Stranger Than Kindness

Am I the only one that thinks this song is blatantly about prostitution? Motel rooms, the act of sex without passion, "You hold me so carelessly close" meaning the indifferent and faux affection. "even a fool can come" anyone can get it if they want, there is no sense of accomplishment in the act, only a sense of shame. Its stranger than sex out of mutual desire. Its stranger than kindness. The act is vacant, there is no home there is no bread, there is no love. Just the act. He is unable to find sex in any other way than this so he is a stranger to kindness.

The longing for transcendence. Someone wants to destroy the illusion and connects their desire with it. Here, genuine encounters take precedence over friendliness. But this is not achieved and the inner inability, the alienation with oneself and others is revealed.

I wonder if this is actually a reference to Tennessee Williams's play, 'A Streetcar Named Desire'. In it, the lead character, Blanche du Bois, goes to stay with her sister and her husband after losing the family home. She tells them she has left her job as an English teacher due to stress, but it is later revealed that she had an affair with a teenage student and, as a result, acted as a kind of prostitute in seedy hotels before being thrown out of town. Her last line in the play, to a doctor that takes her away to a mental institution, is 'Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.', so it would certainly fit with the title and lyrics.

i think this song is about adultery or else a man caught in a desperate loop of picking up quick fixes of prostitutes to drown his sorrows.

for starters, the mention of hotels immediately brings to mind sordid affairs and adultery

the song itself seems to start at climax ' spilling everything' 'the volcano' aka an 'eruption' and 'soft cold bones below'

i think starting the song there is apt because its post sex that guilt and sadness come flooding back

the fact that this relationship is sordid, not normal, and that there is something to hide is suggested by the fact that 'keys rain like heavens hair, there is no home there is no bread' they/he is constantly on the move and basically the whole mournful tone.

this affair is purely sexual and seen in a negative light its a 'gaunt fruit of passion' and she holds him 'carelessly' without love...trying to initiate more sex 'tells me im dirty'

the fact that he is still ‘a stranger to kindness’ at the end, show that this relationship does not satisfy him and leaves him an empty shell.a really haunting song that made me really sad when I read into it

"she holds him " ? You sure 'bout that? These lyrics were written by a woman, Anita Lane.

This song makes me want to have dirty sex in a seedy motel room with a girl i've never met. And god would i love to hear this song actually sung by Anita...that would be wonderful.

I pretty much agree with stormcloud except for the carelessly bit. In this case i think carelessly is modifying "close" in that he is holding her too closely for his own good - perhaps trying to elicit some emotional attachment from the situation which would be a careless move on his part.

First and foremost Stranger Than Kindness is my favorite Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds song. There's a very strong sense of hopelessness and I can't ignore it. I'm not quite sure what the hopelessness is about it. Maybe it's decaying love or something from the outside that caused it. My interpretation is watching yourself or someone else deteriorating before your eyes. I don't really think it's about sex well at least not in the way others interpreted the song. Several lines lead me to believe it's hopelessness and deterioration of the self or love.

"And find a rope hanging there"-this is a symbol of losing all hope or imminent death.

"There is no home there is no bread We sit at the gate and scratch "-this is a metaphor for not being to escape

"The gaunt fruit of passion Dies in the light"- the deterioration. light is often used as a symbol of life. and a gaunt fruit of passion is withering and/or the lack of being alive

That staccato organ solo at the end is so horrifying and bizarre. Makes the song.

I like the line that goes "even a fool can come"

Maybe it is from a womans perspective. I remember watching Waiting for God and Diana accuses Tom of being a fool who grinned from ear to ear proud of joining the oldest club in the world. In other words, they had se. p.s: waiting for God is a show about old people in a retirement home. lol

yes he had sex b4 that, but not with her. and it had been years anyway.

The song itself is written by Anita Lane. They performed this song at The Royal Albert Hall in 1997 the 19th of May. While Nick Cave was announcing the song he said that the song is written by Anita Lane as a sort of revenge thingy towards Cave.