"The Carny" is a song by
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds appearing on their fourth studio album ''
Your Funeral... My Trial''. It was written by
Nick Cave and was recorded in August 1986 at Hansa Tonstudio and Strongroom.
Subject
The lyrics concern a carnival worker who vanished, highlighted in the words "No one saw the Carny go". As the circus prepares to leave without the missing performer, they find the Carny's horse Sorrow, "so skin and bone", and kill it. The dwarfs Moses and Noah dig a ditch to bury it, later remarking "we should've dug a deeper one". When it begins to rain, the Carny's caravan is swept away.
The song is featured in
Wim Wenders' 1987 film ''
Wings of Desire'', when the character Marion (
Solveig Dommartin) listens to the album ''Your Funeral, My Trial''. The song corresponds to the plot, in which the circus that Marion works for as a trapeze artist closes down.
Professor Adrian Danks wrote "The Carny" adds a feel of sorrow in the background, while Marion gives "breathy accompaniment". Cave personally appears in the film in later scenes.
Accolades
Personnel
Adapted from the ''Your Funeral... My Trial'' liner notes.
;Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
*
Blixa Bargeld –
guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...
,
co-lead vocals
*
Nick Cave –
lead vocals,
harmonica
*
Mick Harvey
Michael John Harvey (born 29 August 1958) is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, composer, arranger and record producer. A multi-instrumentalist, he is best known for his long-term collaborations with Nick Cave, with whom he formed The ...
–
organ,
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...
,
glockenspiel,
xylophone
The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Like the glockenspiel (which uses metal bars), the xylophone essentially consists of a set of tuned wooden keys arranged in ...
*
Thomas Wydler –
drums
;Production and additional personnel
*
Tony Cohen
Anthony Lawrence Cohen (4 June 19572 August 2017) was an Australian music record producer and sound engineer. He worked with Nick Cave's groups the Birthday Party, and then the Bad Seeds from 1979 to 2001. In mid-1986 he had followed Cave t ...
–
production
Production may refer to:
Economics and business
* Production (economics)
* Production, the act of manufacturing goods
* Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services)
* Production as a stati ...
,
engineering
Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...
*
Flood
A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...
– production, engineering,
mixing
See also
*
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds discography
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carny
1986 songs
Nick Cave songs
Songs written by Nick Cave
Song recordings produced by Flood (producer)