet-lover, kissed by death, obeying to it, by sharing its doom with his/her victims. The combination of sadistic attitudes with prolonged moments of refined melancholy and longing could be the secret to the alluring nature of these verses. This řdeath complexř pervades a beauty that transcendstime and space, death-in this case, is not the end, as the last song of the album (ŗDeath is not the End,ŗ originally written by Bob Dylan) states, but a way to reach immortality in its fixed grace, a sublimation of the soul.