{"id":64674,"date":"2020-01-03T19:42:02","date_gmt":"2020-01-03T17:42:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jensunmack.dk\/wordpress-3\/?p=64674"},"modified":"2020-01-03T20:01:20","modified_gmt":"2020-01-03T18:01:20","slug":"malibu-braender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jensunmack.dk\/wordpress-3\/malibu-braender\/","title":{"rendered":"Malibu br\u00e6nder Nick Cave"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Nick Cave’s nyeste album Ghosteen<\/em> var sidste \u00e5r et af de sv\u00e6reste albums at komme ind i for mig. Et nummer derfra, den 14-minutter lange endgame-afslutter ‘Hollywood’, var dog \u00f8jeblikkeligt en undtagelse. For her fandtes det liv, den musikalske stemning og den dynamik, resten af albummet nemt kan synes s\u00e6rt foruden. Samt nogle fantastiske sangord oveni. I sin brevkasse The Red Hand Files sp\u00f8rges Nick Cave i dag ind til baggrunden for det m\u00e6gtige slutnummer. Svaret synes s\u00e5 interessant, det fortjener ogs\u00e5 at blive bragt her… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please tell us everything you can about the song ‘Hollywood’. It’s one of the most powerful pieces of music I’ve ever heard, and I want to know everything you can tell me.<\/strong> JON, OSLO, NORWAY

Dear Jon,

At around 8\u2019 30\u2019\u2019 into the song \u2018Hollywood\u2019 the narrator stands on the beach, looking out to sea. Malibu is on fire and the animals have been driven down from the hills to the shore. A sea serpent rises out of the ocean. A small boy drops his bucket and spade and climbs into the sun. Jon, this series of images came to me while in the back of a car driving around your city of Oslo on the last Bad Seeds\u2019 tour, and was the first step toward the writing of Ghosteen<\/em>. Within this sudden vision the whole of the album presented itself. It is rare in songwriting to be given such a rich and sustaining gift.

Some months later I wrote what would become the second verse of \u2018Hollywood\u2019 – the image of my wife, as a white cougar with \u2018a terrible engine of wrath for a heart\u2019, roaming the Hollywood Hills. This single image of rage-filled, carnivorous grief sat in my notebook waiting for a home.

The Buddhist story of Kisa and the Mustard Seed, that would eventually be the final part of \u2018Hollywood\u2019, had been of great significance and comfort to me for years and at some point I jotted it down in verse form, completely independent of anything else, and with no intention of it being a song.

Early in 2018, at the initial \u2018improv\u2019 recording sessions in Brighton, Warren threw down the driving \u2018Hollywood\u2019 loop and at the same time played the beautiful circular synth chords. Meanwhile, I sat jamming at the piano and dumping lyrics onto it. I had all these disparate images rolling around in my head, unmoored and desperate for a home – Malibu on fire, the cougar roaming the hills, the terrified animals on the shore, the breaching leviathan, the kid and the sun, Kisa and her baby – and the restless propulsion of the loop allowed me to just spill them out. I didn\u2019t at the time know what they meant, or how they connected to each other. We played non-stop for hours, lost to it. 

Listening back, in the studio a week or so later, most of the extended jam was unusable, but there was a fifteen minute section, towards the end, that was mysterious and compelling and so we edited it out and kept it. It included within it the cougar scene, the beach and the fire, and the Kisa story. The remainder of the lyrics were there as well, extemporized yet complete. We added some strings, backing vocals, Tommy\u2019s beautiful drumming, tidied up the vocal a bit and it became \u2018Hollywood.\u2019 It was effortless and enigmatic and it spoke to us from another place, crying from the future whilst callingfrom the past.

In the song \u2018Ghosteen\u2019, a man is saying goodbye to a sleeping woman \u2013 he is leaving, heading somewhere, we don\u2019t know where. \u2018Hollywood\u2019 is a continuation of this song. It is the leaving, the driving away, heading out of LA, along the Pacific Coast to Malibu. Malibu is on fire. <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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