Nell Smith and The Flaming Lips have released a new music video for their Nick Cave cover song “The Weeping Song.” The song is off of their collaborative album, which is filled with Nick Cave covers, Where The Viaduct Looms, which was released in November 2021.
The band and 14-year-old singer/songwriter’s version of Cave’s song keeps a similar vibe as the original, with the song keeping a consistent moody feel to it, but with an even slower tempo than the original. Nell’s vocals are echoely layered while singing over an acoustic guitar, which was provided by The Flaming Lips’ Nev Cottee.
The vibe of the song fits the topic that the song covers, which is poor relationships within families. The video aims to fit that topic as well, which shows Nell going through a snowy journey in which she observes a troubled father-son relationship.
Nell discussed the music video in a statement to Rolling Stone.
“The video for this song needed to show some people going through some stuff, and my part is a girl on a journey kind of observing,” Nell said. “It’s maybe a broken family with the dad and son struggling. The mountain top scenes were accessed via snowmobile, deep into avalanche territory. We had to get kitted out with safety gear. It was an adventure!”
The singer and band’s collaboration album, Where The Viaduct Looms, which only covered Nick Cave songs, came about when a then-12-year-old Smith was sitting front row at various Flaming Lips shows wearing a Parrot costume and singing every word of their songs with her parents, according to Rolling Stone. After she met the band, they asked Smith if she could cover Nick Cave songs, send the files back to them, and the band would add their music on to the tracks.
“It’s always great to meet excited, young creative people,” Wayne Coyne, The Flaming Lips’ lead singer, said, per Rolling Stone. “With Nell we could see she is on a journey and thought it would be fun to join her for a while and see if we could get things going. It was a great way to connect with her and help harness her cool attitude to making music.”
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