In telecommunications and professional audio, a balanced line or balanced signal pair is a transmission line consisting of two conductors of the same type, each of which have equal impedances along their lengths and equal impedances to ground and to other circuits.^[1] The chief advantage of the balanced line format is good rejection of external noise. Common forms of balanced line are twin-lead, used for radio frequency signals and twisted pair, used for lower frequencies. They are to be contrasted to unbalanced lines, such as coaxial cable, which is designed to have its return conductor connected to ground, or circuits whose return conductor actually is ground. Balanced and unbalanced circuits can be interconnected using a transformer called a balun.

Circuits driving balanced lines must themselves be balanced to maintain the benefits of balance. This may be achieved by differential signaling, transformer coupling or by merely balancing the impedance in each conductor.

Lines carrying symmetrical signals (those with equal but opposite voltages to ground on each leg) are often referred to as balanced, but this is an entirely different meaning. The two conditions are not related.

Explanation[link]

Fig. 1. Balanced line in twisted pair format. This line is intended for use with 2-wire circuits.

Fig. 2. Balanced line in star quad format. This line is intended for use with 4-wire circuits or two 2-wire circuits. It is also used with microphone signals in professional audio.

Fig. 3. Balanced line in DM quad format. This line is intended for use with 4-wire circuits or two 2-wire circuits.

Transmission of a signal over a balanced line reduces the influence of noise or interference due to external stray electric fields. Any external signal sources tend to induce only a common mode signal on the line and the balanced impedances to ground minimizes differential pickup due to stray electric fields. The conductors are sometimes twisted together to ensure that each conductor is equally exposed to any external magnetic fields that could induce unwanted noise.

Some balanced lines also have electromagnetic shielding to reduce the amount of noise introduced.

A balanced line allows a differential receiver to reduce the noise on a connection by rejecting common-mode interference. The lines have the same impedance to ground, so the interfering fields or currents induce the same voltage in both wires. Since the receiver responds only to the difference between the wires, it is not influenced by the induced noise voltage. If twisted pair becomes unbalanced, for example due to insulation failure, noise will be induced. Examples of twisted pairs include Cat-3 Ethernet cables or telephone wires.

Compared to unbalanced circuits, balanced lines reduce the amount of noise per distance, allowing a longer cable run to be practical. This is because electromagnetic interference will affect both signals the same way. Similarities between the two signals are automatically removed at the end of the transmission path when one signal is subtracted from the other.

Telephone systems[link]

The first application for balanced lines was for telephone lines. Interference that was of little consequence on a telegraph system (which is in essence digital) could be very disturbing for a telephone user. The initial format was to take two single-wire unbalanced telegraph lines and use them as a pair. This proved insufficient, however, with the growth of electric power transmission which tended to use the same routes. A telephone line running alongside a power line for many miles will inevitably have more interference induced in one leg than the other since one of them will be nearer to the power line. This issue was addressed by swapping the positions of the two legs every few hundred yards with a cross-over, thus ensuring that both legs had equal interference induced and allowing common-mode rejection to do its work. As the telephone system grew, it became preferable to use cable rather than open wires to save space, and also to avoid poor performance during bad weather. The cable construction used for balanced telephone cables was twisted pair, however, this did not become widespread until repeater amplifiers became available. For an unamplified telephone line, a twisted pair cable could only manage a maximum distance of 30 km. Open wires, on the other hand, with their lower capacitance had been used for enormous distances - the longest was the 1500 km from New York to Chicago built in 1893. Loading coils were used to improve the distance achievable with cable but the problem was not finally overcome until amplifiers started to be installed in 1912.^[2] Twisted pair balanced lines are still widely used for the telephone subscribers local end.^[3]

Telephone trunk lines, and especially frequency division multiplexing carrier systems, are usually 4-wire circuits rather than 2-wire circuits (or at least they were before fibre-optic became widespread) and require a different kind of cable. This format requires the conductors to be arranged in two pairs, one pair for the sending (go) signal and the other for the return signal. The greatest source of interference on this kind of transmission is usually the crosstalk between the go and return circuits themselves. The most common cable format is star quad, where the diagonally opposite conductors form the pairs. This geometry gives maximum common mode rejection between the two pairs. An alternative format is DM^[4] quad which consists of two twisted pairs with the twisting at different pitches.^[5]

Audio systems[link]

An example of balanced lines is the connection of microphones to a mixer in professional systems. Classically, both dynamic and condenser microphones used transformers to provide a differential-mode signal. While transformers are still used in the large majority of modern dynamic microphones, more recent condenser microphones are more likely to use electronic drive circuitry. Each leg, irrespective of any signal, should have an identical impedance to ground. Pair cable (or a pair-derivative such as star quad) is used to maintain the balanced impedances and close twisting of the cores ensures that any interference is common to both conductors. Providing that the receiving end (usually a mixing console) does not disturb the line balance, and is able to ignore common-mode (noise) signals, and can extract differential ones, then the system will have excellent immunity to induced interference.

Typical professional audio sources, such as microphones, have three-pin XLR connectors. One is the shield or chassis ground, while the other two are signal connections. These signal wires carry two copies of the same signal, but with opposite polarity. (They are often termed "hot" and "cold," and the AES14-1992(r2004) Standard [and EIA Standard RS-297-A] suggest that the pin that carries the positive signal that results from a positive air pressure on a transducer will be deemed 'hot'. Pin 2 has been designated as the 'hot' pin, and that designation serves useful for keeping a consistent polarity in the rest of the system.) Since these conductors travel the same path from source to destination, the assumption is that any interference is induced upon both conductors equally. The appliance receiving the signals compares the difference between the two signals (often with disregard to electrical ground) allowing the appliance to ignore any induced electrical noise. Any induced noise would be present in equal amounts and in identical polarity on each of the balanced signal conductors, so the two signals’ difference from each other would be unchanged. The successful rejection of induced noise from the desired signal depends in part on the balanced signal conductors receiving the same amount and type of interference. This typically leads to twisted, braided, or co-jacketed cables for use in balanced signal transmission.

Balanced and differential[link]

Most explanations of balanced lines assume symmetrical (antiphase) signals but this is an unfortunate confusion - signal symmetry and balanced lines are quite independent of each other. Essential in a balanced line is matched impedances in the driver, line and receiver. These conditions assure that external noise affects each leg of the differential line equally and thus appears as a common mode signal that is removed by the receiver. There are balanced drive circuits that have excellent common-mode impedance matching between "legs" but do not provide symmetrical signals.^[6][7] Symmetrical differential signals exist to prevent interference with other circuits - the electromagnetic fields are canceled out by the equal and opposite currents. But they are not necessary for interference rejection from other circuits.

Baluns[link]

To convert a signal from balanced to unbalanced requires a balun. For example, baluns can be used to send line level audio or E-carrier level 1 signals over coaxial cable (which is unbalanced) through 300 feet (91 m) of Category 5 cable by using a pair of baluns at each end of the CAT5 run. The balun takes the unbalanced signal, and creates an inverted copy of that signal. It then sends these 2 signals across the CAT5 cable as a balanced signal. Upon reception at the other end, the balun takes the difference of the two signals, thus removing any noise picked up along the way and recreating the unbalanced signal.

