The Firstborn Is Dead is the second studio album by the Australian rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, released on 3 June 1985 by Mute Records.

Produced by the band and Flood, the album saw lead vocalist Nick Cave continue his fascination with the Southern United States, featuring references to Elvis Presley and bluesmen like Blind Lemon Jefferson.

We'd lived in London for three years and it seemed that if you stuck your head out of the box, people were pretty quick to knock it back in.

Spin wrote, "Mournfully authentic blue lines of harmonica and guitar, journeys through a mythical southern reality heavy on train wrecks, suicides, prison life, and big black crows.

Cave's concept of America has been peeled from the grooves of old blues and Western cowboy 78s.