Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Murder Ballads LP

2011 Remastered Edition Toward the end of Bad Seed (Ian Johnston's autobiography of Nick Cave), a fleeting clue is dropped about a new song Cave was in the process of writing at the time. With the working title of "Red Right Hand II," it relates the tale of a father of three that murders his entire family - the very same scenario laid out in "Song of Joy," the opening track of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds 1996 album Murder Ballads. The references to "his red right hand" and other Miltonian citations sprinkled throughout link the two songs; but the gory details in "Song of Joy" make it clear that Cave had left behind the baleful romantic brooding of Let Love In. The notion of a flagrantly slaughter-themed album had been on Cave's mind for a while. "It actually started as a joke," he explains. "The idea of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds dedicating an entire album to murder appealed to us in some way." Despite the album’s appalling subject matter, Conway Savage points out, “It’s always be