The Sick Bag Song
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
The legendary indie rock star offers a genre-bending chronicle of his 2014 American tour with the Bad Seeds that’s part memoir, part epic poem.
The Sick Bag Song began when Nick Cave was struck with inspiration during a flight between tour stops and reached for an airplane sick bag to scribble it down. This improvised diary soon grew into a restless full-length contemporary odyssey. Spurred by encounters with modern-day North America, beset by longing and exhaustion, Cave teases out the significant moments, the people, the books, and the music that have influenced him over the years.
Drawing inspiration from Leonard Cohen, John Berryman, Patti Smith, Sharon Olds, folk ballads and ancient texts, The Sick Bag Song takes the form of a quest, turning over questions of creativity, loss, death, and romance. It is also the perfect companion piece to the Sundance award-winning feature documentary 20,000 Days on Earth.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This short tour diary puts the reader into musician Cave's frame of mind during his 2014 North American tour. Cave occasionally veers into verse and spontaneous compositions scattered within his diary. He muses about different events in his life that pop into his head while on the road. A bridge near Edmonton, Alberta, reminds him of when his "father and mother told about the boy who had died jumping off the railway bridge." Cave writes about books he reads and records he revisits, including John Berryman's Dream Songs and Leonard Cohen's Songs of Love and Hate. He also shares anecdotes about other musicians, such as Bryan Ferry of the influential glam rock band Roxy Music. The book includes drafts of songs inspired by life on the road, such as "The Beekeeper's Wife," which, Cave writes, "hints at growing anxiety about my wife not answering the phone." The book's title comes from a song inspired by the refrain on the back of a Delta Air Lines air sickness bag: "Call the stewardess for bag disposal." Cave's stream-of-consciousness writing definitely makes this an engrossing read, enmeshing the reader fully in the musician's perspective.
