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  • The Sick Bag Song

  • By: Nick Cave
  • Narrated by: Nick Cave
  • Length: 1 hr and 53 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (51 ratings)
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The Sick Bag Song cover art

The Sick Bag Song

By: Nick Cave
Narrated by: Nick Cave
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Summary

The Sick Bag Song chronicles Cave's journey with his band, the Bad Seeds, on a 22-day North American tour. Inspired by John Berryman's Dream Songs, it is an epic exploration of inspiration, creativity, loss, love and death.

The book blends poetry, lyrics, memories, musings, flights of fancy and journal entries. The Sick Bag Song began life scribbled onto airline sick bags acquired during the internal flights taken by Cave during the tour. To some degree a companion piece to his feature doc 20,000 Days on Earth, The Sick Bag Song further explores and develops the mystique of Nick Cave.

©2016 Nick Cave (P)2016 Canongate Books Ltd

Critic reviews

"About as rock'n'roll as you can get...The Sick Bag Song is shot through with fantasy, fiction, apocalyptic musings and tall stories." (The Sunday Times)
"An epic narrative poem about his travels across North America...Cave is experimenting with a new literary form - a mash-up of prose, poetry, song lyrics and autobiography." (New York Times)
"The Sick Bag Song provides a window on Cave's honesty...Part tour diary and part free-ranging rumination on the business of performance. Capture[s] the mind-frazzling disorientation of 'the road'" (Guardian)

What listeners say about The Sick Bag Song

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fabulous

fabulous. fabulous. fabulous. This is a must. Beautifully poetic from start to finish. 5 Stars

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

An emotional masterpiece!!!

A real journey that keeps you engrossed throughout!! It simply grabs you takes you along for the ride. Through perfectly chosen words, you'll feel like you understand Nick Cave's perspective on the world a little better from listening to this!

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2 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great creative flow

Lovely insight into creativity 'at work'.
The inspiring riff on procrastination will chuckle the guts of readers who also write.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Absolutely brilliant!

Nick Cave narrates his masterpiece with powerful emotion. Such a wonderful journey of longing for his beautiful wife while on tour. It’s a beautiful blend of memories, musings, poetry, lyrics, flights of fancy and road journal. It is comic honesty Listen to the Sick Bag song, you’ll love it.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

An epic poem

Listened to it in one sitting. Nick Cave reading hos own words to you as he pines for his wife on tour and waxes lyrical about it. I reckon I'll listen to it again before long. Just great.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

rambling

struggled to understand nicks rambling dreams ,i know its about isolation and boredom but cant recommend it

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