NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS – The Carny (1986)

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds are no ordinary group of musicians. Across four decades and 17 studio albums they have established themselves as one of the most exciting, influential and progressive bands on the planet. Albums including The Boatman’s Call (1997), No More Shall We Part (2001), Push the Sky Away (2013) and their most recent Ghosteen (2019) have firmly cemented Cave’s position as one of the most acclaimed and sophisticated songwriters of his generation.

Over the years, the Bad Seeds have harboured some of alternative music’s most celebrated and idiosyncratic musicians including Mick Harvey, Blixa Bargeld, Kid Congo Powers, Barry Adamson and the late, great Conway Savage. The current line-up of the group features the vital presence of shamanic multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis alongside Martyn Casey (bass), Thomas Wydler (drums), Jim Sclavunos (percussion) and George Vjestica (guitar). A band apart, right from the very beginning, the Bad Seeds have always sounded like nobody else on earth.

“THE CARNY”

“The Carny” is a song by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds appearing on their fourth studio album Your Funeral… My Trial. It was written by Nick Cave and was recorded in August 1986 at Hansa Tonstudio and Strongroom.

The lyrics concern a carnival worker who vanished, highlighted in the words “No one saw the Carny go”. As the circus prepares to leave without the missing performer, they find the Carny’s horse Sorrow, “so skin and bone”, and kill it. The dwarfs Moses and Noah dig a ditch to bury it, later remarking “we should’ve dug a deeper one”. When it begins to rain, the Carny’s caravan is swept away.

The song is featured in Wim Wenders’ 1987 film Wings of Desire, when the character Marion (Solveig Dommartin) listens to the album Your Funeral, My Trial. The song corresponds to the plot, in which the circus that Marion works for as a trapeze artist closes down. Professor Adrian Danks wrote “The Carny” adds a feel of sorrow in the background, while Marion gives “breathy accompaniment”. Cave personally appears in the film in later scenes.

And no one saw the Carny go, the weeks flew by Until they moved on the show, leaving his caravan behind It was parked out on the south east ridge And as the company crossed the bridge With the first rain filling the bone-dry river bed It shone, just so, on the edge

Away, away, we’re sad to say Dog-boy, Atlas, Mandrake, the geeks, the hired hands There was not one among them that did not cast an eye behind In the hope that the Carny would return to his own kind

The Carny left behind a horse so skin and bone That he’d named Sorrow And it was a shallow, unmarked grave That that old nag was laid In the then parched meadow

And it was the dwarves that were given the task of digging the ditch And laying the nag’s carcass in the ground While boss Bellini, waved his smoking pistol around Saying “The nag was dead meat We can’t afford to carry dead weight”

While the whole company standing about Not making a sound And turning to the dwarves perched on the enclosure gate The boss says, “Bury this lump of crow bait”

And the rain came hammering down Everybody running for their wagons Tying all the canvas flaps down The mangy cats growling in their cages The bird-girl flapping and squawking around

The whole valley reeking of wet beast Wet beast and rotten, sodden hay Freak and brute creation All packed up and on their way

The three dwarves peering from their wagon’s hind Moses says to Noah, “Shoulda dug a deeper one” Their grizzled faces like dying moons Still dirty from the digging done

And Charlie the Atlas to the three said “I guess the Carny ain’t gonna show” And they were silent for a spell Wishing they’d done a better job of burying Sorrow

And the company passed from the valley Into higher ground The rain beat on the ridge and on the meadow And on the mound

Until nothing was left, nothing left at all Except the body of Sorrow That rose in time To float upon the surface of the eaten soil

And a murder of crows did circle ’round First one, then the others flapping blackly down

And the Carny’s van still sat upon the edge Tilting slowly as the firm ground turned to sludge

And the rain it hammered down And the rain it hammered down And the rain it hammered down And the rain it hammered down

And no one saw the Carny go No one saw the Carny go No one saw the Carny go I say, it’s funny how things go…