Title: Straight To You
Format: 12" Single
Label: Mute
Catalogue Number: 12MUTE140
Year of Release: 1992
Tracklisting
A Straight To You (4:35)
B1 Jack The Ripper (3:44)
B2 Blue Bird (2:46)
Lead single for their 7th album Henry's Dream, Straight To You is a classic Cave love song in the vein of The Ship Song where love is portrayed as a force of nature, elemental and dangerous. And like The Ship Song I think Cave is aiming once again at timeless poetry in his lyrics:
All the towers of ivory are crumbling
And the swallows have sharpened their beaks
This is the time of our great undoing
This is the time that I'll come running
Straight to you
For I am captured
Straight to you
For I am captured
One more time
The organ playing deserves special mention too, from relative newcomer to the band Conway Savage, who joined during The Good Son tour. From the intro to the hook which leads into the chorus and bridge it complements the lyrics, fits seamlessly in with the other musicians, and drives the whole song forward. You can hear it for yourself in the video below, which the band think was "shit" (the video). I'm inclined to agree:
What turns the song from straightforward love song into into something very special is the line, "For the sea will swallow up the mountains/and the sky will throw thunderbolts and sparks/straight AT you..." delivered with the kind of energy that only comes from having experience of the extreme feelings you can have towards someone special.
On the B-side is Jack The Ripper, another album track, and sadly not a Screaming Lord Sutch cover version. It instead covers similar thematic ground to the more recent Grinderman project number No Pussy Blues, but is inferior. Too melodramatic musically and obvious in its imagery lyrically.
Blue Bird, on the other hand, is a sweet little ballad, possibly a sweet little murder ballad (sent that blue bird/floating down the water?). Simple piano and a light touch from the rhythm section, an over-long organ solo, but we'll forgive that. It was included in 2005's B-sides & rarities compilation, and is well worth tracking down.
