Recently we watched the three part Kylie documentary on Netflix. I say recently, it was several weeks ago, before the World Cup and Love Island started (the football on in the back room for me, Love Island in the front room for Eliza). The series covered her life and had some affecting parts- her relationship with Michael Hutchence (clearly still something she feels deeply about), her cancer diagnoses and treatments, and the unreal level of animosity towards her from some of the tabloids in the late 80s are all covered. There's some amazing home video footage of her on the Orient Express with Michael Hutchence, seemingly just another young couple in love and in lust but also both at peak fame. The 90s when she freed herself from SAW and took control of her music and image, leading to her becoming even bigger eventually.
Celebrity documentaries can feel very 'curated', the level of production control clearly something that tilts the story telling. Kylie has been incredibly famous since 1987. In the series she is going through boxes of photos and letters, each one offering something that goes beyond the public image and there was the sense that she was allowing the film crew some quite intimate access into her life. At the same time, some of the interview sections felt quite controlled, Kylie presenting herself as a construct, as Kylie. Interesting stuff and in the 80s and 90s sections, a glimpse into a world that has long gone, the pre- internet, pre- social media world of the recent past.
Nick Cave turns up among the cast of interviewees and is witty, insightful and erudite. It sent me back to Murder Ballads, the 1996 Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds album, one I haven't listened to for a long time. My copy is on CD. I don't remember where or when I bought it but it must have been second hand. Inside the booklet on the first page, written in biro, is this- 'Andy/ Hope this doesn't Depress you too much! Best Wishes, Nick Cave'. The signature looks like examples of Nick's I've seen online so it seems genuine. I've no idea who Andy was or why he sold or donated his CD.
The album is veers between morose and high camp, traditional folk songs and blues, a Bob Dylan cover (Death Is Not The End, the only song where no one dies) and several Bad Seeds originals including the fifteen minute long O'Malley's Bar.
O'Malley's Bar was the song that kick started the album. It was recorded when the band were making Henry' Dream in 1992 but didn't fit on that album. The Bad Seeds had to make an album Nick Cave said, 'where the song could exist'.
The song starts with a vampy organ part, late 19th century saloon bar music, and Nick begins the lengthy song with the line 'I am tall and I am thin/ Of an enviable height/ And have known to be quite handsome/From a certain angle and in a certain light'. He enters O'Malley's Bar and within a few lines the murders begin- first O'Malley, then O'Malley's wife, then a customer, Caffrey. Mrs Richard Holmes is shot and a further five drinkers before the police arrive and Nick's narrator is taken into custody, counting on his fingers the number of people who died in O'Malley's Bar.
We're clearly not supposed to take all of this seriously, it's story telling and theatrical, a Hallowe'en version of death and murder, a macabre epic, cartoon violence mixed with liberal swearing and Biblical allusions. It's a world away from the Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds of Wild God. That's not a criticism of either work but it's difficult to imagine the Nick Cave of 2026 making Murder Ballads. He's just not that person any more.
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