The bell tower is ringing, and the moon, it is high...

Shane MacGowan - Lucy
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Lucy


Not content with coming up with instant classics of his own, Nick Cave, as proven by his superlative 1986 album Kicking Against The Pricks, is a master interpreter of songs. Shane MacGowan is similarly an extremely talented singer when it comes to other peoples' songs (witness "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" from the Rum, Sodomy & The Lash album), as well as his own. Get the two together for a single, and you've got one of the more interesting releases in either man's catalogue.

Rather than the a-side, the pair's fantastically kitsch cover of What A Wonderful World or Cave's competent rendition of the Pogues' classic "Rainy Night In Soho", my highlight has to be Shane's solo contribution, seemingly tucked away as an afterthought - a cover of "Lucy", another forgotten gem in the Nick Cave repertoire. MacGowan, a man who Amy Winehouse aspires to drink like, infuses any song he sings with a broken-hearted, whiskey-soaked charm that few singers can match. True, he doesn't hit all the notes (this cover in particular, from 1990, was recorded at the start of an extreme decline in his health and general well-being) but it's more the emotion he brings to the song than the technical acumen with which he sings it that impresses. Propped up (most likely in more ways than one) by the Bad Seeds, this may well be one of the last great performances MacGowan ever committed to wax.

By contrast, the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' version shows Cave in full crooner mode - much in the same way he sings "Rainy Night In Soho". "Lucy" was the final track on The Good Son, Cave's first album written and recorded entirely clean from heroin, which led to a glimpse at the more reflective side of Nick Cave that we know today. Not as widely regarded as established classics like "The Ship Song", the original version is more striking for its etherial bluesy outro, noticeably absent from MacGowan's cover (most likely because it was taken from a live recording, and unable to be reproduced quite so effectively). In that context, neither version could be called the definitive cut, but it's still interesting to compare the differences in performances between (as it were) the Songwriter and the Drunk.

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Lucy can be found on The Good Son (Mute Records, 1990).
Shane MacGowan - Lucy can be found on Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds' B-Sides And Rarities (2006)

All you ever wanna do is drink and watch TV...

The Weakerthans - Plea From A Cat Named Virtute


First off, apologies for not being as prolific with this blog as I would have hoped - returning to uni, and having to cope with revision and exams seems, at this point in time, slightly more important than telling people what to listen to. However, this is a track I've been meaning to thrust in peoples' general direction for some time, so best to get this done now, and then service will resume as normal sometime in the next week or so, hopefully.

To be honest, my knowledge of The Weakerthans is somewhat limited, other than the fact that they're Canadian, signed to Burning Heart (a subsidiary of Epitaph, the legendary punk label), and their lyricist, one John K Samson, is a genius. The band's 2003 album Reconstruction Site is a loose song cycle about a dying hospital patient, with some off-topic interludes inserted along the way. 'Plea from a Cat Named Virtute' is one such interlude; it's sung from the perspective of a cat belonging to a manic depressive. When I first heard the track, I was astounded by just how spot on it is - the track has Virtute looking at the way his owner leads his life. While the cat doesn't fully understand his owner's motives for his actions, he still gives him advice on how to get out of the rut he's in, including "opening up the house" and "inviting the tabby two doors down". Because quite frankly, we all know that even if cats could help out their owners, they'd still put priority on getting their leg over too.

Other than that, there's little else to say about the song, other than that there's a sequel to it on the band's latest album, last year's Reunion Tour, which sees Virtute explaining why he buggered off. It features the word "loamy", and quite frankly, that's reason enough to seek it out. If you're a fan of The Hold Steady or any other literate indie rock, with emphasis on the ROCK, The Weakerthans are definitely a band worth seeking out.