Song · Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
“Tupelo” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
From the album The Firstborn Is Dead (1985)
“Tupelo” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds appears on 2 radio countdowns from 2 stations between 1985 and 2023. It was first released in 1985 on the album The Firstborn Is Dead. Its best result is #35 on the John Peel's Festive Fifty of 1985. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #149 alternative song of 1985.
"Tupelo" was the one single cut from The Firstborn Is Dead, the second album by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and it hit the shops on Mute in July 1985 like a sermon delivered in a flood. Cave wrote the words in 1984 with Barry Adamson and Mick Harvey building the music, and the subject is Southern myth-making on a grand scale: the birth of Elvis Presley in Tupelo, Mississippi, told in biblical terms as a great storm breaks over the town.
It leans loosely on John Lee Hooker's own "Tupelo", another song about the town under floodwater, and borrows a motif from a Lead Belly recording. Adamson plays drums and Harvey bass, with Blixa Bargeld on slide guitar, Cave blowing harmonica, and Flood engineering and co-producing with the band.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Alternative & Modern Rock
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
Year-end countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1985 | 35 | John Peel (BBC Radio 1) | John Peel's Festive Fifty of 1985 | 50 |
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 464 | The Colorado Sound | The Colorado Sound Top 850 Songs of the 1980s | 850 |
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