A once common application of a radio frequency balun was found at the antenna terminals of a television receiver. Typically a 300-ohm balanced twin lead antenna input could only be connected to a coaxial cable from a cable TV system through a balun.

Characteristic Impedance[link]

The characteristic impedance Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): Z_0

of a transmission line is an important parameter at higher frequencies of operation. For a parallel 2-wire transmission line, 

Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): Z_0 = \frac{1}{\pi}\sqrt{\frac{\mu}{\epsilon}} \ln\left(\frac{l}{R} + \sqrt{\left(\frac{l}{R}\right)^2-1}~\right),

where Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): l

is half the distance between the wire centres, Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): R
is the wire radius and Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \mu

, Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \epsilon

are respectively the permeability and permittivity of the surrounding medium. A commonly used approximation that is valid when the wire separation is much larger than the wire radius and in the absence of magnetic materials is

Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): Z_0 = \frac{120}{\sqrt{\epsilon_r}}\ln\left(\frac{2l}{R}\right),

where Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \epsilon_r

is the relative permittivity of the surrounding medium.

Electric power lines[link]

In electric power transmission, the three conductors used for three-phase power transmission are referred to as a balanced line since the instantaneous sum of the three line voltages is nominally zero. However, balance in this field is referring to the symmetry of the source and load: it has nothing to do with the impedance balance of the line itself, the sense of the meaning in telecommunications.

For the transmission of single-phase electric power as used for railway electrification systems, two conductors are used to carry in-phase and out-of-phase voltages such that the line is balanced.

Bipolar HVDC lines at which each pole is operated with the same voltage toward ground are also balanced lines.

See also[link]

• Differential pair

Balanced transmission standards[link]

• RS-422
• RS-485
• Low-voltage differential signalling (LVDS)

References[link]

• Huurdeman, A. A., The worldwide history of telecommunications, Wiley-IEEE, 2003.

External links[link]

• Balanced Lines, Phantom Powering, Grounding, and Other Arcane Mysteries — from Mackie;

Nick Cave
Nick Cave at an event in New York City, 2009
Background information
Born	(1957-09-22) 22 September 1957 (age 54) Warracknabeal, Victoria, Australia
Genres	Post-punk, gothic rock,[1][2] alternative rock, garage rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, writer, actor, composer
Instruments	Guitar, piano, keyboards, vocals
Years active	1973–present
Labels	Mute
Associated acts	Boys Next Door, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Grinderman, The Birthday Party

Nicholas Edward "Nick" Cave (born 22 September 1957) is an Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter, composer and occasional film actor.

He is best known for his work as a frontman of the critically acclaimed rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, established in 1983, a group known for its eclectic influences and musical styles. Before that, he had fronted the group The Birthday Party in the early 1980s, a band renowned for its highly gothic,^[1][2] challenging lyrics and violent sound influenced by free jazz, blues, and post-punk. In 2006, he formed the garage rock band Grinderman that released its debut the following year. Cave's music is generally characterised by emotional intensity, a wide variety of influences and lyrical obsessions with religion, death, love and violence.^[3]

Upon Cave's induction into the ARIA Hall of Fame, ARIA Awards committee chairman Ed St John said, “Nick Cave has enjoyed—and continues to enjoy—one of the most extraordinary careers in the annals of popular music. He is an Australian artist like Sidney Nolan is an Australian artist—beyond comparison, beyond genre, beyond dispute."^[4]

Youth, education and family[link]

Cave was born in the small town of Warracknabeal in the state of Victoria, Australia, to Dawn Cave (née Treadwell) and Colin Frank Cave. He has two brothers: Tim (b. 1952) and Peter (b. 1954), and a sister, Julie (b. 1959). As a child, he lived in Warracknabeal and then Wangaratta in rural Victoria. His father was an English teacher and administrator, with a love of literature, and his mother was a librarian. Cave's paternal grandfather's surname was originally Landvoigt, he later in his life became known as Frank Jason Cave.^[5][6][7][8]

Raised as an Anglican, Cave sang in the boys choir at Wangaratta Cathedral. He grew to detest the attitudes of small-town Australia, and he was often in trouble with the local school authorities,^[9] so his parents sent him to boarding school at Melbourne's Caulfield Grammar School in 1970. Cave joined the school choir under choirmaster Norman Kaye, and also benefited from having a piano in his home. The following year he became a "day boy" when his family moved to Murrumbeena, a suburb of Melbourne. Cave was 19 when his father was killed in a car accident; at the moment he was informed of this, his mother Dawn Cave was bailing him out of a St Kilda police station for a charge of burglary. Cave would later recall that his father "died at a point in my life when I was most confused", and "the loss of my father created in my life a vacuum, a space in which my words began to float and collect and find their purpose".^[10]

After his secondary schooling, Cave studied painting (Fine Art) at the Caulfield Institute of Technology (now Monash University, Caulfield campus) in 1976, but dropped out in 1977 to pursue music. He also began using heroin around this time.^{[citation needed]} On 28 March 2008, he received an honorary Doctor of Laws from this university.

Music career[link]

Early years and The Birthday Party (1973–83)[link]

In 1973, Cave met Mick Harvey (guitar), Phill Calvert (drums), John Cochivera (guitar), Brett Purcell (bass), and Chris Coyne (saxophone); fellow students at Caulfield Grammar. They founded a band with Cave as singer. Their repertoire consisted of proto-punk cover versions of songs by Lou Reed, David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Roxy Music and Alex Harvey, among others. Later, the line-up slimmed down to four members including Cave's friend Tracy Pew on bass. In 1977, after leaving school, they adopted the name The Boys Next Door and began playing predominantly original material. Guitarist and songwriter Rowland S. Howard joined the band in 1978, expanding to five members.

From 1977 until their dissolution in 1983 (by which time they were known as The Birthday Party) the band explored various styles. They were a part of Melbourne's post-punk music scene in the late 1970s, playing hundreds of live shows in Australia before changing their name to the Birthday Party in 1980 and moving to London, then West Berlin. Cave's Australian girlfriend and muse Anita Lane accompanied them to London. The band were notorious for their provocative live performances which featured Cave shrieking, bellowing and throwing himself about the stage, backed up by harsh pounding rock music laced with guitar feedback. Cave utilised old testament imagery with lyrics about sin, curses and damnation.^[1] The lyrics were full of "American gothic imagery", talking about horror stories.^[1] The single "Release the Bats" with its story about "vampire sex" was "influential" in the emerging "gothic scene".^[1][2] At that time, Cave also became a regular member of a gothic club in London called The Batcave.^[11]

After establishing a cult following in Europe and Australia, The Birthday Party disbanded in 1984. Howard and Cave found it difficult to continue working together and both were rather worn down from alcohol and drug use.

