You know you live in a cool city when Nick Cave writes about it on a barf bag. Minneapolis is one of 22 towns to earn that truly distinct honor in the Australian rock legend's new book of poetry, lyrics and journal entries, "The Sick Bag Song," which he wrote on last summer's North American tour.
All of the city-by-city entries in the book apparently started out as notes that Cave scrawled onto sick bags, which he enlisted as note pads during his airline rides between gigs. The notes he coughed up from his unforgettable State Theatre gig with the Bad Seeds last June – each bag was photographed for the book -- include lines on Minneapolis' "sensible weather-proof walkways," the State's "arched proscenium curved 100 feet above the stage" and even the adoring crowd.
"The show of warmth is staggering," he scribbled onto our vomit bag. Awww, so sweet.
For the longer entry in the book -- shaped and package like a CD box set, with various optional extras available -- he writes about reading late Minneapolis poet John Berryman's "Dream Songs" collections while staying downtown at the Grand Hotel. "My innards rumble like a train," he writes, going on to contemplate Berryman's fatal leap from the Washington Avenue Bridge in 1972 – "where the poet debated flying and falling with the pretty lawny bank below." We won't spoil the rest, but it's predictably powerful stuff.
One other interesting tidbit: The book's Minneapolis entry opens with this line: "I am vomiting up Milwaukee's mussels and pretzels in an alley." So not every city included in the book has something to be proud of. Luckily for us, he didn't actually use the Minneapolis sick bag for its intended purposes.
"The Sick Bag Song" is available via SickBagSong.com.
