[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q7amoKYFCc]

It’s been ages since I regularly listened to this Nick Cave classic. Cave’s more interesting songs are the biblical ones. I clearly remember the moment when I first heard about his novel “The Ass Saw the Angel.”

Nick Cave wrote the song The Mercy Seat for his 1988 Tender Prey album; his ‘signature tune’, it has been performed at nearly every concert since 1988. The song tells the story of a condemned man facing death on the electric chair seeking redemption in the afterlife. This song was later covered by Johnny Cash on his album, American III: Solitary Man.