Sometime ago I heard a song called “Where the Wild Roses Grow” and fell in love with it. I thought it haunting. I listened to it on a friend’s iPod, and he told me the singer was Leonard Cohen, but he didn’t know the woman’s name. I’ve found the song listed on Google and the lyrics are definitely right, but I can’t find a version performed by Leonard Cohen. The only singers I can find listed for this song are Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue, and the female voice on the song I heard sounds nothing like Kylie.
Was my friend mistaken in thinking Leonard Cohen performed this song? Or am I looking in the wrong places? Help please!
They call me the wild rose
But my name was Eliza Day
Why they call me it I do not know
For my name was Eliza Day…
Nick Cave, not Leonard Cohen, off the album Murder Ballads: and yes, he does duet with Kylie. Far as I know it’s a Nick Cave original, although possibly adapted from a traditional ballad.
Not Laughing Leonard Cohen but the Australian singer Nick Cave, from his album Murder Ballads I believe. He has a similarly deep voice to Leonard. The girl, believe it or not, is Kylie Minogue.
Ah, but on the same album there’s a rematch in which he picks on someone his own size and comes off second-best: Henry Lee, where P J Harvey stabs him and throws him down a well. It’s in a similar style, Mississippienne: might be worth tracking it down if you liked Wild Rose. I mentioned Murder Ballads, but both tracks are on the Nick Cave “best of” album.
Nick Cave isn’t a great “singer”, but then neither is Leonard Cohen: I like them both because they’re excellent stylists - I find their sometimes creaky singing perfectly suited to their material, whereas someone with better technique would veer closer to a lounge style. I have that problem with k d lang - undeniably a great set of pipes, but all the passion and soul of someone reciting the telephone book: just doesn’t suit her choice of material.
Couldn’t agree with you more. Leonard’s latest album, Dear Heather, is even more idiosyncratic. It took me a couple of listens to get used to but it definitely repays the effort.
RE the Cohen-Cave confusion, I’ve heard there are a lot of Mp3 files of the song that have Kate Bush wrongly credited.
Cave is great because he DOESN’T hit the notes!
In the PJ-Nick rematch, is her character riding the high from drowning her daughter (“blue-eyed whore”)?
Wow! Thanks everyone, for clearing up that mystery. My friend was absolutely *insistant * that Leonard Cohen was the male singer, I was very perplexed. I might check out Cave’s album soon.
Handily, I was listening to the album when I spotted this thread! - and yes, Nick Cave is fully listed as songwriter and singer. It’s a fantastic album, in part because of the way these songs sound as if they’re age-old folk yarns, despite being his own creations. Definitely worth getting, perhaps even more so than the ‘best of’.
Oh, and if you hear a version of Roses with a second man, in any live recording, that was normally Blixa Bargeld taking the Eliza part.
How Nick Cave got listed as writer is a mistake. Check with BMI
Actually ask Nick directly. He’ll tell you. Also, I have the original recording mentioned above. Problem is it’s a CD copy and the web hasn’t yielded good results. I want to know
who the babe was on the original duet recorded in the early 80s when Mr Cave was just a wee lad. I also have the OG recording of Hallelujah, just Leonard and piano. Very reedy voice, no wonder he didn’t hit with it.
Check back for more info.
[QUOTE=Nick Cave]
“This song, even though it’s a murder ballad, is dealing with a kind of obsession I had with her - on a professional level, but an obsession - which is about her beauty and her innocence, in a way,” Cave confesses carefully, intent on being understood.
“Her un-cynical approach to things in the face of what I guess she goes through…There was something very much about the person she was, that she was able to maintain, in a quite honest way, this un-cynical kind of person. I really admired that. I admired her strength in a way. I’m not really articulating this very well.”
Nonetheless the lush, brooding ballad was quite articulate enough to gain Kylie’s immediate approval when Cave finally nailed it down and mailed it off to her late last year.
[/QUOTE]