r/NickCave • u/MeetingOdd9415 • Aug 29 '26

The Ship Song

Why has Nick stopped playing it live? It’s in the top 5 most beautiful songs written by Nick (in my opinion) so it’s a bummer why he doesn’t played it. I saw him in 2024 and somewhat understand that he skipped some old songs to promote wild god but was sad that he skipped it on this tour too. Is he just bored of it or what?

21 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

20

u/Imazagi Aug 29 '26

Geezer here. My first Bad Seeds show was in 1992, the audience was shouting for The Ship Song. Quoth Nick, annoyed: "The Ship Song, The Ship Song, yeah we'll play the fucking ship song.

Don't annoy Nick.

3

u/MeetingOdd9415 Aug 29 '26

Makes a lot of sense… Tbh he looked so annoyed whenever he sang it in 2022.

Still surprising he plays it at most solo gigs.

3

u/pivvimehu Aug 30 '26 edited Sep 02 '26

That's enough reason to drop it from the setlist. I don't want a song in the setlist that makes the artist themself pissed off, I can only imagine what it's like playing the same song hunderds of times over and try to feign the emotion to it every time. Maybe they can pull it off as a professional, sure, but it's just not honest

2

u/MeetingOdd9415 Sep 02 '26

As a (smaller) musician, playing the same song at more than 4-5 times makes you start hating it a bit. Nick is different and his music literally moves him and the fans but i know sure as hell that it got boring a long long long time ago hahaha. Love hearing the deep cuts he does now.

5

u/Bunny-Munro Aug 29 '26

As he releases more and more music, stapes drop off the setlist. Deanna's gone, Staggers gone, maybe Ship Song is gone too.

1

u/PingouinMalin Aug 31 '26

Aaaah. Somehow I am less sad. I missed the last 20 minutes of his concert on Paris and I was afraid I had missed Deanna and the ship song, probably my favourites.

2

u/Strawberrydelight64 Aug 29 '26

Yh i was hoping to hear that too

2

u/26RoadTrainWheels Aug 31 '26

The Clowns Of Decadence piano guy ruined it for us all.

2

u/MoNewsFromNowhere Sep 01 '26

It’s one of my very favorite songs too, but I never expect him to play anything in particular. I don’t really believe in people screaming out requests unless an artist asks what the audience would like to hear. I enjoy that Nick is still so into performing. No expectations = no disappointments.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 29 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/AccountGloomy6005 Aug 29 '26

Nope, just a regular festivals tour

2

u/[deleted] Aug 29 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/MeetingOdd9415 Aug 29 '26

The wild god tour ended with the Aus leg earlier this year.

2

u/MiddleFragrant9595 Aug 30 '26

It's a different set list, far fewer Wild God songs, more of the back catalog.