You fell from the sky Crash landed in a field Near the river Adur Flowers spring from the ground Lambs burst from the wombs of their mothers In a hole beneath the bridge She convalesce, she fashioned masks of twigs and clay You cried beneath the dripping trees Ghost song lodged in the throat of a mermaid
With my voice I am calling you
You're a young man waking Covered in blood that is not yours You're a woman in a yellow dress Surrounded by a charm of hummingbirds You're a young girl full of forbidden energy Flickering in the gloom You're a drug addict lying on your back In a Tijuana hotel room
With my voice I am calling you With my voice I am calling you
You're an African doctor harvesting tear ducts You believe in God, but you get no special dispensation for this belief now You're an old man sitting by a fire, hear the mist rolling off the sea You're a distant memory in the mind of your creator, don't you see?
With my voice I am calling you With my voice I am calling you
Upside down and inside out and on all eights You're like a funnel-web Like a black fly on the ceiling Skinny, white haunches high and skyward And a black oily gash crawling backwards across the carpet to smash all over everything Wet, black fur against the sun going down Over the shops and the cars and the crowds in the town
And this is the moment, this is exactly where she is born to be (ooh ooh oh, ooh ooh oh) Now this is what she does and this is what she is (ooh ooh oh, ooh ooh oh) And this is the moment, this is exactly where she is born to be (ooh ooh oh, ooh ooh oh) This is what she does and this is what she is (ooh ooh oh, ooh ooh oh)
Her eyes that look at me through her rainy hair Two round holes where the air buckles and rushes in (ooh ooh oh, ooh ooh oh) Her body, moon blue, was a jellyfish (ooh ooh oh, ooh ooh oh) And I'm breathing deep and I'm there and I'm also not there (ooh ooh oh, ooh ooh oh) And spurting ink over the sheets but she remains, completely unexplained Or maybe I'm just too tongue-tied to drink it up and swallow back the pain I thought slavery had been abolished How come it's gone and reared its ugly head again?
And this is the moment, this is exactly where she is born to be (ooh ooh oh, ooh ooh oh) Now this is what she does and this is what she is (ooh ooh oh, ooh ooh oh) And this is the moment, this is exactly where she is born to be (ooh ooh oh, ooh ooh oh) This is what she is and this is what she does (ooh ooh oh, ooh ooh oh)
And this is the moment, this is exactly where she is born to be Now this is what she does and this is what she is And this is the moment, this is exactly where she is born to be This is what she does and this is what she is
And now she's jumping up with her leaping brain Stepping over heaps of sleeping children (ooh ooh oh, ooh ooh oh) Disappearing and further up and spinning out again Up and further up she goes, up and out of the bed (ooh ooh oh, ooh ooh oh) Up and out of the bed and down the hall where she stops for moment and turns and says "Are you still here?" (ooh ooh oh, ooh ooh oh) And then reaches high and dangles herself like a child's dream from the rings of Saturn
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 lumber 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 till you crumbled, 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, 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
Mostly I never knew which way was out Once it was on, it was on and that was that The umbilicus was a faucet that fountained rabbit blood And I spun on my wheel like a laboratory rat
I was an electrical storm on the bathroom floor, clutching the bowl My blood was full of gags and other people's diseases My monstrous little memory had swallowed me whole It was the year I officially became the bride of Jesus
In love, in love, in love you laugh In love you move, I move And one more time with feeling For love, you love, I laugh, you love Saw you in half And the stars are splashed across the ceiling
Oh, the urge to kill somebody was basically overwhelming I had such hard blues down there in the supermarket queues And I had a sudden urge to become someone, someone like you Who started out with less than anyone I ever knew
In love, in love, I love, you love, I laugh, you laugh I move, you move And one more time with feeling I love, you love, I laugh, you laugh I'm sawn in half And all the stars are splashed across the ceiling
Oh, I know you come shining, softly to the hole to drink Come as far as the edge of my blood, and then swim And in the bathroom mirror I see me vomit in the sink And all through the house we hear the hyena's hymns
Of love, I love, you love, I love, you love I laugh, you laugh, I move, you move, you move And one more time with feeling I love, you love, I laugh, you laugh We saw each other in half And all the stars are splashed and splattered across the ceiling
All the fine winds gone And this sweet world is so much older Animals pull the night around their shoulders Flowers fall to their naked knees Here I come now, here I come I hear you been out there looking for something to love The dark force that shifts at the edge of the tree It's alright, it's alright When you turn so long and lovely, it's hard to believe That we're falling now in the name of the Anthrocene
All the things we love, we love, we love, we lose It's our bodies that fall when they try to rise And I hear you been looking out for something to love Sit down beside me and I'll name it for you Behold, behold The heaven bound sea The wind cast its shadow and moves for the tree Behold the animals and the birds and the sky entire I hear you been out there looking for something to set on fire The head bow children fall to their knees Humbled in the age of the Anthrocene
Here they come now, here they come Are pulling you away There are powers at play more forceful than we Come over here and sit down and say a short prayer A prayer to the air, the air that we breathe And the astonishing rise of the Anthrocene
Come on now, come on now Hold your breath while you're safe It's a long way back and I'm begging you please To come home now, come home now Well, I heard you been out looking for something to love Close your eyes, little world And brace yourself
When you're feeling like a lover Nothing really matters anymore I saw you standing there in the supermarket With your red dress falling and your eyes are to the ground Nothing really matters Nothing really matters when the one you love is gone
You're still in me, baby I need you In my heart, I need you
'Cause nothing really matters I'm standing in the doorway You're walking 'round my place In your red dress, hair hanging down With your eyes on one, we love the ones we can 'Cause nothing really matters when you're standing
Standing I need you, need you
'Cause nothing really matters We follow the line of the palms of our hands You're standing in the supermarket Nothing, holding hands In your red dress, falling, falling in, falling in A long black car is waiting 'round I will miss you when you're gone I'll miss you when you're gone away forever 'Cause nothing really matters I thought I knew better, so much better
And I need you I need you
'Cause nothing really matters On the night we wrecked like a train Purring cars and pouring rain Never felt right about it, never again 'Cause nothing really matters Nothing really matters anymore Not even today No matter how hard I try When you're standing in the aisle And baby, nothing Nothing, nothing
I need, I need, I need you I need you I need you Just breathe, just breathe I need you
Sunday morning, skeleton tree Oh, nothing is for free In the window, a candle Well, maybe you can see Fallen leaves thrown across the sky A jittery TV Glowing white like fire Nothing is for free
I called out, I called out Right across the sea But the echo comes back empty And nothing is for free
Sunday morning, skeleton tree Pressed against the sky The jittery TV Glowing white like fire
And I called out, I called out Right across the sea I called out, I called out That nothing is for free
And it's alright now And it's alright now And it's alright now
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 album 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 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 electronica and ambient music and, like Push the Sky Away, features extensive use of synthesizers, drum machines and loops. Several songs on the album utilise 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. It was the second of only two albums by the band to enter the U.S. Top 30, reaching 27, their highest ranking there to date.