An Eye for an Eye and a Tooth for a Tooth

I was all set to post Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds doing a 33-minute pisstake of Leonard Cohen’s “Tower of Song” – after threatening all week to burn a copy for a Leonard-loving co-worker – but I finally listened to the whole thing again and realized I could not inflict that either on her or on you good people. (And I think the circulating 33-minute version is itself only an excerpt – at one point Cave groans, “We’ve been doing this for an hour.”)

So instead here’s an acoustic version of “The Mercy Seat” with some chilling piano chords. The Tender Prey version has all the razzmatazz, sparks flying & blood splatter everywhere, but this quieter one seems just as intense. And I’m willing to wager this is the one Rick Rubin played for Johnny Cash.

• Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, “The Mercy Seat” (acoustic)

(Buy Tender Prey here and B Sides and Rarities here.)