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Nick Cave
Cave in New York City, 2009
Background information
Birth name	Nicholas Edward Cave
Born	22 September 1957 (1957-09-22) (age 52) Warracknabeal, Victoria, Australia
Genres	Post-punk, alternative rock, garage rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, writer, actor
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, 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 1984, 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 dark, 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, America, and violence."^[1]

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."^[2]

Nick Cave currently lives in Brighton and Hove, England.

Youth and education

Cave was born in the small town of Warracknabeal in the state of Victoria, Australia, to Dawn and Colin 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, Australia. His father Colin was an English teacher and administrator, with a love of literature, and his mother was a librarian. Raised as an Anglican, Cave sang in the boys choir at Wangaratta Cathedral. However, Cave grew to detest the attitudes of small-town Australia, and he was often in trouble with the local school authorities,^[3] 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".^[4]

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. On March 28, 2008 he received an honorary Doctor of Laws from this university.

Music career

Early years and The Birthday Party (1973–84)

In 1973, Cave met Mick Harvey (guitar), Tracy Pew (bass) and Phill Calvert (drums); 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. 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.

From 1977 until their dissolution in 1984 (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.

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.

Current career with The Bad Seeds (since 1984)

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.

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".^[1] Pitchfork Media calls the group one of rock's "most enduring, redoubtable" bands, with an accomplished discography.^[5]

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

In addition to his performances with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Cave has, since the '90s, 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.

Soundtrack involvement

Many of Cave's songs have found their way into movie soundtracks. An early fan was German director Wim Wenders, who lists him, along with Lou Reed and Portishead among his favorites.^[6] Two of Cave's songs were featured in his 1987 film Wings of Desire.^[7] 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.^[8]

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 will also be providing original music for The Road in 2009 and the soundtrack for the audiobook of Cave's novel The Death of Bunny Munro. ^[9]

Work with other artists

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 in fact 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.

In the 1980s he sang some tracks for the instrumentally based band "Die Haut" from Germany, like "Pleasure is the boss". The drummer of the Bad Seeds, Thomas Wydler, is a member of the group "Die Haut".

Cave as well 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.

Cave collaborated on the 2003 single "Bring It On", with Chris Bailey, formerly of the seminal 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.

Literary career

Cave released his first book King Ink, in 1988. It is a collection of lyrics and plays, including collaborations with American enfant terrible 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.^[10] Cave's second novel, The Death of Bunny Munro was published on the 8th of September 2009.^[11]

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,^[12] and a stage adaptation of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis at the Lyric Hammersmith in London in 2006.

Acting and screenwriting

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 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.^[13] The movie reviewer for British newspaper The Independent called it "peerless," "a star-studded and uncompromisingly violent outlaw film."^[14] It even features on a website promoting tourism to the area.^[15] 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.^[16]

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.^[17]

Cave has also completed the script for a new film titled "The Death of a Ladies Man"

Personal life

Cave dated Anita Lane from the late '70s to mid '80s. She had an undeniably strong influence upon Cave and his work, often cited as his "muse." 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/ 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.^[18]

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.

Cave met his current partner, British model Susie Bick and they married in summer 1999. They have twin sons, Arthur and Earl (born in 2000).^[19][20] Cave and Bick lived for some time on a houseboat near Hove. He now lives with his family in Hove.

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.^[21]

In the past, Cave claimed he was 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 complained about how God has been "hijacked" by politicians.^[22] However, in an interview in the Guardian in 2009, he said: "Do I personally believe in a personal God? No".^[23]

Discography

Soundtracks/scores

• Ghosts... of the Civil Dead, soundtrack (1988) – composed with Mick Harvey & Blixa Bargeld
• 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^[24]
• The Proposition, soundtrack (2005) – composed with Ellis
• Metamorphosis, theatre score (2006) - composed with Ellis^[25]
• The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, soundtrack (2007) – composed with Ellis
• The English Surgeon, soundtrack (2007) - composed with Ellis^[26]
• The Death of Bunny Munro, soundtrack (2009) – composed with Ellis^[27]
• The Road, soundtrack (2009) – composed with Ellis^[28]

Contributions/appearances

• Die Haut and Nick Cave: Burnin' the Ice (1982), features Nick Cave's vocals on 4 songs.
• September Songs: The Music of Kurt Weill produced by Hal Willner. Cave contributes a cover of "Mack the Knife".
• Nick Cave i Przyjaciele (Nick Cave and Friends) (2001). A tribute album by Polish musicians. Cave appears on tracks 1 & 10.
• I Am Sam (2002). Cave contributes a cover of The Beatles' "Let It Be", which was later issued as a single with a cover of "Here Comes the Sun" as the B-side.
• "Kiss of Love" (duet with Sam Brown) from Jools Holland's 2003 album Small World Big Band Friends 3 - Jack O The Green.
• Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, and Chanteys (2006). Cave contributes the tracks "Fire Down Below" and "Pinery Boy".
• "Bad Cover Version" single by Pulp. Cave contributes a cover of Pulp's song "Disco 2000".
• "Helpless" single by Neil Young. He did this in 1989 for the Neil Young tribute album The Bridge.
• American IV: The Man Comes Around (2003) Duet with Johnny Cash on "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry".
• Batman Forever soundtrack - contributes the track "There is a Light"
• Ute Lemper's Punishing Kiss. Cave co-wrote (with Bruno Pisek) "Little Water Song".
• "To be by your side" - from the OST for French documentary film Le Peuple Migrateur (2001).
• Cave performs "I'm Your Man" and "Suzanne" in the documentary/concert film Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man (2005).
• Seasick Steve's song "Just Like A King" includes Cave's vocals
• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds appear on the Martin Scorsese series The Blues singing J. B. Lenoir's "I Feel So Good"

Other

• The Secret Life of the Love Song - a spoken word lecture by Cave.

