Ghost of a flea: Where the Wild Roses Grow

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July 29, 2005

Where the Wild Roses Grow

"Do you know where the wild roses grow
So sweet and scarlet and free?"

Nick Cave says skepticism at his writing a song for Kylie Minogue was a pure idea, systematically debased. Tabloid headings like "Kylie Strips For Satanic Video" notwithstanding.

"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."

I had never heard an urban myth about Nick Cave and a London flat replete with Kylie posters and paraphernalia. But then I had not thought of "Where the Wild Roses Grow" for some time. I was reminded of it as I watched Kylie, Nick Cave and the Pogue's Shane MacGowan stumbling through a television performance of Bob Dylan's "Death is Not the End". Sublime. It turns out the song Nick Cave wrote for Kylie afforded him a long held desire to work with the Pop Pixie. A 1995 Australia Rolling Stones article quotes him as saying that shooting a video together was "close to a religious experience."

Well, I can only imagine. Watching Where the Wild Roses Grow is close enough to a religious experience. And watch the hands, you cad!

Posted by Ghost of a flea at July 29, 2005 08:47 AM

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Comments

The best thing she has ever been involved with. A stonker of a song and a video.

Posted by: Andrew Ian Dodge at July 29, 2005 06:48 PM

The water she's floating in looks like it probably has lots of unpleasant parasites swimming in it......

Posted by: JohnAnnArbor at July 29, 2005 09:21 PM

This has always been my favorite Kylie video. It's a wonderful thing indeed and has the savage beauty of William Morris's first book of poetry - The Defence of Guenevere.

Posted by: Eric at July 30, 2005 10:52 PM