Cave and the Seeds (1984-present)[link]

Cave performing in 1986

The band with Cave as their leader and frontman has released fourteen studio albums. Their most recent album, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! was released on 8 April 2008. Though their sound tends to change considerably from one album to another, the one constant of the band is an unpolished blending of disparate genres, and song structures which provide a vehicle for Cave's virtuosic, frequently histrionic theatrics. NME used the sentence "gothic psycho-sexual apocalypse" to describe the "menace" present in the lyrics of the title track.^[12]

Critics Stephen Thomas Erlewine and Steve Huey write, "With the Bad Seeds, Cave continued to explore his obsessions with religion, death, love, America, and violence with a bizarre, sometimes self-consciously eclectic hybrid of blues, gospel, rock, and arty post-punk, although in a more subdued fashion than his work with the Birthday Party".^[3] Pitchfork Media calls the group one of rock's "most enduring, redoubtable" bands, with an accomplished discography.^[13] A documentary film about the band The Road to God Knows Where/Life at paradiso directed by Uli M Schueppel, about their 1989 tour, was voted in the year 2008, under the 20 best musicmovies of all the time of the reader and journalists of Total Film.

Cave and the band curated an edition of the famous All Tomorrow's Parties music festival, the first in Australia, throughout the country in January 2009.

Solo work and Grinderman[link]

In addition to his performances with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Cave has, since the 1990s, performed live 'solo' tours with himself on piano/vocals, Warren Ellis on violin/accordion and various others on bass and drums. The current trio are Bad Seeds' Martyn P. Casey, Jim Sclavunos and Ellis (nicknamed the Mini-Seeds). In 2006, this line-up, now including Cave on electric guitar, continued his 'solo' tours performing Bad Seeds material.

In the same year three other Bad Seeds, Mick Harvey, Thomas Wydler and James Johnston, undertook Harvey's first 'solo' tours of Europe and Australia performing material from his own albums. Melbourne double bassist Rosie Westbrook completed the quartet.

An album of new material by Cave's 'solo' quartet, now named Grinderman, was released in March 2007.

Nick Cave 'solo' and Grinderman both played at the All Tomorrow's Parties music festival in April 2007. This was Grinderman's first public performance. Bobby Gillespie from Primal Scream accompanied Grinderman on backing vocals and percussion.

In December 2011, after performing at Meredith Music Festival, Cave announced that Grinderman were over.^{[14][dead link]}

Soundtrack involvement[link]

Many of Nick Cave's songs have found their way into movie soundtracks. One of the earliest to feature Cave's distinctive style by incorporating him as part of the movie's music scene—circa 1979—was Dogs in Space, a film by Richard Lowenstein.^[15] Cave performed parts of the Boys Next Door song "Shivers" twice during the film, once on video and once live.

Another early fan of Cave's was German director Wim Wenders, who lists Cave, along with Lou Reed and Portishead, as among his favorites.^[16] Two of Cave's songs were featured in his 1987 film Wings of Desire.^[17] Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds also make a cameo appearance in this film. Two more songs were included in Wenders' 1993 sequel Faraway, So Close!, including the title track. The soundtrack for Wenders' 1991 film Until the End of the World features Cave's "(I'll Love You) Till the End of the World." His most recent production, Palermo Shooting, also contains a Nick Cave song, as does his 2003 documentary The Soul of a Man.^[18]

Cave's songs have also appeared in a number of Hollywood blockbusters and major TV shows. For instance, his "There is a Light" appears on the 1995 soundtrack for Batman Forever, and "Red Right Hand" appeared in a number of films and TV shows, including The X-Files, Dumb & Dumber; Scream, its sequels Scream 2 and 3, and Hellboy (performed by Pete Yorn). In Scream 3, the song was given a reworking with Cave writing new lyrics and adding an orchestra to the arrangement of the track. This version appears on The Bad Seeds B-Sides and Rarities album. The song "People Ain't No Good" was featured in the animated movie Shrek 2, as well as in one of the episodes of the television series The L Word. Cave also sang a cover of The Beatles' "Let It Be," for the 2001 film I Am Sam.

Original material written for movie productions includes the song "To Be By Your Side," for the soundtrack of the 2001 French documentary Le Peuple Migrateur (called Winged Migration in the US). Cave composed the soundtrack for the 2005 film The Proposition with fellow Australian and Bad Seed Warren Ellis. Cave and Ellis once again collaborated on the music for the 2007 film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Also in 2007, Cave and Ellis wrote the soundtrack for the feature documentary The English Surgeon. The duo also provided original music for The Road in 2009 and the soundtrack for the audiobook of Cave's novel The Death of Bunny Munro.^[19]

Most recently, his song "Up Jumped the Devil" was featured in the Remedy-developed 2010 video game Alan Wake.

Cave's song "O Children" was featured in the 2010 movie, though not in the official soundtrack, of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1.

Work with other artists[link]

Nick Cave has also played with Shane MacGowan, in a cover version of Bob Dylan's "Death is Not the End", and Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World". Cave has also performed "What a Wonderful World" live with The Flaming Lips. Cave recorded a cover version of the Pogues song "Rainy Night in Soho", written by MacGowan.

Nick Cave at a solo concert in Mainz, Germany on 11 November 2006.

MacGowan also sings a version of "Lucy", released on B-Sides and Rarities. On 3 May 2008, during the Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! tour Shane MacGowan joined Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds on stage to perform "Lucy" at Dublin Castle in Ireland. Pulp's single "Bad Cover Version" includes on its B-side a cover version by Cave of that band's song "Disco 2000". On the Deluxe Edition of Pulp's Different Class another take of this cover can be found.

In 2000, one of Cave's heroes, Johnny Cash, covered Cave's "The Mercy Seat" on the album American III: Solitary Man, seemingly repaying Cave for the compliment he paid by covering Cash's "The Singer" (originally "The Folk Singer") on his Kicking Against the Pricks album. Cave was then invited to be one of many rock and country artists to contribute to the liner notes of the retrospective The Essential Johnny Cash CD, released to coincide with Cash's 70th birthday. Subsequently, Cave cut a duet with Cash on a version of Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" for Cash's American IV: The Man Comes Around album (2002). A similar duet, the American folk song "Cindy", was released posthumously on the "Johnny Cash: Unearthed" boxset. Cave's song "Let the Bells Ring" is a posthumous tribute to Cash. Cave has also covered the song "Wanted Man" which is best known as performed by Johnny Cash but is a Bob Dylan composition.

In 2004, Cave gave a hand to Marianne Faithfull on the album, Before the Poison. He co-wrote and produced three songs ("Crazy Love", "There is a Ghost" and "Desperanto"), and the Bad Seeds are featured on all of them. He is also featured on "The Crane Wife" (originally by The Decemberists), on Faithfull's 2008 album, Easy Come, Easy Go.

Cave collaborated with the band Current 93 on their album All the Pretty Little Horses, where he sings the title track, a lullaby. For his 1996 album Murder Ballads, Cave recorded "Where The Wild Roses Grow" with Kylie Minogue, and "Henry Lee" with P.J. Harvey.

Cave also took part in the "X-Files" compilation CD with some other artists, where he reads parts from the Bible combined with own texts, like "Time Jesum...", he outed himself as a fan of the series some years ago, but since he does not watch much TV, it was one of the only things he watched. He collaborated on the 2003 single "Bring It On", with Chris Bailey, formerly of the Australian punk group, The Saints. Cave contributed vocals to the song "Sweet Rosyanne", on the 2006 album Catch That Train! from Dan Zanes & Friends, a children's music group.

