I know a fair bit about being the Black Sheep and the Golden Child, but I wonder what it would be like to be a ‘Bad Seed’—throw caution to the wind, follow the rock’n roll life, forever looking for light switches in different yet similar hotel rooms in cities that blend and bleed into one another. How many ‘half hour friendships’ can one make in a year? How deeply can one bow to an audience after having taken them to the moon and the stars? Is there sleep, joy, regularity, friendship beyond contractual requirements? Being the front man must be strange, and being the background guy even stranger.

Whenever we drive to the airport to pick someone up or drop someone off, we tell our dog that we are going back to that place we call ‘Lost And Found.’ We find people who are like family, and we lose people who are family. The dog never knows which will occur.

Associating departures and arrivals with a mixed bag of feelings—intermingled with anticipation and dread—is certainly not an overstatement. Who is to know what happens next? Who and what we will lose, and who and what we might find? Which seed will open and which will go to waste?

Wikipedia tells me you started the Bad Seeds with Mick Harvey, Blixa Bargeld, and Barry Adamson in '83, and there have been twenty-seven seeds in total up to now. How many transformations does that make for your Ship of Theseus?

My own ship changed more times than I would have ever anticipated—I still feel each arrival and departure in my blood and in my bones. Do you sing Blixa back next to you, are you witnessing Warren by your side, and can you see the ghosts of those who are no longer with you on stage when you squint your eyes between songs? Is there someone new on the horizon, not yet fully formed in your mind, but approaching the stage as a speck in the far distance?

Someone to join you on stage when you are old and walk with a cane? I hope they are all well—those past, present, and future Bad Seeds and collaborators.

I am painting your current lineup, for if all goes well, we will see you play in February. There is still a bit to do; Colin’s left ear sits too low on his face and George doesn’t really have a face as yet. And your feet, I painted your feet again too small for a wild god—even though you sit like a girl who is still waiting for the right guy to ask her for her dance card. But I am getting there; ears, faces, feet and all.

Thank you Nick, Blixa, Hugo, Edward, Rowland, Kid Congo, James, Ed, George, Barry, Tracy, Christoph, Martyn, Colin, Mick, Thomas, Jim, Roland, Conway, Larry, Carty, Warren, Janet, T Jae, Subrina, Miça, and Wendy, and all other musicians who touch our souls every single day by bringing the spirit down and lifting our spirits to the heavens!

Much faith, hope and love to all!

Cordula