NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS - GIRL IN AMBER

GIRL IN AMBER

NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS

SONGWRITERS: WARREN ELLIS, NICHOLAS CAVE

COUNTRY: AUSTRALIA

ALBUM: SKELETON TREE

LABEL: BED SEED LTD.

GENRE: AVANT-GARDE

YEAR: 2016

Skeleton Tree is the sixteenth studio album by Australian rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. It was released on 9 September 2016 on Bad Seed Ltd. A follow-up to the band's critically acclaimed álbum Push the Sky Away(2013), Skeleton Tree was recorded over 18 months at Retreat Recording Studios in Brighton, La Frette Studios in La Frette-sur-Seine and Air Studios in London. It was produced by Nick Cave, Warren Ellis and Nick Launay. During the sessions Cave's 15-year-old son Arthur died from an accidental cliff fall. Most of the album had been written at the time of Cave's son's death, but several lyrics were amended by Cave during subsequent recording sessions and feature themes of death, loss and personal grief.

Skeleton Tree's minimal production and "less polished" sound incorporates elements of electronic and ambient music and, like Push the Sky Away, features extensive use of synthesizers, drum machines and loops. Several songs on the album utilize avant-garde techniques, including the use of dissonant musical elements and non-standard song structures. Cave's allegorical and often-improvised lyrics have also been noted to be less narrative and character-based than on previous Bad Seeds albums.

One More Time with Feeling, a documentary film about the aftermath of Cave's son's death and the recording process of Skeleton Tree, accompanied the album's release. Directed by Andrew Dominik, the film received a limited release and was conceived by Cave to explain the context and themes of Skeleton Tree without conducting interviews with the media. Both the film and the album received widespread critical acclaim.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are an Australian rock band formed in Melbourne in 1983 by vocalist Nick Cave, multi-instrumentalist Mick Harvey and guitarist-vocalist Blixa Bargeld. The band has featured international personnel throughout its career and presently consists of Cave, violinist and multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis, bassist Martyn P. Casey(all from Australia), guitarist George Vjestica(United Kingdom), keyboardist/percussionist Toby Dammit (United States) and drummers Thomas Wydler (Switzerland) and Jim Sclavunos (United States). With their "brutal blues and gothic nightmares" songs, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds have been considered "one of the most original and celebrated bands of the post-punk and alternative rock eras in the '80s and onward". They have released seventeen studio albums and completed numerous international tours.

The band was founded in 1983 following the demise of Cave and Harvey's former group the Birthday Party, the members of which met at a boarding school in Victoria. By the release of their fifth studio album Tender Prey in 1988, they shifted from post-punk towards an experimental alternative rock sound, later incorporating various influences throughout their career. 2008's Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! and the side-project Grinderman were influenced by garage rock. Synthesizers and minimal guitar work feature prominently on Push the Sky Away(2013), recorded after Harvey's departure from the band in 2009.

Some go and some stay behind

Some never move at all

Girl in amber trapped forever, spinning down the hall

Let no part of her go unremembered, clothes across the floor

Girl in amber, long to slumber, shuts the bathroom door

The phone, the phone, the phone it rings, it rings, it rings no more

The song, the song, the song it spins since nineteen eighty-four

The phone, the phone, the phone, it rings, the phone, it rings no more

The song, the song it's been spinning now since nineteen

And if you want to bleed, just bleed

And if you want to bleed, just bleed

And if you want to bleed, don't breathe a word

Just step away and let the world spin

And now in turn, you turn

You kneel, lace up his shoes, your little blue-eyed boy

Take him by his hand, go move and spin him down the hall

I get lucky, I get lucky cause I tried again

I knew the world it would stop spinning now since you've been gone

I used to think that when you died you kind of wandered the world

In a slumber til your crumble were absorbed into the earth

Well, I don't think that any more the phone it rings no more

The song, the song it spins now since nineteen eighty-four

The song, the song, the song it spins, it's been a spinning now

And if you'll hold me I will tell you that you know that

And if you want to leave, don't breathe

And if you want to leave, don't breathe

And if you want to leave, don't breathe a word

And let the world turn

The song, the song it spins, the song, it spins, it spins no more

The phone, it rings, it rings and you won't stay

Don't touch me

Don't touch me

Don't touch me

Don't touch me.