"Who was it who did it before Marvin Gaye? They did it slower and more piano-driven. But I knew this version first and you could see the difference, how this version took the earlier version and streamlined it, sped it up, made it groovier, those kinds of things. When I first heard it, I had not heard anything quite as funky. The groove is just incredible, which has a lot do with the bass line. It's fantastically cool and sexy. A friend of mine from years ago was a barrister. He was trying to tell me The Beatles were fantastic. And I was trying to tell him the trouble with The Beatles was they don't groove. And he said, ""What is groove?"", like a typical magistrate. I said, ""Listen to 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine. That's groove."" It's like trying to explain, without pointing, what the colour red is."

"I guess anyone who's read any sort of Nick Cave book will tell you this story, but when they finished this record his girlfriend at the time, Anita Lane, did the painting for the sleeve and he thought it was really, really shit but he let it be the cover anyway. But I like it. I'm a sucker for painted roses for some reason. When I was first in The Horrors, The Birthday Party were definitely one band that we all collectively liked, other than 60s garage bands. They are a fantastic band. In terms of Birthday Party-related things though, I think one of my favourites is Rowland Howard's first solo album called Teenage Snuff Film, but that isn't an illustrated cover so I didn't include it. But Rowland Howard is one of my favourite guitarists and that's probably what I liked most about The Birthday Party."