In 2011, Cave recorded a cover of the Zombies' "She's Not There" with Neko Case, which was used at the end of the first episode of the fourth season of True Blood.

Literary career[link]

Cave released his first book, King Ink, in 1988. It is a collection of lyrics and plays, including collaborations with Lydia Lunch. In 1997, he followed up with King Ink II, containing lyrics, poems, and the transcript of a radio essay he did for the BBC in July 1996, "The Flesh Made Word," discussing in biographical format his relationship with Christianity.

Cave reading from The Death of Bunny Munro in New York City, 2009.

While he was based in West Berlin, Cave started working on what was to become his debut novel, And the Ass Saw the Angel (1989). Significant crossover is evident between the themes in the book and the lyrics Cave wrote in the late stages of the Birthday Party and the early stage of his solo career. "Swampland", from Mutiny, in particular, uses the same linguistic stylings ('mah' for 'my', for instance) and some of the same themes (the narrator being haunted by the memory of a girl called Lucy, being hunted like an animal, approaching death and execution). On 21 January 2008, a special edition of Cave's novel And the Ass Saw the Angel was released.^[20] Cave's second novel The Death of Bunny Munro was published on 8 September 2009 by Harper Collins books.^[21][22] It tells the story of a sex-addicted salesman, was also released as a binaural audio-book produced by British Artists Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard and an iPhone app.^[23] The book originally started as a screenplay Cave was going to write for John Hillcoat.^[24]

As proof of his interest in scripture, so evident in his lyrics and his prose writing, Cave wrote the foreword to a Canongate publication of the Gospel according to Mark, published in the UK in 1998. The American edition of the same book (published by Grove Press) contains a foreword by the noted American writer Barry Hannah.

Cave and Ellis composed scores for a production by the Icelandic theatre company Vesturport of Woyzeck by Georg Büchner, performed at the Barbican Theatre in the Barbican Arts Centre in London in 2005,^[25] and a stage adaptation of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis at the Lyric Hammersmith in London in 2006.^[26]

Cave is a contributor to the 2009 rock biography on The Triffids Vagabond Holes: David McComb and the Triffids, edited by Australian academics Niall Lucy and Chris Coughran.^[27]

Acting and screenwriting[link]

Cave has made occasional appearances as an actor, most prominently in the 1989 film Ghosts ... of the Civil Dead, written and directed by John Hillcoat, and in the 1991 film Johnny Suede with Brad Pitt.

Cave appeared in the 2005 homage to Leonard Cohen, Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, in which he performed "I'm Your Man" solo, and "Suzanne" with Julie Christensen and Perla Batalla. He also appeared in the 2007 film adaptation of Ron Hansen's novel The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, where he sings a song about Jesse James. Cave and Warren Ellis are credited for the film's soundtrack.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are also featured in Wim Wenders' 1987 film Wings of Desire.

Displaying a keen interest in other aspects of film, Cave wrote the screenplay for The Proposition, a film set in the colonial Australian Outback. Directed by John Hillcoat and filmed in Queensland in 2004, it premiered in October 2005 and has since been released worldwide to critical acclaim.^[28] The movie reviewer for British newspaper The Independent called it "peerless," "a star-studded and uncompromisingly violent outlaw film."^[29] It even features on a website promoting tourism to the area.^[30] The generally ambient soundtrack was recorded by Cave and Warren Ellis.

At the request of friend Russell Crowe, Cave wrote a script for a proposed sequel to Gladiator which was rejected by the studio.^[31]

His interest in the work of Edward Gorey led to his participation in the BBC Radio 3 programme, guest+host=ghost, featuring Peter Blegvad and the radiophonic sound of the Langham Research Centre.^[32]

Cave has also lent his voice in narrating an award winning animated film called The Cat Piano. It was directed by Eddie White and Ari Gibson (of The People's Republic Of Animation), produced by Jessica Brentnall and has music by Benjamin Speed.^[33]

Cave wrote the screenplay for The Wettest County in the World.,^[34] which has been renamed "Lawless", and has completed the script for a new film titled Death of a Ladies' Man and will rewrite the script of The Crow remake.

Currently, Cave is collaborating with Andy Serkis to develop a screen version of the Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht musical, The Threepenny Opera.^[35]

Personal life[link]

Cave dated Anita Lane from the late 1970s to mid 1980s. She had an undeniably strong influence upon Cave and his work, often cited as his "muse".^{[citation needed]} Despite this, Cave and Lane recorded together on only a few occasions. Their most notable collaborations include Lane's 'cameo' verse on Cave's Bob Dylan cover "Death Is Not The End" from the album Murder Ballads, and a cover of the Serge Gainsbourg/Jane Birkin song "Je t'aime, moi non plus/ I love you, nor do I". Lane co-wrote the lyrics to the title track for Cave's 1984 LP, From Her to Eternity, as well as the lyrics of the song "Stranger Than Kindness" from Your Funeral, My Trial. Cave, Lydia Lunch and Lane wrote a comic book together, entitled AS-FIX-E-8, in the style of the old "Pussy Galore"/Russ Meyer movies.

After completing his debut novel And the Ass Saw the Angel, Cave left West Berlin shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall and moved to São Paulo, Brazil, where he met Brazilian journalist Viviane Carneiro. The two have a son, Luke (b. 10 May 1991), but never married. Cave's son Jethro (born in 1991) lives with his mother, Beau Lazenby, in Australia and has a career in modelling.^[36]

Cave briefly dated PJ Harvey during the mid 1990s. The love affair and their break-up inspired him to write the album The Boatman's Call.

He met British model Susie Bick in 1997. A cover star of the Damned's 1985 album Phantasmagoria and a Vivienne Westwood model, she gave up her job when they married in summer 1999. They have twin sons, Arthur and Earl (born in 2000).^[37][38] Cave and Bick lived for some time on a houseboat near Hove. They currently live in Brighton and Hove, England.

Cave performed "Into My Arms" at the televised funeral of Michael Hutchence, but refused to play in front of the cameras. Cave is godfather of Hutchence's only child, Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily.^[39]

In the past, Cave identified as a Christian. In his recorded lectures on music and songwriting, he has claimed that any true love song is a song for God and has ascribed the mellowing of his music to a shift in focus from the Old to the New Testaments. He does not belong to a particular denomination and has distanced himself from "religion as being an American thing, in which the name of God has been hijacked".^[40] He said in a recent Los Angeles Times article: "I'm not religious, and I'm not a Christian, but I do reserve the right to believe in the possibility of a god. It's kind of defending the indefensible, though; I'm critical of what religions are becoming, the more destructive they're becoming. But I think as an artist, particularly, it's a necessary part of what I do, that there is some divine element going on within my songs".^[41]

Discography[link]

Cave performing in 2008

Soundtracks/scores[link]

