Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Skeleton Tree Album Lyrics

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Jesus Alone

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 clay and twigs
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

Let us sit together until the moment comes

With my voice
I am calling you

Let us sit together in the dark until the moment comes

With my voice
I am calling you
With my voice
I am calling you
With my voice
I am calling you
With my voice
I am calling you

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Rings Of Saturn

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 in the sky
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
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
Her eyes that look at me through a rainy hair
Two round holes where the air buckles and rushes in
Her body, moon blue, was a jellyfish
And I'm breathing deep and I'm there and I'm also not there
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 what she is born to be
And this is what she does and this is what she is
And this is the moment, this is exactly what she is born to be
This is what she is and this is what she does

And this is the moment, this is exactly what she is born to be
And this is what she does and this is what she is
And this is the moment, this is exactly what she is born to be
Then 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
Disappearing and further up and spinning out again
Up and further up she goes, up and out of the bed
Up and out of the bed and down the hall where she stops for moment and turns and says
"Are you still here?"
And then reaches high and dangles herself like a child's dream from the rings of Saturn

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Girl In Amber

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 [?] 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 til your crumble 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 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

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Magneto

Mostly I never knew which way was out
Once it was on, it was on and that was that
The umbilicus was a force that they'd found in rabid blood
Then I spin on my wheel like a laboratory rat
I was an electrical storm on the bathroom floor, clutching the bowl
My blood was for the 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 heart 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 love
I move, you move and one more time with feeling
I love, you love, I laugh, you love
I'm sewn in heart and all the stars are splashed 'cross the ceiling

Oh, and oh, you come shining
Softly to the hold of a drink
Come as far as the edge of my blood and 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 love
I move, you move, you move, and one more time with feeling
I love, you love, I laugh, you love
We saw each other in heart and all the stars have splashed and splattered 'cross the ceiling

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Anthrocene

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 worm
And brace yourself

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I Need You

When you're feeling like a lover
Nothing really matters anymore
I saw you standing there in the supermarket
With your red dressing 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, 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 no, baby
Nothing, nothing, nothing
I need, I need, I need you

I need you
I need you

Just breathe, just breathe
I need you

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Distant Sky

[Nick Cave:]
Let us go now, my one true love
Call the gasman, cut the power out
We can set out, we can set out for the distant skies
Watch the sun, watch it rising in your eyes

[Else Torp:]
Let us go now, my darling companion
Set out for the distant skies
See the sun, see it rising
See it rising, rising in your eyes

[Nick Cave:]
They told us our gods would outlive us
They told us our dreams would outlive us
They told us our gods would outlive us
But they lied

[Else Torp:]
Let us go now, my only companion
Set out for the distant skies
Soon the children will be rising, will be rising
This is not for our eyes

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Skeleton Tree

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 in, dear
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