Let Love In - Dark and sweet, just how you like it. (Let Love In - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds)

Member Name: joecooper

Product:	Let Love In - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
Date:	29/01/03 (137 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Classic Bad Seeds, All those dark emotions you've come to love!

Disadvantages: It was the last of the angry Seeds albums.

I get a little nervous...a little anxious when I review an album, or a book, or a film which is so much more than any series of words that I can lay on a screen. Such is the case with Let Love In, the 1994 offering from Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. However, being a little out of sorts is a good thing when it comes to Nick and the lads. After all, listening to their music is like ding donging your way up and down a xylophone of seldom-used but strangely interesting emotions - dark emotions. Let Love In is everything a fan of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds could wish for - an artist's palette of anger, remorse, regret, and self-destruction.

*Cover art*

We should never judge a book by its cover, nor an album for that matter. However, the picture on the front of Let Love In is well worth a mention. In its way it represents a taste of things to come. Standing shirtless, with his chest exposed to the world, is Nick. His head is tilted painfully back and upon his chest is scrawled, in what appears to be lipstick, the album title. This exposed stance by Nick leads us into the very first track, which we'll come to in a moment.

*Track listing*

Adhering to their usual quality over quantity approach, Nick and Co have limited Let Love In to just ten tracks. But what tracks they are!

Do you love me?
Nobody's baby now
Loverman
Jangling Jack
Red right hand
I let love in
Thirsty dog
Ain't gonna rain anymore
Lay me low
Do you love me? (Part 2)

As always, the best way to describe just what's happening in an album is to lift a few songs off it and detail what they encapsulate. So, that's what I shall do.

*Do you love me?*

The exposure of the cover art leads us into the first track - a brutally honest look at big-time love. He steadily narrates us through an all too familiar journey. With the band riding shotgun, we listen to how Nick (and ourselv
es) willingly succumb to that overwhelming love that comes but once or twice in a lifetime, eclipsing the sun for an all too brief period.

Yes, Nick touches on how we revel in love's warmth, but he also dwells on that little idea that you have in the back of your head from day one, that, despite all your hopes, you somehow know that one day it'll come to an end. Here's how Nick himself expresses it.

All things move toward their end
I knew before I met her that I would lose her
I swear I made every effort to be good to her
I made every effort not to abuse her

In case you're still wondering what dark flavors are contained within this little number, Do You Love Me is aaaall about love lost, inadequacy, and the poignancy of life. Good stuff, huh?!

*Nobody's Baby Now*

The theme of lost love spills over into the second song on the album. However, Nick's calmed down a little. No longer grumbling with the angst of Do You Love Me, Nick sounds resigned in Nobody's Baby Now, as he idles through this nice little ballad. To pull it off the album and give it a personal touch, Nick Cave wrote this song for one of the Everly Brother's daughters, whom he was dating at some stage. Here's a little taste of the lyrics.

But there are some things love won't allow
I held her hand but I don't hold it now
I don't know why and I don't know how
But she's nobody's baby now

As you can see, things go according to life's dark plan for Nick, and his golden love is no more. However, rather than being depressing, the loss of love is used as a contrasting backdrop to highlight just how wonderful it was during its brief stay. We all know how that is. We don't value what we have until we lose it, yada yada yada. Learn from Nick's mistakes rather than your own. That's the message in Nobody's Baby Now.

*Red Right Hand*


X Files aficionados will be familiar with this tune. It was played extensively during certain episodes as Mulder and Scully investigated the weird and malignant. Red Right Hand has a distinctly spooky feel to it with its strong emphasis on the base guitar and all sorts of instruments jangling and carrying on in the background.

Red Right Hand has Nick and the boys warning the listener against the promises of a certain anonymous high-powered stranger (The Cancer Man perhaps?). Accept what he's got to offer and you'll be sorry!

You ain't got no money?
He'll get you some
You ain't got no car? He'll get you one
You ain't got no self-respect,
You feel like an insect
Well don't you worry buddy,
cause here he comes

Listen out for the kooky, but well-suited, organ solo in Red Right Hand. Grandma's old organ never sounded this good.

*Thirsty Dog*

A Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds album just wouldn't be complete without a song featuring the disastrous consequences of alcoholism. In this album we get juiced up and thrown about by Thirsty Dog. It's quick and uncoordinated just like the song's lamenting character. To sum it up, he's rolling drunk most of the time, and he's sorry.

I'm sorry for the other night
I know sorry it don't make it right
I'm sorry for things I can't even mention

In this day and age, it's no longer socially acceptable to get blind drunk. So, let Thirsty Dog polish off a bottle for you.

This song is as close to a sing-along as Nick and the boys get.

*A look at the band*

All of the usual multi-talented suspects are present for Let Love In. Together they make up that unique sound that is Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. The one main difference with this album, compared to those of the past, is Nick. As well as taking care of business with a micropho
ne, he stretches out and tries his hand at a few instruments. Here's the line up.

Nick Cave - vocals, piano, electric piano, organ, oscillator, bells.
Mick Harvey - guitar, organ, drums, tambourine, shaker, bell, background vocals.
Blixa Bargeld - guitar, background vocals.
Conway Savage - piano, background vocals.
Martyn Casey - bass, background vocals.
Thomas Wyldler - drums, shaker, triangle, tambourine, timpani, fish, background vocals.

As you can see, there's a strong emphasis on keyboard instruments. It's quite amazing how the boys can create the sound that they do, without the usual dominating rock formula of guitar and drums.

It's not unusual for Nick Cave, the ringmaster, to invite a new face in to help out. For Let Love In, Nick invited Tex Perkins (of Cruel Sea fame) in to help out with background vocals.

*Joe's final word*

For me, Let Love In is one of the better Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds albums, and they're all good. In retrospect, this album marks the last hoorah for the angry Seeds. The albums to follow would represent a mellowing and an inclination towards longer slower love ballads. If you like your Seeds loud and angry, as well as full of sorrow and remorse, then Let Love In is for you.

Now where's my bottle of whiskey?

Cheers for reading!


~Joe Cooper

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