• And the Ass Saw the Angel, readings of the novel (1988), plus theatre score (1993) – text by Cave, music composed by Harvey and Ed Clayton-Jones
• To Have and to Hold, soundtrack (1996) – composed with Harvey & Bargeld
• Woyzeck, theatre score (2005) – composed with Warren Ellis^[42] (Not available on CD or vinyl.)
• The Proposition, soundtrack (2005) – composed with Ellis
• Metamorphosis, theatre score (2006) – composed with Ellis^[43] (Not available on CD or vinyl.)
• The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, soundtrack (2007) – composed with Ellis
• The English Surgeon, soundtrack (2007) – composed with Ellis^[44] (Not available on CD or vinyl; only available on White Lunar; see below.)
• The Girls of Phnom Penh, soundtrack (2009) – composed with Ellis^[45] (Not available on CD or vinyl; only available on White Lunar; see below.)
• The Death of Bunny Munro, soundtrack (2009) – composed with Ellis^[46]
• The Road, soundtrack (2009) – composed with Ellis^[47] (Soundtrack released in January 12, 2010)^[48]
• White Lunar, soundtrack compilation (2009) – composed with Ellis^[49] (2CDs. Disc one contains high lights from The Proposition, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and The Road. Disc 2 contains work from The English Surgeon and The Girls of Phnom Penh, as well as four unreleased pieces "from the archives".^[50]
• The Metamorphosis, (Forvandlingen- Norwegian national theatre) soundtrack (2012) –

Contributions/appearances[link]

• Die Haut and Nick Cave: Burnin' the Ice (1982), features Nick Cave's vocals on songs 1,3,5,6 (Stow-A-Way, Truck Love, Pleasure Is The Boss, Dumb Europe).
• Smack My Crack (1987), features Nick Cave performing "The Altra Virago Or The Vargus Barking Spider".
• Wings Of Desire (1987), Nick Cave appears in the film, where he performs "The Carny" and "From Her To Eternity".
• "Helpless" single by Neil Young. He did this in 1989 for the Neil Young tribute album The Bridge.
• Leonard Cohen: I'm your Fan (1991), Nick Cave "Tower Of Song".
• Until The End Of The World (1991), Nick Cave "(I'll Love You) Till The End Of The World".
• In Weiter Ferne, So Nah! (aka Faraway So Close!) (1993), Nick Cave "Faraway So Close" and "Cassiel's Song".
• Zero Effect (1994), Nick Cave "Into My Arms".
• Batman Forever soundtrack (1995). Cave contributes the track "There is a Light".
• Scream (1996), Nick Cave "Red Right Hand".
• X-Files Songs In The Key Of X (1996), Nick Cave "Red Right Hand".
• September Songs: The Music of Kurt Weill (1997) produced by Hal Willner. Cave contributes a cover version of "Mack the Knife".
• Nick Cave i Przyjaciele (Nick Cave and Friends) (1991). A tribute album by Polish musicians. Cave appears on tracks 1 & 10. (Into My Arms, The Weeping Song)
• The Acid House (1999), Nick Cave/Barry Adamson "Sweetest Embrace".
• A Tribute to Polnareff, a Tribute album to Michel Polnareff. Nick Cave contributes a cover version of "Goodbye Marylou".
• Ute Lemper's Punishing Kiss (2000). Cave co-wrote (with Bruno Pisek) "Little Water Song".
• He Died With A FelaFel In His Hand (2001) Nick Cave "The Mercy Seat (Live)" & "Into My Arms".
• Intimite (aka Intimacy) (2001), Nick Cave "In The Ghetto".
• "To Be By Your Side" – from the OST for French documentary film Le Peuple Migrateur (2001).
• I Am Sam (2002). Cave contributes a cover version of The Beatles' "Let It Be", which was later issued as a single with a cover version of "Here Comes the Sun" as the B-side.
• "Bad Cover Version" single by Pulp (2002). Cave contributes a cover version of Pulp's "Disco 2000".
• American IV: The Man Comes Around (2003) Duet with Johnny Cash on "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry".
• "Kiss of Love" (duet with Sam Brown) from Jools Holland's 2003 album Small World Big Band Friends 3 – Jack O The Green.
• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds appear on the Martin Scorsese series The Blues (2003) singing J. B. Lenoir's "I Feel So Good".
• Shrek 2 (2004), Nick Cave "People Aint' No Good".
• The Passion Of The Christ - Songs Inspired By (2004), Nick Cave "Darker With The Day".
• Harry Smith Project Vol 1 (2006), Nick Cave "John The Revelator" and Vol 2 "Shine On Me".
• Cave performs "I'm Your Man" and "Suzanne" in the documentary/concert film Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man (2006).
• Q Covered - Best Of 86/06 (2006), Nick Cave sings Pulp's "Disco 2000".
• Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, and Chanteys (2006). Cave contributes the tracks "Fire Down Below" and "Pinery Boy".
• Seasick Steve's song "Just Like A King", from the album I Started Out With Nothin' (2008)includes Cave's vocals.
• Californication Season 2 (2009), Nick Cave "Moonland".
• Mojo Presents The Score 20 Ultra Cool Soundtracks (2009), Nick Cave "Let It Be".
• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds song "Up Jumped The Devil" was featured in the video game Alan Wake. (2010)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 (2010). Cave contributed the song "O Children".
• Leonard Cohen By En Boca De (2011), Nick Cave "Avalanche".
• Trentemoller - Late Night Tales (2011), Nick Cave & Warren Ellis "The Proposition #1".
• Nick Cave joins Neko Case to cover the The Zombies song She's Not There for HBO show True Blood.^[51] (2011)

Spoken-word lectures[link]

• The Secret Life Of The Love Song & The Flesh Made Word: Two Lectures (2000).

Bibliography[link]

• King Ink (1988)
• And the Ass Saw the Angel (1989)
• King Ink II (1997)
• The Pocket Canons: Books of the Bible (1998)
  • Cave wrote the introduction to The Gospel According to Mark.
• Complete Lyrics (2001)
• The Complete Lyrics: 1978-2006 (2007)
• The Death of Bunny Munro (2009)

Awards and honours[link]

• 2012 Doctor of Letters, an honorary degree from the University of Brighton.^[52]
• 2011 Straight to you - Triple j's tribute tour to Nick Cave for his work in Australian music for Ausmusic Month
• 2011 MOJO Awards: Song of the Year for "Heathen Child" by Grinderman
• 2010 made an honorary Doctor of Laws, by University of Dundee.^[53]
• 2008 ARIA Awards Male Artist of the Year (Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!).^[54]
• 2008 MOJO Awards: Best Album of 2008 (Dig, Lazarus Dig!!!).
• 2008 Awarded an Honorary degree as Doctor of Laws, by Monash University.^[55]
• 2007 ARIA Awards ARIA Hall of Fame inductee.^[54]
• 2006 Venice Film Festival: Gucci Award (for the script to The Proposition).
• 2005 Q magazine: Q Classic Songwriter Award.
• 2005 AFI Awards: Best Original Music Score with Warren Ellis (The Proposition).
• 2005 Inside Film Awards: Best Music (The Proposition).
• 2005 Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards: Best Musical Score (The Proposition).
• 2004 MOJO Awards: Best Album of 2004 (Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus).
• 2001 ARIA Awards: Best Male Artist (No More Shall We Part).^[54]
• 2001 APRA Music Awards: "The Ship Song" voted in the Top 30 Best Australian Songs of the previous 75 years.^[56]
• 1997 APRA Music Awards: Songwriter of the year.
• 1997 ARIA Awards: Best Original Soundtrack (To Have and to Hold).^[54]
• 1996 ARIA Awards: Song of the Year & Single of the Year & Best Pop Release ("Where the Wild Roses Grow").^[54]
• 1996 MTV Europe Music Awards: Nick Cave formally requested that his nomination for "Best Male Artist" be withdrawn as he was not comfortable with the "competitive nature" of such awards.
• 1990 Time Out Magazine: Book Of The Year (And the Ass Saw the Angel).

