NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS "TUPELO" . . . . FRANKLY, HOW THE FUCK DID YOU EXPECT ME TO MENTION TUPELO WITHOUT SPEEDING HEADLONG INTO MR CAVE ET AL . . . . MY DEAR OLD LOVEY WOULD HAVE SEEN IT COMING A DERBYSHIRE MILE OFF . . . . TIME TO GET DEVILISHLY DARK AND DEMENTED AND SEW SOME BAD SEEDS . . . .

THE TRIP WITH THE SINGLE THAT THE BAD SEEDS RELEASED FROM THE ALBUM "THE FIRSTBORN IS DEAD" IS IT'S INVOCATION OF THE VERY SPIRIT OF BLUES GONE BAD, AND THE TIE IN WITH JOHN LEE HOOKER'S SPOOKY ODE OF THE SAME NAME.

CAVE AND HIS CO-AUTHORS HAD IN MIND THE BIRTH OF THE 'KING' WHEN IT WAS INITIALLY WRITTEN WHEN NICK THE STRIPPER WAS AT THE HEIGHT, OR IS THAT DEPTH, OF HIS JUNK INDUCED NADIR IN LONDON . . . . THE WORLD THROUGH HIS EYES WAS A BLEAK AND BESTIAL PLACE, [FUCK ALL HAS CHANGED I HEAR YOU SAY] AND ONE THAT WOULD BECOME POSITIVELY DANTE-ESQUE BY THE TIME HE HIT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIT IN BERLIN . . . .

If you can, get onto the Hooker version and have a listen, not that it's even related outside of a few phrases, it fits into the same 'dead zone' as Robert Johnson and the 'Crossroads' myth and harks back even further to the darkside of several times felon and convict, and writer of 'Black Betty', Leadbelly . . . . there's always been some fairly strong links to the underworld and the nether regions of existence in blues and rock culture, not even including the obvious and shlocksville likes of Sabbath, Maiden, Marilyn and Lady Ga Ga, but at this point in his career, the boy from Melbourne was certainly living the legend . . . .