Consecrated in 1884, the Roman Catholic church known as the Brompton Oratory stands in London’s Knightsbridge. In Nick Cave’s song of the same name, its neo-classical grace forms the setting of this haunting song of longing. I love the way Cave contrasts the sacred and profane, the singer a tumult of raw human emotion as the cold stone statues look on.
The church’s ‘great shadowed vault’ can scarcely have cast as long a shadow as the other inspiration for this song, Cave’s love affair with the English singer songwriter P. J. Harvey. Asked recently by a fan to comment on the breakdown of this relationship Cave wrote ‘never one to waste a good crisis, I set about completing The Boatman’s Call’ – his 1997 masterpiece from which this song is taken.
After WWII South Kensington became home for a large Polish community. Due to the resettlement of thousands of Polish Allied servicemen, a special Polish Mass was held in the Brompton Oratory every Sunday from 1945-1962.
As I have set up this site in large part for my Polish English language students, it seems a fitting place to start these posts, as does this live performance of the song filmed in concert in Wroclaw.
