Nick Cave strives toward joy

The new 'Wild God' is a startling departure that feels absolutely necessary, and may be the best thing he's ever done

I spent August listening to the discographies of Nick Cave and Tom Waits in chronological order, marveling at their diverging trajectories — Waits going from mannered folkie to growling oddball, and Cave evolving from howling predator to forthright crooner.

I listened to Skeleton Tree, Ghosteen and Carnage in the three days before the release of Wild God last Friday. Cave's discography started to outpace that of Waits, as I found it easier to be in the mood for his '90s work than Waits' odd yet incredibly satisfying trilogy of mid-'80s classics. But by last week I had reached Waits' Bone Machine, and I must admit the caterwauling "Earth Lies Screaming" was a necessary antidote to the dour, minimalist bleakness of Cave's last two albums with the Bad Seeds, recorded immediately before and a few years after Cave's 15-year-old son fell to his death.

Given the timing of things, Cave seemed to be headed in this direction anyway, routinely stripping everything away, creating a sort of career arc that pulled him closer to the beginning of his career, before the massed vocals and crowded mix of instruments — but with much of the menace leached out and replaced by a weary sort of desperation. Despite having listened to these recent albums in real time and again during this chronological exercise, I found little to grab onto either time. It was Waits at his strangest and most confrontational that pulled me through to the end of the week.

But then came Friday and Wild God. I didn't listen to any of the pre-release singles, wanting to hear the entire album as a whole the first time I sat down. It was startling. I knew from what little pre-release publicity had leaked through my filters that this was a departure, but I was not ready for the maximalist exuberance and grandeur of these songs. Cave has edged toward this end of the sonic palette before. I loved the hopped-up swagger of Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! when it was released, for instance, an album that was more playful than menacing. but this is still something different.

From the opener, “Song of the Lake,” it is clear we are in a different place, a different country. This is a lush entrance not unlike something one would expect from turn-of-the-century Flaming Lips or Mercury Rev (It was no surprise to learn that Dave Fridmann, who produced highlights from both, mixed the album). It is a bracing departure from where Cave has been, from the quiet simmer of Skeleton Tree and Ghosteen to this effervescent boil. He hinted at a return to bombast and dynamics on Carnage, but this is a full return adorned with literal bells, if not whistles.

The opener slides into the title track, a jaunty shuffle that bursts into a massive chorus with strings. Given the candor with which Cave has talked about his life over the past decade, it would be easy to read into the lyrics — here and elsewhere — and assume there is an autobiographical bent. Speaking to himself, the self-proclaimed "wild god" of the title, or perhaps to the Big Man himself, he exhorts:

Oh Lord, well, if you're feeling lonely and if you're feeling blue

And if you just don't know what to do

Bring your spirit down

And whether this is advice to the self or the celestial, he's ready to travel, to embrace the world again in search of connection and feeling.

I'm a wild God, baby, I'm a wild God

Oh, here we go, we're going to the cradle of Africa

We're going to Russia, we're going to China

To the United States of America

Yeah, moving 'round the world, yeah, moving like a great, big, beautiful bird

Despite the change in tone and the more ornate instrumentation, this is still a Cave album, and the lyrics contain enough imagery to let you know where you are and who is at your side. "Frogs," another swelling song with strings and big backing vocals, begins with Cave singing, "Ushering in the week he knelt down/ Crushed his brother's head in with a bone." Not every room may be furnished the same, but we do feel at home here.

But the overriding lyrical focus is on the divine — lords, gods, and spirits abound. Lyrics reappear from song to song, as the phrase "never hurt again" pops up in "Final Rescue Attempt" and "Conversion," while "Jumping for joy" appears in "Frogs" and "Joy." 

Not to belabor the Flaming Lips comparison, but Cave's repeated falsetto line, "You said that" in "Cinnamon Horses" sounds like the voice Wayne Coyne uses when he wants to veer from his usual tone of simple-minded awe. Here, of course, it is in contrast to Cave's usual rich baritone.

My favorite song thus far is the most stripped down, relatively speaking, the ballad "Long Dark Night." It was one of the three singles released before the album (with "Wild God" and "Frogs"), and it is a gorgeous counterpoint to the theatrical fireworks of the rest of the album. It also feels like the moral center of the album, Cave acknowledging that while, yes, there can be joy beyond grief, it is something that is earned. You suffer the long dark night of the soul and come out on the other side, often with a more spiritual outlook. Here, the man with the long trailing hair from the title track seems to return, perched on the rail of Cave's bed. 

After a moving, almost poppy tribute to a fallen friend/lover/bandmate in "O Wow O Wow (How Wonderful She Is)," he wraps it up with "As the Waters Cover the Sea," a short, hymnlike song whose brief lyrics are stuffed with Biblical imagery. I don't know Cave's relationship with a higher power, but it is clear he has been on Cave's mind a great deal.

As good as this album is — and it is quite good — I would not have appreciated it as much had I not taken my August journey through his catalog or known the history behind the dour creep of his recent work. I likely would have seen it as corny, overwrought. But listening to Cave so intently, internalizing his story and his ethos and his ethic, led me to an appreciation that placed me at the door with arms spread wide, ready to offer a welcome embrace for Wild God. Our times didn't hurt, either; it is not lost on me that there is a song here called "Joy," appearing amid the civilization-saving quest half of our country is engaged in that is wrapped in the bright colors of that same emotion. That I could credibly make such a connection, tenuous though it may be, between this feeling and the man who penned songs like "People Ain't No Good" and recorded a (quite wonderful) album of murder ballads shows just how far Cave has come.

That month of intense listening has taken me from casual fan to obsessive. That mania hasn't stretched much beyond the music, yet. I know that comes next. I'm already looking forward to reading the books and taking more than the cursory dive I have allowed myself thus far in the ongoing fan mail-driven therapy session that is "The Red Hand Files" on Cave's website. Already, however, I have found what might be the best context for this album. Asked by a fan, "What is joy? Where is it? Where is love in this world that is such an evil mess," Cave responded:

If we do not attend to the work of projecting delight upon the world, what are we actually doing? If we do not look for joy, search for it, reach deep for it, what are we saying about the world? Are we saying that malevolence is the routine stuff of life, that oppression and corruption and degradation is the very matter of the world? That we greet each day with suspicion, bitterness and contempt? It seems to me that to make suffering the focus of our attention, to pay witness only to the malevolence of the world, is to be in service to the devil himself…

For me, to strive toward joy has become a calling and a practise. It is carried out with the full understanding of the terms of this hallowed and harrowed world. I pursue it with an awareness that joy exists both in the worst of the world and within the best, and that joy, flighty, jumpy, startling thing that it is, often finds its true voice within its opposite. Joy sings small, bright songs in the dark — these moments, so easily disregarded, so quickly dismissed, are the radiant points of light that pierce the gloom to give validation to the world.