In the aftermath of the prolonged enterprise cum transnational three-ring circus that comprised the creation and completion of 1988's Tender Prey, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, both collectively and individually, desperately required a sabbatical – Cave in particular. By his own admission, Cave emerged from a spell in a clinic a damaged recluse. "You think I was bad going in, you should of seen when I came out. I locked myself in a room in Clapham for a year and did nothing," he stated. "I couldn't get out of the house. I was a basket case."

But not a complete basket case: for during that time, Nick had access to a piano upstairs from his flat at which he would occasionally sit and write. Two numbers Nick drew out of himself during his Clapham lacuna were "The Train Song" and "Sorrow's Child"; and both tunes ended up being recorded in the course of sessions for what ultimately became Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds sixth album release, 1990's The Good Son. It was during this period that Nick really began to come to grips with the piano as a compositional tool.

Amidst all these changes, little wonder a different style of song began pouring out of Nick: "A lot of stuff started to come quite quickly: ‘The Weeping Song', ‘The Ship Song', ‘Foi Na Cruz' – these extremely sweet love songs appeared." As it turned out, the songs from that period prefigure and hint at something that would henceforward become a Cave obsession: to write a kind of "classic" love song, a craft he would devote many years to fine honing.

Live ensemble recordings, in combination with the gentler touch of many of the new songs Cave was devising, signaled a sea change in the band's evolution. Commercial or not, when it was released, The Good Son brought to light another facet of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds artistry and Nick's songwriting set the course for a wholly different phase of the band. The Good Son contains some of the most enduring and beloved works in their repertoire.