St. John The Gambler

Back when I swore by every word of Nick Cave's, I remember being touched by his recollection of listening to Cohen's "Avalanche" for the first time, and how that swept away everything that made him feel chained in his youth. I think I'd heard the song at that stage, but hadn't paid it as much attention as I clearly ought. With subsequent listens, it occupies a special place in my mental landscape. I think you'd call it songs bereft of hope, in a way simultaneously poetic - in the sense of not being a retelling of some personal tragedy, but aiming higher - and yet not - in the sense of conveying a genuine emptiness that can be frightening in a way that the arts scarcely are.

There aren't many other songs I'd put in this category. For example, over time, I've found that as dark as Cave's music can be, it occupies only the former and not the latter for me. (Which is not to say it's inferior. It's just different.) But I'm starting to feel that Townes Van Zandt sits next to Cohen in the two towers of song. There is something very affecting in hearing a young man admit that his sins are the only alternative he sees to picking up the razors, or just waiting for the end. I also find it interesting that, rather than embrace the cliche of living free on the road, he chose at least a couple of times to basically reveal it as a failed attempt to escape it all, most famously in "Pancho & Lefty"'s opening lines. Like most good songwriters, his work stands on its own, but when you learn about his life, it inescapably adds an extra level of seriousness. Relistening to some of his more pessimistic moments, it's as if one is watching the chronicling of a futility as it unfolds. Which makes it music not appropriate most of the time, but essential when it is.