Transpose up (k) Transpose down (j) Cycle song versions (v) Toggle Nashville chords (n) Toggle lyrics only (z) Toggle modulation (m) ------------------------- Jump to artists index (i) Jump to current artists index (I) Jump to song index Jump to tunings index Jump to folk index Jump to theory page ------------------------- Toggle multicolumn Toggle dark mode ------------------------- Find song (f) Random song (r) Random song (current artist) (R)

Nick Cave : Skeleton Tree
2016

  1. Jesus Alone
  2. Rings Of Saturn
  3. Girl In Amber
  4. Magneto

  5. Anthrocene
  6. I Need You
  7. Distant Sky
  8. Skeleton Tree

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...

Rings Of Saturn

Upside down and inside out and on all eights like a funnel web, like a black fly on the ceiling, skinny white haunches high and skyward and her black oily gash, crawling backwards across the carpet to smash all over everything her wet, black fur against the sun going down over the shops and the cars and the crowds and the town And this is the moment this is exactly what she is born to be This is what she does and this is what she is And this is the moment this is exactly what she is born to be This is what she does and this is what she is Her eyes that look at me through her rainy hair are two round holes where the air buckles and rushes in, her body moon-blue as a jellyfish, and I'm breathing deep and I'm there and I'm also not there and spurting ink over the sheets but she remains, completely unexplained or maybe I'm just too tongue-tied to drink it up and swallow back the pain. I thought slavery had been abolished, how come it's gone and reared its ugly head again And this is the moment this is exactly what she is born to be This is what she does and this is what she is And this is the moment this is exactly what she is born to be This is what she is and this is what she does This is the moment this is exactly what she is born to be And this is what she does and this is what she is And this is the moment this is exactly what she is born to be This is what she does and this is what she is And now she's jumping up with her leaping brain, stepping over heaps of sleeping children, disappearing and further up and spinning out again, up and further up she goes, up and out of the bed, up and out of the bed and down the hall where she stops for a moment and turns and says "Are you still here?" and then reaches high and dangles herself like a child's dream from the ring of Saturn

Girl In Amber

Some go on, some stay behind, some never move at all Girl in amber, trapped forever, spinning down the hall Let no part of her go unremembered, clothes across the floor Girl in amber, long does slumber, shuts the bathroom door The phone, the phone, the phone, it rings, it rings, it rings no more The song, the song, the song, it spins since 1984 The phone, the phone, the phone, it rings, the phone it rings no more The song, the song, it's been spinning now since 1984 If you want to bleed, just bleed If you want to bleed, just bleed If you want to bleed, don't breathe A word, just step away And let the world spinning now You turn, you turn, you kneel lace up his shoes your little blue-eyed boy Take him by his hand, go moving spinning down the hall I get lucky I get lucky cause I tried again I knew the world it would stop spinning now since you've been gone I used to think that when you died you kind of wandered the world In a slumber until you crumbled, were absorbed into the earth Well I don't think that anymore, the phone it rings no more The song, the song, it spins, it spins now since 1984 The song, the song, the song, it spins, it's been spinning now And if you hold me I will tell you that you know that If you want to leave, don't breathe If you want to leave, don't breathe If you want to leave, don't breathe A word, and let the world turn The song, the song, it spins, the song, it spins, it spins no more The phone, it rings, it rings and you won't stay Don't touch me Don't touch me Don't touch me Don't touch me

Magneto

Oh, mostly I never knew which way was out Once it was on, it was on, and that was that The umbilicus was a faucet that fountained rabid blood And I spun on my wheel like a laboratory rat I was an electrical storm on the bathroom floor, clutching the bowl My blood was full of gags and other people's diseases And my monstrous little memory had swallowed me whole Oh, it was the year I officially became the Bride of Jesus In love in love in love you laugh in love You move I move and one more time with feeling I love you love I laugh you laugh, I saw you in half And the stars are splashed across the ceiling Oh, the urge to kill somebody was basically overwhelming I had such hard blues down there in the supermarket queues I had a sudden urge to become someone, someone like you Who had started out with less than anyone I ever knew In love in love I love you love I laugh you laugh I move you move and one more time with feeling I love you love I laugh you laugh, I'm sawn in half And all the stars are splashed across the ceiling And oh, you come shyly. And softly to the hole to drink Come as far as the edge of my blood and then swim And in the bathroom mirror I see me vomit in the sink And all through the house we hear the hyena's hymns Of love I love you love I love you love I laugh you laugh I move you move you move and one more time with feeling I love you love I laugh you laugh we saw each other in half And all the stars are splashed and splattered across the ceiling

