Rolling Stone Menu Farewell, Anita Lane: A Storm in the Form of a Girl
The late singer and songwriter was a key influence on Nick Cave, but she had a sinister star power all her own
By Mute Records
The music world has lost a true icon: Anita Lane, the Bad Seed who helped redefine the spirit of evil in rock & roll. “Once there came a storm in the form of a girl,” Nick Cave famously sang, and for many fans, Anita Lane
was that storm. She was a key Cave collaborator, but also an artist and cult figure in her own right, with solo gems like
Steve Richards/Shutterstock
(L-R) Anita Lane and Blixa Bargeld in concert at the Grand on Nov. 17, 1993 in London, England.
Anita Lane, a beloved Australian singer-songwriter who was a member of The Birthday Party and Nick Cave s Bad Seeds, as well as solo singer, has died at 61. At press time no further information was available about the cause of death or when Lane passed, but her former bandmate Cave confirmed the news in a lengthy post in which he called her the smartest and most talented of all of us, by far.
The singer s longtime label, Mute Records, confirmed her death in a loving statement. Anita was a beautiful unworldly spirit with the tenderest of voices, she will be dreadfully missed, it read. There was always something magical that happened when Anita arrived, she changed the perception of everything you looked at. She was inspiring, and brought something uniquely her to the work of everyone she collaborated with. Every artist wants to be unpredictable; we w
Last modified on Wed 28 Apr 2021 08.40 EDT
Anita Lane, the Australian singer-songwriter best known for her collaborations with Nick Cave, has died. A representative for her label confirmed the news. No cause of death was given, and her age – believed to have been in her early 60s – could not be immediately confirmed.
Lane was born in Melbourne and attended art school where she began dating Cave in the 1970s. The pair later moved to Europe together and they collaborated, initially for Cave’s band the Birthday Party – Lane co-wrote A Dead Song from their 1981 debut album, Prayers on Fire. The photographer Bleddyn Butcher, who extensively documented Cave’s early years, later said: “Anita’s influence on Nick’s early thinking and creative confidence was catalytic.”
Rolling Stone Anita Lane, Founding Member of Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds, Dead at 61
Singer-songwriter co-wrote two of Cave’s signature songs, “From Her to Eternity” and “Stranger Than Kindness,” before releasing her own unique solo recordings
By Mute Records
Anita Lane, the singer-songwriter who cowrote some of the Birthday Party and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ most memorable songs, has died at age 61.
Rolling Stone has confirmed Lane’s death; a cause and date of death has yet to be revealed.
As a solo artist, Lane wrote dark, luscious chamber pop that owed a debt to Burt Bacharach and Serge Gainsbourg. Her light, airy falsetto had a knack for cutting through collaborator Mick Harvey’s arrangements. As a lyricist working with the Birthday Party and the Bad Seeds, she had a knack for writing the eerie and morbid lyrics that were the calling cards of Cave’s early work. Cave still performs some of the Bad Seeds songs Lane co-authored such as “F
Eleanor Philpot
, March 9th, 2021 08:14
For years Anita Lane was overshadowed by her collaborator and ex-boyfriend Nick Cave. Eleanor Philpot argues that we instead need to see the singer as an artist whose exploration of female sexuality was way ahead of its time
I started listening to Anita Lane by accident, during one of those heartbreaks so painful you become physically unwell. I spent my days incapacitated in the bath, repeatedly listening to Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
The Boatman’s Call and sobbing. It was during one of those sessions of weeping that the cruel murmuring of ‘Green Eyes’ segued into the Spotify album radio.