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?
One More Time with Feeling is a 2016 British documentary film directed by Andrew Dominik. It documents the recording of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' sixteenth studio album, Skeleton Tree, in the aftermath of the death of Nick Cave's 15-year-old son Arthur.
When you start watching "One More Time with Feeling," you are suddenly dropped into the eye of a creative storm that began after the death of Arthur Cave, one of Australian rocker Nick Cave's two sons. This deeply moving concert doc concerns that loss, but only indirectly. We join Cave before the release of Skeleton Tree, his latest album with decades-old band The Bad Seeds. But by the time director Andrew Dominik films Cave (using a 2D camera and an advanced black-and-white 3D camera) and his band in their Brighton recording studio, it seems as if the bulk of Cave and his band's creative decisions have been made. Still, anxiety permeates the studio: how will people receive Skeleton Tree, a characteristically intimate, but highly conceptual album that only addresses personal loss in the abstract?
"One More Time with Feeling" is a uniquely cinematic documentary, one that actively blurs the line between fact and fiction. Sometimes Dominik's 3D camera drifts through solid surfaces, including people, doors and walls. Sometimes it snakes around Cave while 2D videographers film Dominik at work. Once or twice, voiceover narration of Cave's innermost thoughts—recorded after the events filmed—give us a hyper-real window into his thought process. This isn't really a movie about creativity, though it is that, after a fashion. Instead, this is a movie about the pause before the end of a creative obstacle. We join Cave moments just after he's decided to continue struggling without his son. Arthur's death still weighs on him, as it would any parent. But Skeleton Tree is now out in the world, and cannot be contained by Cave's subconscious
Dominik's film owes a great deal to experimental filmmaking techniques that Jean-Luc Godard used in the Rolling Stones not-quite-doc "Sympathy for the Devil" and avant garde musical "A Woman is a Woman." In those films, Godard constantly deconstructs the narratives he employs as a means of provocatively suggesting that language can only fitfully express truly profound meaning/revolutionary thoughts/sublime joy. Dominik's film is similarly about Cave's need to express himself without sounding trite or platitudinous. He does not want to escape from Arthur's death, but he also hesitantly tells Dominik, during incisive interview footage, that he doesn't want to commemorate his son through sentimental truisms, like "he lives in our hearts," a saying he spits out because "[Arthur] doesn't live at all."
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/one-more-time-with-feeling-2016
Stranger Than Kindness: The Nick Cave Exhibition is open at The Black Diamond, Copenhagen until 13 February 2021.
Writer and musician Nick Cave marks his 20,000th day on the planet Earth.
Essential Discography
Cave's career spans over four decades and several distinct musical eras:
Early Years (Post-Punk)
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (Selected Highlights)
From Her to Eternity (1984): The debut, establishing a dark, brooding sound.
Murder Ballads (1996): His biggest commercial success, featuring the hit "Where the Wild Roses Grow" with Kylie Minogue.
The Boatman's Call (1997): A shift toward somber, piano-led love songs and spiritual themes.
Push the Sky Away (2013): A late-career masterpiece featuring long-term collaborator Warren Ellis.
Skeleton Tree (2016) & Ghosteen (2019): Deeply ambient and experimental albums written in the wake of the tragic death of his son, Arthur.
Wild God (2024): Described as a "joyous and complicated" return to a fuller band sound.
Side Projects and Scores
Grinderman: A raw, blues-rock garage band (2006–2011).
Film Scores: With Warren Ellis, he has scored films including The Proposition, The Road, Blonde, and most recently Back to Black (2024) and Jo Nesbø’s Detective Hole (2026).
Literary Work
Beyond music, Cave is an accomplished author:
And the Ass Saw the Angel (1989): A Southern Gothic novel.
The Death of Bunny Munro (2009): A darkly comic novel about a womanizing salesman.
Faith, Hope and Carnage (2022): A book of conversations with Seán O'Hagan regarding his philosophy and the creative process.
Warren Ellis
Key Musical Groups
Dirty Three (1992–Present)
An instrumental trio formed in Melbourne with guitarist Mick Turner and drummer Jim White.
The Sound: Known for a raw, improvisational, and "weather-like" sound.
Signature Style: Ellis famously attached a guitar pickup to his violin with a rubber band to create distorted, feedback-heavy textures that redefined the instrument's role in rock music.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (1994–Present)
Ellis first appeared as a guest violinist on the album Let Love In before becoming a full-time member.
Evolution: Over decades, his role expanded from violinist to multi-instrumentalist (tenor guitar, loops, synthesizers, flute) and eventually Cave's chief collaborator.
Impact: He is credited with shifting the band’s sound away from traditional guitar-driven rock toward the ambient, atmospheric, and electronic textures found on albums like Ghosteen and Wild God.
Grinderman (2006–2013)
A "garage rock" side project consisting of Cave, Ellis, Martyn P. Casey, and Jim Sclavis. It allowed Ellis to explore more aggressive, chaotic, and experimental guitar and electric mandolin sounds.
2. Collaborative Discography with Nick Cave
While part of the Bad Seeds, Ellis and Cave have also released "duo" projects:
Carnage (2021): Their first official studio album as a duo, recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Live / Wild God (2024-2025): Continued exploration of grand, spiritual, and orchestral arrangements.
3. Award-Winning Film Scores
Working almost exclusively as a duo, Cave and Ellis have become some of the most sought-after composers in cinema:
The Proposition (2005): Their breakout score for John Hillcoat’s Australian Western.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007): Widely considered one of the greatest modern film scores.
The Road (2009): Haunting, minimalist compositions for the post-apocalyptic drama.
Hell or High Water (2016) & Wind River (2017): Grit-infused scores for Taylor Sheridan’s "Modern Frontier" films.
Blonde (2022) & Back to Black (2024): High-profile biographical film scores.
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 twigs and clay
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
With my voice, I am calling you
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