Brompton Oratory
Up those stone steps I climb
Hail this joyful day's return
Into its great shadowed vault I go
Hail the Pentecostal morn

The reading is from Luke 24
Where Christ returns to his loved ones
I look at the stone apostles
Think that it's alright for some

And I wish that I was made of stone
So that I would not have to see
A beauty impossible to define
A beauty impossible to believe

A beauty impossible to endure
The blood imparted in little sips
The smell of you still on my hands
As I bring the cup up to my lips

No God up in the sky
No devil beneath the sea
Could do the job that you did, baby
Of bringing me to my knees

Outside I sit on the stone steps
With nothing much to do
Forlorn and exhausted, baby
By the absence of you

Nick Cave

This is one of my favourite Nick Cave songs, a beautiful mix of the sacred and profane. I think he wrote it when he was in love with Polly Jean Harvey, and it's probably her smell on his hands as he lifts the cup to his lips. That line is so unexpected after what has come before, but it makes the song. The melody is lovely, the arrangement - with a church organ rising and falling in the background - is simple and understated, and the beetle-browed Master of Melancholy sings it with just the right degree of moody angst.

I suppose this is the other side of Nick Cave. If you've never heard it, imagine it played and sung at break-neck speed in a high octane rockabilly style without a beat, note or syllable missed. The Bad Seeds must be the best backing band in the world.