Further reading[link]

• Bad Seed: A Biography of Nick Cave, Ian Johnston (1997) ISBN 0-316-90833-9
• The Life and Music of Nick Cave: An Illustrated Biography, Maximilian Dax & Johannes Beck (1999) ISBN 3-931126-27-7
• Liner notes to the CDs Original Seeds: Songs that inspired Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Kim Beissel (1998 & 2004), Rubber Records
• Kicking Against the Pricks: An Armchair Guide to Nick Cave, Amy Hanson (2005), ISBN 1-900924-96-X
• Nick Cave Stories, Janine Barrand (2007)
• Cultural Seeds: Essays on the Work of Nick Cave, eds. Karen Welberry and Tanya Dalziell (2009) ISBN 0-7546-6395-7
• Nick Cave Sinner Saint: The True Confessions, ed. Mat Snow (2011) ISBN 978-0-85965-448-7

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Nick Cave

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Nick Cave

• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds official website

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. The specific problem is: The article lacks structure and needs more background information (as well as sources).. Please help improve this article if you can; the talk page may contain suggestions. (December 2011)

This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling. You can assist by editing it. (December 2011)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2011)

There are many people in history who are commonly appended with the phrase "the Great", or who were called that or an equivalent phrase in their own language. Other languages have their own suffixes such as e Bozorg and e azam in Persian and Urdu respectively.

In Persia, the title "the Great" at first seems to be a colloquial version of the Old Persian title "Great King". This title was first used by the conqueror Cyrus II of Persia.^[1]

The Persian title was inherited by Alexander III of Macedon (336–323 BC) when he conquered the Persian Empire, and the epithet "Great" eventually became personally associated with him. The first reference (in a comedy by Plautus)^[2] assumes that everyone knew who "Alexander the Great" was; however, there is no earlier evidence that Alexander III of Macedon was called "the Great".

The early Seleucid kings, who succeeded Alexander in Persia, used "Great King" in local documents, but the title was most notably used for Antiochus the Great (223–187 BC).

Later rulers and commanders began to use the epithet "the Great" as a personal name, like the Roman general Pompey. Others received the surname retrospectively, like the Carthaginian Hanno and the Indian emperor Ashoka the Great. Once the surname gained currency, it was also used as an honorific surname for people without political careers, like the philosopher Albert the Great.

As there are no objective criteria for "greatness", the persistence of later generations in using the designation greatly varies. For example, Louis XIV of France was often referred to as "The Great" in his lifetime but is rarely called such nowadays, while Frederick II of Prussia is still called "The Great". A later Hohenzollern - Wilhelm I - was often called "The Great" in the time of his grandson Wilhelm II, but rarely later.

Rulers[link]

