I recently fell out of love with Nick Cave. I’m now in the process of falling back in love with him again.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds were the musical epiphany for me, the first band that actually spoke to my soul. Before that I’d had a passing love of Gorillaz but beyond that my knowledge of music was limited to musicals and film soundtracks. In many ways it still is.
But Cave spoke to me, as I know he’s spoken to many within the Sad Bastard genre of music fans. If you like Cave, there’s a good chance you may also like Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits, PJ Harvey, Elvis Costello, Johnny Cash, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. These are artists known for their lyricism; with sometimes simple music transformed by powerful and heart-wrenching poetry. Folk singers with guitars, hard rockers with edge, oddballs with microphones.
In the years following my discovery of Cave and his work, I discovered all of these artists, and all of music really, although I’m always keen to fill the blanks of my knowledge. There’s so much out there and only my laziness limits me.
Things have been bad lately. I’ve struggled to give a damn about myself and about much of anything. One brief period of excitement last year ended as quickly as it began, and I was returned to the tedious world I’m in now. Unemployment has become minimum wage employment, and while I’m encouraged by the fact that I actually have money now, I’m under no delusions that I’m not relatively fucked.
This downward turn coincided with my falling out of love with Nick Cave. The poetry no longer spoke to me, hell I’m still struggling to listen to it now. My mind is so full of thoughts completely unconcerned with art that I wonder why I bother? I wonder sometimes if something’s wrong with me? If something within me has died?
I think of film, and my passion for it, and recall my reaction to the most recent Oscar season. “Eh.” Is that just my usual cynicism towards Oscar films? I hope so, but I’m scared that it’s something else, that I just don’t have any enthusiasm for art anymore.
Social media hasn’t helped. I made a joke on my Facebook profile lately about how something needs a ton of “Likes” for me to like it, and that has definitely effected my reaction to things. Public perception of things seems to control my brain, and anything that doesn’t pass muster doesn’t fly. Criticism of artists especially breaks me down.
There’s a controversy about Nick Cave involving Israel, in that he’s performed there when other musicians have boycotted it in response to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Do I boycott him as well? Part of me, and a ton of Twitter drones tell me, that I should. But his music has brought so much to me, it’s changed me as a person, it’s not something I can just “boycott”. I’m very lucky that this is the only real issue with Cave (that I know of, anyway). I’m certainly not in the same spot as fans of R. Kelly or Michael Jackson.
But it’s that pathetic nagging voice in my head, and as I said it’s effected everything. I’m so conscious of enjoying anything because I feel like I’ll be judged for it. I’m very right to be paranoid about this because people ARE judged for it. Hell even just mentioning that I’m bothered by the Israeli-Palestinian crisis will raise eyebrows amongst certain kinds of (disingenuous) people. It’s made me scared to look up anything anymore, to hear anyone’s opinion on things I enjoy, not because I’m against them having that opinion, but rather because it will change MINE. I don’t want to stop listening to Nick Cave. I still want to enjoy the Thriller music video.
It’s absurd of course, but I think in this last miserable year where I’ve had no direction and very little focus, I’ve struggled to anchor myself to anything. I barely read any books last year, didn’t really see many films I was invested in, and didn’t listen to ANY new music. I just didn’t have the heart anymore. I was, and am, too cynical, too tired, and too knowledgable of the world and everyone’s thoughts on everything.
So it bled into my love for Nick Cave, or rather his music. He’s just some shitty middle aged man who bitches about feminism and identity politics as much as any shitty middle aged whiny prick. Why should I give him the time of day?
Well, because he’s an artist. A human being with an extraordinary life and a beautiful, unapologetic talent for the art of songwriting. I love his collaborators, Warren Ellis, Blixa Bargeld, Mick Harvey, (I’m so glad I saw Conway Savage perform live before he died). I love Nick’s grumpy black sense of humour, and cheshire cat-grinning comedy. Some fans balk at him rhyming “Orpheus” and “orifice” but those fans are BORING. I’m that one dipshit who likes Nocturama, and not just because the “Babe, I’m On Fire” music video is amazing. Grinderman is a glorious and hilarious ode to masculinity and sexuality, and Murder Ballads is the greatest collection of well, murder ballads anyone will ever hear. At the same time, his work is always tinged with such gentle sorrow as to rip away at your being until there’s nothing left between you. The piano keys of “The Sorrowful Wife” move me to tears even now while writing this, and the harmonica of “Watching Alice” leaves me vibrant with longing for a nostalgia I’ll never have. “Skeleton Tree” is permanently etched into my mind, its strange almost-Lynchian tableaus of jittery TVs and empty skies leaving me feel numb and void and utterly content. He is an artist, and like all artists his art either speaks to you, or it doesn’t.
Writing this is therapy for me, of course, reminding me why I love this band (and Grinderman, and The Birthday Party). It’s what I hope will be a kick in the bollocks to finally take charge of myself again, to stop using my unemployment day’s excuse of, “I’ve got no money” as a way of avoiding experiencing anything new. I’m in a new place in my life, and I can’t keep pushing things back. I’m not at school or university anymore. There’s no future except the one I create for myself, with literally nothing in my way between now and death (whenever that will be).
I’m falling back into love with Nick Cave, because the reasons why I fell out of love were spurious and ridiculous to begin with, and because my relationship with his music is more important than other people’s feelings about it. I allowed the outside world to influence what is always meant to be a deeply personal and defining relationship. Even as Big Brother very much does focus his eye ever more tightly on our cybernetic world, I cannot act like he is always watching me and judging me for everything I do and love. I can accept that people don’t like Nick Cave, and might even despise him for whatever reason, but that shouldn’t ever matter. I love Nick Cave. I love music. I love movies, and reading, and art, and I should finally stop fucking around, and return to loving them. It’s the only way to get back on track.
Brooking The Vault 