Track Listing

1. Tupelo
2. Say Goodbye To The Little Girl Tree
3. Train Long-Suffering
4. Black Crow King
5. Knockin' On Joe
6. Wanted Man
7. Blind Lemon Jefferson
8. Six Strings That Drew Blood
9. Tupelo

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27398 in Music
• Released on: 1999-11-01
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Thrash-Swamp Blues from the King of the Stacked Hairdo...
The thunderclap that opens the mighty 'Tupelo', the first track on this album, is more than appropriate. It plays up a storm. Weaving together the Nativity, the birth of Elvis, and the story of rain in a Southern Gothic town called Tupelo, it is a out-and-out masterpiece, even if the music is one of the Seeds other songs (Saint Huck) backwards.

The rest of the album is a collection of tales from the wrong side of the tracks, from the child-killer of 'Say Goodbye to the Little Girl Tree', to the jilted lover of 'Train Long Suffering'. 'The Black Crow King' is the uniquely disturbed tale of a scarecrow, and the Death Row Prisoner of 'Knockin' on Joe' is one of Cave's most fully realised characters; it is, in my opinion, one of his three best songs. AFter the sublime comes the ridiculous with a hilarious cover version of Dylan's 'Wanted Man', where Cave patently forgets the words to the original and extemporises to amusing effect. Finally, there is 'Blind Lemon Jefferson', a homage to the Blues musician.

The album sleeve is designed in the style of a Dylan album, and the spectre of the Great man is never far away. Nor is the collective spirit of the Delta Blues musicians, who inhabit the very geographical locale which obsesses Cave in this album. All in all, then, not the kind of thing you would buy your pre-pubescent niece, but a terrific album nonetheless.

5 Stars just not enough.
This has to be one of my favourite Bad Seeds albums to date. The opening song of "Tupelo" really sets the scene for this gothic, blues drenched masterpiece.

Jilted lovers, natural disasters and death row prisoners seem to a recurring theme in most of Cave's work and "First Born is dead" is no different. If "Knockin on Joe" (the death row prisoner) is not one of Cave's finest pieces then I don't know what is, a song that demands your full attention throughout. Also included here is Nick Cave's own rendition of Dylan's "Wanted Man." (Although I don't believe Dylan ever recorded this song, it was written for Johnny Cash) But in Cave's version, he's forgotten the lyrics and replaced them with his own. Absolutely blistering!!

I really can't praise this album enough and if you're a Cave fan who doesn't yet own this album, what are you waiting for?