Anthrocene

Oh the fine wind is gone And this sweet world is so much older The animals pull the night around their shoulders The flowers fall to their naked knees Here I come now! Here I come! I hear you've been out there looking for something to love There's a dark force that shifts at the edge of the trees It's all right! It's all right! Well, you've turned so long and lovely it's hard to believe That we're falling now in the name of the Anthrocene O the things we love we love we love, we lose It's our bodies that fall when we're trying to rise I hear you've been out looking for something to love Sit down beside me and I'll name it for you Behold! Behold the heaven-bound seas! The wind casts its shadow and it moves through the trees Behold the animals and the birds and the sky entire I hear you've been out there looking for something to set on fire The head-bowed children fall to their knees Humbled in the age of the Anthrocene Here they come now! Here they come, pulling you away There are powers at play more forceful than we Come over here and sit down and say a short prayer A prayer to the air! To the air that we breathe! And the astonishing rise of the Anthrocene Come on now! Come on now! Hold your breath while you say It's a long way back and I'm begging you please To come home now. Come home now I heard you've been out looking for something to love Close your eyes, little world, and brace yourself

I Need You

F#m
D
F#m
D
When you're feeling like a lover
F#m
A
D
Nothing really matters anymore
F#m
E
D
I saw you standing there in the supermarket
F#m
E
D
F#m
E
D
With your red dress falling and your eyes are to the ground
F#m
E
D
F#m
Nothing really matters, nothing really matters when the one you love is gone
E
D
You're still in me, baby
A
D
I need you
F#m
A
D
In my heart, I need you 'Cause nothing really matters
F#m
E
D
I'm standing in the doorway
F#m
E
D
F#m
E
You're walking round my place in your red dress, hair hanging down
D
F#m
E
With your eyes on one, we love the ones we can
D
A
D
'Cause nothing really matters when you're standing, standing
F#m
A
I need you, need you
D
'Cause nothing really matters
F#m
E
D
A
We follow the line of the palms of our hands
D
F#m
You're standing in the supermarket, nothing, holding hands
A
D
In your red dress, falling, falling in, falling in
F#m
A long black car is waiting round
E
D
F#m
I will miss you when you're gone
E
D
F#m
I'll miss you when you're gone away forever
E
D
'Cause nothing really matters
F#m
E
D
I thought I knew better, so much better
A
D
And I need you
A
I need you
D
'Cause nothing really matters
A
On the night we wrecked like a train Purring cars and pouring rain
D
Never felt right about, never again
A
'Cause nothing really matters
D
Nothing really matters anymore, not even today
F#m
E
D
No matter how hard I try
F#m
E
D
F#m
E
D
When you're standing in the aisle, and no, baby
F#m
E
D
Nothing, nothing, nothing
F#m
E
D
F#m
E
D
I need, I need, I need you
A
D
I need you
A
D
I need you Just breathe, just breathe
A
D
I need you

Distant Sky

Choruses are sung by Else Torp
Let us go now, my one true love Call the gasman, cut the power out We can set out, we can set out for the distant skies Watch the sun, watch it rising in your eyes Let us go now, my darling companion Set out for the distant skies See the sun, see it rising See it rising, rising in your eyes They told us our gods would outlive us They told us our dreams would outlive us They told us our gods would outlive us But they lied Let us go now, my only companion Set out for the distant skies Soon the children will be rising, will be rising This is not for our eyes

Skeleton Tree

Sunday morning Skeleton tree Well nothing is for free In the window A candle Well maybe you can see Falling leaves Thrown Across the sky A jittery TV Glowing white like fire Nothing is for free I call out I call out Right across the sea But the echo comes back empty Nothing is for free Sunday morning Skeleton tree Pressed against the sky A jittery TV Glowing white Like fire I call out I call out Right across the sea I call out I call out Nothing is for free And it's all right now And it's all right now And it's all right now