Kicking Against the Pricks

Kicking Against the Pricks is the third album released by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. First released in 1986, the album is a collection of cover versions. The title refers to a passage from the King James Version of the Bible (Acts 9:5 and 26:14), the second of which reads: "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks" (though the reference to "kick against the pricks" (or "goads") is omitted in many modern versions of the Bible). The phrase refers to the futility of an ox kicking in irritation at the sharpened wooden rod, called a prick or goad, used by his driver when tilling soil. The album marked the Bad Seeds debut of drummer Thomas Wydler, expanding the Bad Seeds line-up to Cave, Wydler, Mick Harvey, Blixa Bargeld and Barry Adamson. The strings were arranged by Mick Harvey and played by the Berliner Kaffeehausmusik Ensemble. "The Hammer Song" is not to be confused with the song of the same name from the 1990 Bad Seeds album The Good Son. The album was remastered and reissued on April 27, 2009 as a collector's edition CD/DVD set. The CD features the original 12-song vinyl LP's track listing, while "Black Betty" and "Running Scared" are featured as bonus audio tracks on the accompanying DVD. Recordings of seven of these songs, performed by the "original" artists, were later issued on the Original Seeds compilation CDs.