Jesus Alone

Producers

“Jesus Alone” is Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' first single from their 2016 album Skeleton Tree, and Cave’s first release since the untimely death of his son Arthur in July… Read More

Sep. 1, 20161 viewer98.7K views

Jesus Alone Lyrics

[Verse 1]
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
You convalesced, you fashioned masks of twigs and clay
You cried beneath the dripping trees
Ghost song lodged in the throat of a mermaid

[Chorus]
With my voice
I am calling you

[Verse 2]
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

[Chorus]
With my voice
I am calling you
With my voice
I am calling you

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[Verse 3]
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 the fire
You're the mist rolling off the sea
You're a distant memory in the mind of your creator
Don't you see?

[Chorus]
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
Let us sit together in the dark until the moment comes
With my voice
I am calling you
With my voice
I am calling you
With my voice
I am calling you
With my voice
I am calling you

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About

“Jesus Alone” is Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' first single from their 2016 album Skeleton Tree, and Cave’s first release since the untimely death of his son Arthur in July 2015.

The song was actually one of the first from Skeleton Tree to be written, around late 2014. In the documentary One More Time With Feeling, Cave admits the song is mostly ad-libbed.

Musically, it continues the sparse arrangements heard on Push The Sky Away, with droning synth and isolated piano.

The song title may refer to the episode in the Bible in Matthew 26:36-46 about the garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed to the Lord alone and every time he returned to his disciples he found them asleep, and therefore they couldn’t share his pain with him.