Nick Cave: 10 Dark Masterpieces

8. Up Jumped The Devil

http://youtu.be/3J3QHzbK9jY 1988's Tender Prey is, in many ways, the perfect Bad Seeds album. With the blistering Mercy Seat and the swinging Deanna, it features two of his most renowned singles. Then there's a few moments of sublime beauty, such as my personal favourite, the heartbreaking Slowly Goes The Night. Mostly, though, the mood is one of deliciously creepy disquiet, and nowhere is this better sampled than on the infectiously evil Up Jumped The Devil. With a bass and piano riff that sounds like a Satanic New Orleans funeral procession, it features some of Cave's most alarming lyrics in a story of a life lived the wrong way: €œOh my oh my, what a wretched life/I was born on the day that my poor momma died/I was cut from her belly with a Stanley Knife/While my daddy did a jig with the drunk midwife.€