• Abbas I of Persia (1571–1629), Shah of Iran
• Akbar (1542–1605), ruler of the Mughal Empire of South Asia, mainly India
• Alain I of Albret (1440–1522), French aristocrat
• Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), King of Macedonia, Persia, Greece, Egypt, and all of Mesopotamia
• Alexander I of Georgia (1386–1446), King of Georgia
• Alfonso III of León (c. 848-910), King of León, Galicia and Asturias
• Alfred the Great (848/849-899), King of Wessex
• Antiochus III the Great (c. 241–187 BC), ruler of the Seleucid Empire
• Ashoka the Great (c. 304–232 BC), Indian emperor of the Maurya dynasty
• Ashot I of Iberia “the Great”(died 826/830), presiding prince of Iberia (modern Georgia),
• Askia Mohammad I (c. 1442–1538), ruler of the Songhai Empire
• Bhumibol Adulyadej (born 1927), King of Thailand
• Bolesław I Chrobry (967-1025), sometimes called "the Great", first King of Poland
• Bruno the Great (925–965), Archbishop of Cologne and Duke of Lotharingia (also listed in the following section)
• Buddha Yodfa Chulaloke (1736–1809), founder and ruler of the Rattanakosin Kingdom (in what is now Thailand)
• Cnut the Great (c. 985 or 995-1035), King of Denmark, England, Norway and parts of Sweden
• Casimir III the Great (1310–1370), King of Poland
• Catherine the Great (1729–1796), Empress of Russia
• Chandragupta II (reigned 375-413/415), also known as Vikramaditya, ruler of the Gupta empire in India
• Charlemagne (died 814), King of the Franks and Emperor of the Romans
• Chulalongkorn (1853–1910), King of Siam (now Thailand)
• Chlothar II (584-629), King of Neustria and King of the Franks
• Conrad, Margrave of Meissen (c. 1097-1157), Margrave of Meissen
• Constantine I (c. 272-337), Roman emperor
• Cyaxares the Great (c. 625-585 BC), third king of Media
• Cyrus the Great (c. 600 BC or 576 BC–530 BC), founder and ruler of the Persian or Achaemenid Empire
• Darius the Great (550 – 486 BC), third ruler of the Persian Empire
• Devapala (died 850), ruler of the Pala Empire in the Indian subcontinent
• Dionysius I, Greek tyrant of Syracuse^[3]
• Ferdinand I of León and Castile (c. 1015–1065), King of León and Count of Castile
• Frederick the Great (1712–1786), King of Prussia
• Genghis Khan (1162?-1227), founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire
• Gero (c. 900–965), ruler of Marca Geronis, a very large march in Europe
• Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden (1594–1632), King of Sweden, founder of the Swedish Empire, and noted military leader
• Gwanggaeto the Great, King of Goguryeo, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea^[4][5]
• Hanno the Great, the name of three leaders of Carthage, in the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd centuries BC
• Henry I, Duke of Burgundy (946–1002)
• Henry IV of France (1553–1610), King of France and King of Navarre
• Herod the Great (73/74 BC-4 BC), King of Judea
• Hugh the Great (898-956), Duke of the Franks and Count of Paris
• Hugh Magnus of France (1007–1025), co-King of France
• Hugh I, Count of Vermandois (1057–1101)
• Humphrey I de Bohun (died c. 1123), Anglo-Norman aristocrat
• Ivan III of Russia (1440–1505), Tsar of Russia
• John I of Portugal (1358–1433), King of Portugal and the Algarve
• John II of Aragon (1398–1479), King of Aragon and, through his wife, King of Navarre
• Justinian I (483-565), Byzantine Emperor
• Kamehameha I (c. 1758-1819), first King of Hawai'i
• Kanishka (died c. 127), ruler of the Kushan Empire in Central Asia and parts of India
• Kvirike III of Kakheti (1010–1029), King of Kakheti in eastern Georgia
• Kublai Khan (1215–1294), Mongol ruler in the 13th century and Emperor of China; founder of the Yuan Dynasty
• Llywelyn the Great (c. 1172–1240), Prince of Gwynedd and de facto ruler of most of Wales
• Louis I of Hungary (1326–1382), King of Hungary, Croatia and Poland
• Mangrai the Great (1238–1317), Lanna, northern Thailand
• Emperor Meiji (1852–1912), Emperor of Japan
• Mircea I of Wallachia (1355–1418)
• Mithridates II of Parthia (died 88 BC), ruler of the Parthian Empire (in present day Iran)
• Mithridates VI of Pontus (134 BC–63 BC), ruler of Pontus and the Bosporan Kingdom
• Mstislav I of Kiev (1076–1132), Grand Prince of Kievan Rus
• Naresuan (1555–1605), King of Ayutthaya
• Narai (1633–1688), King of Ayutthaya (in what is now modern Thailand)
• Odo the Great (died c. 735), Duke of Aquitaine
• Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (912-973)
• K'inich Janaab' Pakal (603-683), ruler of the Mayan city-state of Palenque
• Parakramabahu I of Polonnaruwa (1123–1186), King of Sri Lanka
• Peter Krešimir IV of Croatia (died 1075), King of Croatia
• Peter the Great (1672–1725), Tsar of Russia
• Peter III of Aragon (1239–1285), King of Aragon and King of Sicily
• Pompey (106 BC-48 BC), military and political leader of the late Roman Republic, rival of Julius Caesar
• Radama I (1793–1828), first king of greater Madagascar
• Raja Raja Chola I (c. 947-1014), Indian emperor of the Cholas.^[6][7][8]
• Rajendra Chola I (reigned 1014–1044), Tamil King of India
• Ramesses II (reigned 1279 BC – 1213 BC), considered the greatest pharaoh of Ancient Egypt
• Ram Khamhaeng (around 1237 to 1247-1298), King of Sukhothai (in present day Thailand)
• Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona (1082–1131), also Count of Provence and various other counties
• Rhodri the Great (c. 820–878), King of Gwynedd (in present day Wales)
• Roman the Great (after 1160-1205), Grand Prince of Kiev
• Saladin (c. 1138-1193), Kurdish Sultan of Egypt and Syria, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, and victor over the Crusaders
• Samudragupta (c. 335–375), ruler of the Gupta empire in the Indian subcontinent
• Sancho III of Navarre (c. 992-1035), King of Kingdom of Navarre
• Sargon of Akkad (died c. 2215 BC), ruler of the Akkadian Empire
• Sejong the Great (1397–1450), Korean king^[9]
• Shapur II (309-379), king of the Sassanid Empire, Persia
• Simeon I of Bulgaria (864/865-927), ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire
• Stephen III of Moldavia (1433–1504), Prince of Moldavia (Romania)
• Stephen Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia (c. 1308-1355), King of Serbia and Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks
• Taksin (1734–1782), King of the Thonburi Kingdom (Thailand)
• Tamar (1160-1123), Queen of the Georgian Empire
• Timur (1336–1405), better known as Tamerlane, founder of the Timurid Dynasty
• Theobald II, Count of Champagne (1090–1151), Count of Blois and of Chartres as Theobald IV, Count of Champagne and of Brie
• Theodoric the Great (454-526), King of the Ostrogoths, regent of the Visigoths and a viceroy of the Byzantine Empire
• Theodosius I (347-395), Roman emperor
• Tigranes the Great (140-55 BC), Emperor of Armenia
• Tiridates III of Armenia (285-339), King of Armenia
• Umar (c. 586 to 590–644), second caliph of the Muslim Empire
• Valdemar I of Denmark (1131–1182), King of Denmark
• Valentinian I (364-375), Roman Emperor
• Vladimir I of Kiev (c. 958-1015), ruler of Kievan Rus
• Vytautas (c. 1350-1430), archduke of the Lithuanian Grand Duchy
• William I, Count of Burgundy (1020–1087), Count of Burgandy and Mâcon
• William V, Duke of Aquitaine (969-1030), also Count of Poitou
• Xerxes I (519-465 BC), King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire (Persia)
• Yu the Great (c. 2200-2100 BC), legendary ruler in ancient China

Religious figures[link]

• Abraham the Great of Kashkar (ca. 492-586), monk and saint of the Assyrian Church of the East
• Abraham Kidunaia (died c. 366, hermit, priest, and Christian saint of Mesopotamia
• Albertus Magnus (1193/1206–1280), medieval German philosopher and theologian
• Anthony the Great (c. 251–356), early Christian saint of Egypt
• Babai the Great (c. 551–628), Assyrian church leader
• Basil of Caesarea (330-379), Greek bishop and theologian
• Bruno the Great (925–965), Archbishop of Cologne and Duke of Lotharingia (also listed in the previous section)
• Euthymius the Great (377-473), abbot and Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox saint
• Gertrude the Great (1256-c. 1302), German Benedictine, mystic, theologian and Roman Catholic saint
• Pope Gregory I (c. 540-604)
• Hiyya the Great, 3rd-century rabbi, Palestine
• Pope John Paul II (1920–2005)
• Pope Leo I (c. 391 or 400-461)
• Macarius of Egypt (c. 300-391), Egyptian hermit
• Pope Nicholas I (c. 800-867)
• Photius I of Constantinople (c. 810–c. 893), Eastern Orthodox saint and Patriarch of Constantinople
• William of Maleval (died 1157), founder of the Catholic congregation of Williamites

Other[link]

• Beli Mawr, a figure in medieval Welsh literature and genealogies
• Emmy the Great, folk singer
• Matteo Rosso the Great, Roman politician and father of Pope Nicholas III
• Prokop the Great, Hussite general in Bohemia

See also[link]

• Epithet
• List of monarchs by nickname
• List of nicknames of European Royalty and Nobility: G-I
• James, son of Zebedee, also known as James the Greater, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus
• Ajax (mythology), called Ajax the Greater
• Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, whose common honorific "Mahatma" means "Great Soul"

Notes[link]

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[1]
RapReviews	8/10[2]
Rolling Stone	[3]
The Independent	(Mixed)[4]
Yahoo! Music	7/10[5]

The Platform is the debut album of the West Coast hip hop group Dilated Peoples. It was released in 2000 under the Capitol Records label, and represents a movement of several California underground hip hop artists away from the violence and misogyny of gangsta rap, towards a more traditional, conscious form of rap.

Track listing[link]

Samples[link]

• "So May I Introduce to You (Interlude)"
  • "Put Your Hand In the Hand" by Ocean
  • "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" by Bill Cosby
• "The Platform"
  • "Crane" by Dominic Frontiere
• "No Retreat"
  • "Flower Pot" by Loadstone
• "Guaranteed"
  • "Impeach the President" by The Honeydrippers
  • "I Can't Please You" by Loading Zone
• "Right On"
  • "Memoirs of the Traveler" by The Jaggerz
• "Service"
  • "Soul Lady" by Don Sebesky
  • "At The Fair" by The Counts
• "Ear Drums Pop"
  • "La Ballata Di Hank McCain (The Ballad of Hank McCain)" by Ennio Morricone
• "Expanding Man"
  • "Busy Aggregation" by Johnny Pearson
  • "D Original" by Jeru the Damaja
• "The Last Line of Defense"
  • "Is Anyone There?" by Hookfoot
• "Triple Optics"
  • "Funky to the Bone" by Freddi/Henchi and the Soulsetters
  • "Light My Life" by Tammi Lynn
• "Work The Angles"
  • "The Big Boss" by Peter Thomas and Wang Fu Ling
  • "Resolution" by Mahavishnu Orchestra

Chart performance[link]

Singles[link]

References[link]

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. Tagged since January 2010. It may need to be rewritten entirely to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards. Tagged since May 2009.

