Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds’ third album, Kicking Against The Pricks, turns 40 this month, marking four decades since the band used an album of cover versions to broaden its musical vocabulary.
by Paul Cashmere
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds’ Kicking Against The Pricks reaches its 40th anniversary on August 18, 2026, four decades after the album established a different side of the group through interpretations of songs by artists including John Lee Hooker, Johnny Cash, The Velvet Underground, Tom Jones and Jimmy Webb. Released in 1986, the third Bad Seeds album remains an important document of the band’s formative period, arriving between The Firstborn Is Dead and Your Funeral… My Trial.
Unlike the original material that had defined the Bad Seeds to that point, Kicking Against The Pricks was constructed entirely around songs written by other people. The decision allowed Cave and his bandmates to move between blues, gospel, country, folk and pop, while testing how their developing sound could accommodate material from outside their own songwriting world.
Noise11 previously documented the album as part of the Bad Seeds catalogue when the record was included in the band’s first major vinyl reissue campaign in 2014. That campaign placed Kicking Against The Pricks alongside From Her To Eternity, The Firstborn Is Dead and Your Funeral… My Trial, underlining its position within the band’s early catalogue.
Cave later explained that the songs had been selected for different reasons rather than following a single artistic formula. Some were tributes, while others reflected songs he felt had not previously been recorded satisfactorily. He also identified The Carnival Is Over as a song that had remained with him since childhood.
“They were all done for different reasons,” Cave said. “Some songs were tributes. Other songs we didn’t think the song was ever done particularly well in the first place. Some songs had just kind of haunted my childhood, like ‘The Carnival Is Over’, which I always loved.”
The album also marked the Bad Seeds debut of drummer Thomas Wydler, joining Cave, Barry Adamson, Mick Harvey and Blixa Bargeld. The expanded line-up gave the group greater scope to explore the material, while Harvey handled the string arrangements performed by the Berliner Kaffeehausmusik Ensemble.
Cave later downplayed the album’s significance as a finished work, but acknowledged the value of the process. “It allowed us to discover different elements, to actually make and perform a variety of different sorts of music successfully,” he said. “I think that helped subsequent records tremendously.”
That development can be heard in the sequence surrounding Kicking Against The Pricks. The Firstborn Is Dead, released in 1985, had concentrated heavily on blues-derived imagery and a stark, abrasive interpretation of American musical mythology. Kicking Against The Pricks shifted the emphasis towards interpretation, melody and arrangement before the band moved into the darker, more controlled territory of Your Funeral… My Trial later in 1986.
The album’s repertoire also revealed the breadth of Cave’s musical references. Muddy Water, I’m Gonna Kill That Woman, Sleeping Annaleah, Long Black Veil, Hey Joe and The Singer formed the first half, followed by All Tomorrow’s Parties, By The Time I Get To Phoenix, The Hammer Song, Something’s Gotten Hold Of My Heart, Jesus Met The Woman At The Well and The Carnival Is Over.
There were several complications in the original credits. Sleeping Annaleah was actually Weeping Annaleah, while The Singer was The Folk Singer. Black Betty combined three Leadbelly recordings into a medley, and The Carnival Is Over carried an incorrect Frank Farian credit on the Cave release. These details have subsequently become part of the album’s documented history.
The original LP reached number 89 on the UK Albums Chart while topping the UK Independent Albums Chart. A remastered collector’s edition followed in 2009, expanding the CD/DVD package with Black Betty and Running Scared as additional audio material.
Four decades later, Kicking Against The Pricks occupies a distinctive place in the Bad Seeds catalogue. It was neither a conventional collection of originals nor a straightforward exercise in nostalgia. Instead, it provided a working band still defining itself with an opportunity to inhabit other writers’ material and, in doing so, discover what it could become.
The album’s anniversary also offers a useful perspective on Cave’s 2026 live career. When Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds returned to Australia this year for The Wild God Tour, the setlist travelled across more than 40 years of material, from From Her To Eternity and Tupelo through to Wild God. Yet no song from Kicking Against The Pricks was performed. Noise11’s coverage of the Fremantle opening show confirms the set drew on material from across the catalogue without including a track from the 1986 covers album.
That omission does not diminish the album’s historical role. Kicking Against The Pricks remains a record that helped expand the musical language of Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds at a crucial stage in their development, and its 40th anniversary provides a reminder of how deliberately the band built its identity during the 1980s.
Tracklisting
Muddy Water
I’m Gonna Kill That Woman
Sleeping Annaleah
Long Black Veil
Hey Joe
The Singer
All Tomorrow’s Parties
By The Time I Get To Phoenix
The Hammer Song
Something’s Gotten Hold Of My Heart
Jesus Met The Woman At The Well
The Carnival Is Over
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