From the 1997 album The Boatman’s Call comes this great song that Nick Cave likely wrote for PJ Harvey. The words include several phrases, usually Black Hair, repeating in different variations throughout the song. There is minimal accompaniment, with an accordion played by Warren Ellis, with whom Cave wrote several film soundtracks. Nick Cave has a great voice, and here he delivers a subdued but very effective performance. I saw a live clip of this song where he introduces it by saying he wrote it as a mantra hoping that saying something over and over makes it happen, but it didn’t. But – he got a song out of it. Indeed.
Last night my kisses
Were banked in black hair
And in my bed, my lover,
Her hair was midnight black
And all her mystery dwelled
Within her black hair
And her black hair framed
A happy heart-shaped face
And heavy-hooded eyes
Inside her black hair
Shined at me from the depths
Of her hair of deepest black
While my fingers pushed into
Her straight black hair
Pulling her black hair back
From her happy heart-shaped face
To kiss her milk-white throat,
A dark curtain of black hair
Smothered me, my lover
With her beautiful black hair
The smell of it is heavy
It is charged with life
On my fingers the smell
Of her deep black hair
Full of all my whispered words,
Her black hair
And wet with tears and goodbyes,
Her hair of deepest black
All my tears cried against
Her milk-white throat
Hidden behind the curtain
Of her beautiful black hair
As deep as ink and black,
Black as the deepest sea
The smell of her black hair
Upon my pillow
Where her head and all its
Black hair did rest
Today she took a train to the West
Today she took a train to the West
Today she took a train to the West
Categories: Song
