Aside from Cave’s luxuriant, glissando piano-playing, Warren Ellis’ tremulous violin is often the key accompaniment, and the addition of the Canadian folk singer sisters Kate and Anna McGarrigle is a masterstroke for tracks like ‘Hallelujah’ and ‘Gates To The Garden’.Įlsewhere, the album’s two lengthy singles ‘As I Sat Sadly By Her Side’ and ‘Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow’ contain memorable piano motifs and nail down that sense that the world is quietly going to hell outside Cave’s window and might just spill in through his front door, underscored by the restrained, baroque accompaniments. But here, the primary theme is romance, dwelled upon in cinematic style and delivered without the sentimentality that would make it false. Perhaps that new sense of stability in his life is most closely reflected in his approach to Christianity, once taunting and irreverent but now much more mature and considered (take ‘God Is In The House’), and in truth this was a change that had started with the unmitigated heartbreak of The Boatman’s Call. This helpless wistfulness is not particularly biographical, as in the previous four years Cave had married his second wife, Susie Bick, and had twin sons. Many of the lyrical conceits here seem to suggest Cave as some kind of shut-in convalescent, gazing out of his window at a 19 th century, Wuthering Heights-esque rural English landscape conjured up by some accompanying work by The Bad Seeds that’s so beautifully understated you hardly notice it, widening and deepening the panoramas suggested by some of Cave’s most poetic work to date. At well over an hour in length, containing no obvious singles, and very few songs you can even imagine being performed live, it’s another instance of Cave in reflective, contemplative mood at his piano. ( LISTEN )Īn often overlooked moment in Cave’s admittedly rich catalogue, No More Shall We Part took a rather long time in coming, with the four years between it and The Boatman’s Call still representing the longest gap between any two Bad Seeds albums or side-projects.
Henry’s Dream is the first real example of just how varied The Bad Seeds could be, and every subsequent great accomplishment of Cave’s can be traced back to it. However, amid the chaos is ‘Straight To You’, a simple hymn-like statement of utter devotion that seems to expand to fill every available space, and the show stopping oddity of ‘Christina The Astonishing’. The guttural screams of ‘Jack The Ripper’ and lamenting of ‘I Had A Dream, Joe’ are other great examples of this passion. This is perhaps best shown on the brilliant ‘John Finn’s Wife’, in which the narrator seems to have been provoked out of lust to murder the husband. On this album, perhaps more than any other, the six members are truly a band, each as vital as the next, with Cave only a kind of ‘first among equals’. Throughout, Cave’s vocal delivery is sincere and full-blooded, and his storytelling versatile enough to support the songs that cover romance, violence and vulgarity all at once as The Bad Seeds expertly shapeshift to support him in whatever mood he’s trying to communicate. This is instantly detectable in the cataclysmic opener ‘Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry’, with ringing acoustic guitars and string arrangements embellishing the mix and transforming it into something truly widescreen. With all the trappings of contemporary production techniques (it benefits from true hi-fidelity, absolutely roaring out of the speakers where previous albums sounded ever so slightly murky). But Henry’s Dream is significant as a turning point in his career, the first record of his to actively seek out a wider audience. So far, so Nick Cave, you might say nothing that wasn’t explored more thoroughly and more entertainingly in Tender Prey. The Bad Seeds deal in their usual stock-in-trade – songs of suffering and sin, wrapped with Old Testament imagery of vengeance. Ask me to compile this list again in five years’ time, and Henry’s Dream could well be higher.
Like all the best slow-burners, though, its charms were revealed through repeated listens, enough for it to sneak into the highest tier of Cave releases (which constitutes ten of his 17 albums, as far as I’m concerned). A return to noisier, more violent terrain after the restraint of The Good Son it might be, but for ages I found it to be slightly blustery, with the volume masking an indecision in terms of direction. Though it’s an eternal favourite among fans, I must confess it took me a very long time to truly understand why Henry’s Dream is quite so highly regarded.
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