Alexander Britton "Brit" Hume (born June 22, 1943) is an American political commentator and television journalist. For twenty years he was a correspondent for the American Broadcasting Company, including Chief White House Correspondent. He then spent ten years as the Washington, D.C. managing editor of the Fox News Channel and the anchor of Special Report with Brit Hume. Since 2008, he has been the senior political analyst for Fox News and a regular public affairs panelist on Fox News Sunday.

Early life[link]

Alexander Britton Hume was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Virginia Powell (née Minnigerode) Hume and George Graham Hume. He attended St. Albans School at the same time as Al Gore and graduated from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia, with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1965.^[1][2]

Career[link]

Hume first worked for The Hartford Times, and later for United Press International and the Baltimore Evening Sun.^[3] He then worked for syndicated columnist Jack Anderson from 1970 to 1972,^[4] and later for Richard Pollak, founding editor of [MORE] (a monthly media review published in the 1970s), as a Washington Editor during the mid-1970s.

Hume reported a story for Anderson's "Washington Merry-Go-Round" column that after ITT Corporation had contributed $400,000 to the 1972 Republican National Convention the Nixon Department of Justice had settled the antitrust case against ITT. Anderson published a series of classified documents indicating the Nixon administration, contrary to its public pronouncements, had tilted in favor of Pakistan during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. After those revelations, Anderson and his staff, including Hume and his family were briefly under surveillance by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1972.^[5][6] The agents code-named Hume "eggnog" and observed his family going about their daily business. These documents came to light during the Ford administration during Congressional hearings, and more recently as the result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit and the so-called 'Family Jewels' revelations.

Hume started working for ABC News in 1973 as a consultant and in 1976 was offered a job as a correspondent, covering the House for 11 years. He was assigned to cover Walter Mondale's presidential campaign in 1984 and Vice President George H.W. Bush's 1988 presidential campaign. In 1989, he became ABC's chief White House correspondent,^[3] covering the administrations of Bush and Bill Clinton and working closely with Peter Jennings and Charlie Gibson.^[7]

In January 1997, he left ABC for Fox News, where his wife had recently become the chief of the network's Washington bureau.^[3] At his last news conference as ABC's chief White House correspondent, President Clinton told him, "I think all of us think you have done an extraordinary, professional job under Republican and Democratic administrations alike."^[7] Hume became Fox News's Washington managing editor and was in discussions about starting a Washington-based news show in the 6 p.m. timeslot. The Lewinsky scandal broke in January 1998, and Hume's wife told him the story was so hot that he should start the show immediately; Special Report with Brit Hume was launched that evening.^[7]

On December 16, 2008, Hume appeared as a guest on The O'Reilly Factor and announced his retirement from the anchor position. When asked how he would spend his time in retirement, Hume stated "Three Gs: God, granddaughters and golf."

On December 23, 2008, he hosted his final episode as anchor of Special Report, announcing that Bret Baier, then the chief White House correspondent for Fox News, would be his replacement. Hume also announced that he would remain with Fox News as a senior political analyst and regular panelist on Fox News Sunday.

On January 3, 2010, Hume generated some controversy when on Fox News Sunday he advised embattled golfer Tiger Woods to convert to Christianity to attempt to get his life back on track. Hume's comments came in the wake of the revelation of Woods' habitual adultery and the resulting deterioration of his relationship with his family. Hume stated on the show that:^[8]

Tiger Woods will recover as a golfer. Whether he can recover as a person I think is a very open question, and it's a tragic situation for him. I think he's lost his family, it's not clear to me if he'll be able to have a relationship with his children, but the Tiger Woods that emerges once the news value dies out of this scandal – the extent to which he can recover – seems to me to depend on his faith. He's said to be a Buddhist; I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, 'Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.'

Hume reiterated his remarks the following day on The O'Reilly Factor with Bill O'Reilly. Hume insisted to O'Reilly that he never meant to insult Buddhism, and stated that:^[9]

I was really meaning to say in those comments yesterday more about Christianity than I was about anything else. I mentioned the Buddhism only because his mother is a Buddhist and he has apparently said that he is a Buddhist. I’m not sure how seriously he practices that.

Hume gave reason for his strong feelings on Christianity in an interview where he explained how he committed his life to Jesus Christ "in a way that was very meaningful" to him in the aftermath of his son's death by suicide in 1998.^[10]

Political beliefs[link]

Regarding his political beliefs, in 2006 Hume said, "Sure, I'm a conservative, no doubt about it. But I would ask people to look at the work."^[7] In accepting the William F. Buckley, Jr. Award for Media Excellence from the conservative Media Research Center, he expressed his gratitude for

the tremendous amount of material that the Media Research Center provided me for so many years when I was anchoring Special Report. I don't know what we would have done without them. It was a daily, sort of a buffet of material to work from, and we – we – we certainly made tremendous use of it.^[11]

Personal life and religious views[link]

Previously married to and divorced from Clare Jacobs Stoner, Hume is married to Kim Schiller Hume, Fox News vice president and former Washington bureau chief.^[12][13]

His son Washington journalist Sandy Hume was a reporter for The Hill and broke the story of the aborted 1997 coup against Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. In February 1998, Sandy Hume committed suicide. The National Press Club honors his memory with its annual Sandy Hume Memorial Award for Excellence in Political Journalism.^[7][14][15] Over a decade later, upon his 2008 departure from Special Report, Hume commented on part of the impact of his son's death:^[16]

"I want to pursue my faith more ardently than I have done. I'm not claiming it's impossible to do when you work in this business. I was kind of a nominal Christian for the longest time. When my son died, I came to Christ in a way that was very meaningful to me. If a person is a Christian and tries to face up to the implications of what you say you believe, it's a pretty big thing. If you do it part time, you're not really living it."

Awards[link]

Hume is the recipient of several awards including:^[17]

• Sol Taishoff Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalist (2003)
• Emmy Award for coverage of the Gulf War (1991)
• American Journalism Review "Best in the Business" award (twice) for White House coverage

Books[link]

• Hume, Brit (1971). Death and the Mines – Rebellion and Murder in the United Mine Workers. New York: Grossman. ISBN 0-670-26105-X. http://lccn.loc.gov/75106294. Retrieved 2008-12-31. 
• Hume, Brit (1974). Inside Story (1st ed.). Garden City, New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-06526-4. http://lccn.loc.gov/73083640. Retrieved 2008-12-31.  (a memoir of his days working with Jack Anderson)

References[link]

Specific references:

General references:

External links[link]

• Biography from Fox News
• C-SPAN Q&A interview with Hume, July 20, 2008