Books by Nick Cave

• King Ink. Los Angeles: 2.13.61, 1988. ISBN 1-880985-08-X.
• And the Ass Saw the Angel Los Angeles: 2.13.61, 1989. ISBN 1-880985-72-1.
• King Ink II. Los Angeles: 2.13.61, 1997. ISBN 2-84261-053-9.
• Introduction to The Pocket Canons Bible Series: Authorised King James Version: The Gospel According to Mark. Edinburgh: Canongate, 1998. ISBN 0-86241-796-1.
• Complete Lyrics. London: Penguin, 2001. ISBN 0-14-100515-7.
• The Death of Bunny Munro. 2009

Awards and honours

• 2008 ARIA Awards Male Artist of the Year (Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!).^[29]
• 2008 MOJO Awards: Best Album of 2008 (Dig, Lazarus Dig!!!).
• 2008 Awarded an Honorary degree as Doctor of Laws, by Monash University.^[30]
• 2007 ARIA Awards ARIA Hall of Fame inductee.^[29]
• 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).^[29]
• 2001 APRA Music Awards: "The Ship Song" voted in the Top 30 Best Australian Songs of the previous 75 years.^[31]
• 1997 APRA Music Awards: Songwriter of the year.
• 1997 ARIA Awards: Best Original Soundtrack (To Have and to Hold).^[29]
• 1996 ARIA Awards: Song of the Year & Single of the Year & Best Pop Release ("Where the Wild Roses Grow").^[29]
• 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

• Bad Seed: A Biography of Nick Cave, Ian Johnston (1997) ISBN 0316908339
• 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 978-0-7546-8395-9

References

External links

• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds official website
• nick-cave.com unofficial website
• Nick Cave at the Internet Movie Database
• Nick Cave at Last.fm
• The Proposition at the Internet Movie Database
• Nick Cave in the Yahoo! Directory
• Nick Cave receives honorary Monash degree
• Nick Cave interview and article by Tony DuShane for Crawdaddy
• September 2008 interview in L.A. RECORD

From Wikiquote

Nick Cave (born 22 September 1957) is an Australian musician, songwriter, poet, author and actor.

Sourced

God and religion

• God has matured. He is not the impulsive, bowelless being of the Testaments - the vehement glorymonger, with His bag of cheap carny tricks and his booming voice - the fiery huckster with his burning bushes and his wonder wands. Nowadays God knows what He wants and He knows who He wants.
  • Euchrid Eucrow in Cave's novel And the Ass Saw the Angel (1988)
• My responsibility as an artist is to turn up at the page or the piano or the microphone. The rest is up to God.
  • The Daily Telegraph (Novevember 20, 1997)
• The actualising of God through the medium of the love song remains my prime motivation as an artist.
  • Given during a lecture at the Vienna Poetry Festival (1998)
• Of course I doubt [the existence of God], I would distrust anybody who didn't doubt. But I'm a believer. I have an understanding and belief in the divinity of things. It seems to me that people look at God in the wrong way. They think that God is there to serve them, but it's the other way around. God isn't some kind of cosmic bell-boy to be called upon to sort things out for us. It's important for us to realise that God has given us the potential to sort things out on our own.
  • Observer (May, 1998)
• Oh, a passing, skeptical kind of interest. I'm a hammer-and-nails kind of guy.
  • Cave on his interest in Eastern and nontheistic spirituality
• The concept of God in America is very different than it is in England. Because we see the horrendous outcome of religion as being an American thing, in which the name of God has been hijacked by a gang of psychopaths and bullies and homophobes, and the name of God has been used for their own twisted agendas. So that if you mention God, or a belief in God, in England, it's almost automatically associated with that kind of thinking. Religion's gotten a really bad name.
  • "The resurrection of Nick Cave", Salon (November 18, 2004)
• Although I've never been an atheist, there are periods when I struggled with the whole thing. As someone who uses words, you need to able to justify your belief with language, I'd have arguments and the atheist always won because he'd go back to logic. Belief in God is illogical, it's absurd. There's no debate. I feel it intuitively, it comes from the heart, a magical place. But I still I fluctuate from day to day. Sometimes I feel very close to the notion of God, other times I don't. I used to see that as a failure. Now I see it as a strength, especially compared to the more fanatical notions of what God is. I think doubt is an essential part of belief.
  • Mojo (January, 2005)
• God is in everything whether I’m mentioning him or not.
  • Cave's response to an interviewer calling Grinderman a "secular record"
  • "The Daily Grind", HARP Magazine (May, 2007)
• The brutality of the Old Testament inspired me, the stories and grand gestures. I wrote that stuff up and it influenced the way I saw the world. What I'm trying to say is I didn't walk around in a rage thinking God is a hateful god. I was influenced by looking at the Bible, and it suited me in my life vision at the time to see things in that way. .... After a while I started to feel a little kinder and warmer to the world, and at the same time started to read the New Testament.
  • "Interview with Old Nick", The Guardian (February 23, 2008)
• If you're involved with imagination and the creative process, it's not such a difficult thing to believe in a God. But I'm not involved in any religions, and I've never intended to make religious records or records that preach some kind of point of view.
  • "Interview with Nick Cave", musicOMH (March, 2008)

Ageing and death

• The thing about being young is that you think you're the final product of evolution. You are invincible. And nothing can hurt you. And people don't count. Ah, the solipsism of youth.
  • Melody Maker (May, 1997)

Love and relationships

• I don't particularly believe all love is doomed. But I guess, one is usually kinda suffering from some aborted love affair or association, rather than being at the peak of one. I think it's fairly obvious that a lot more suffering goes on in the name of love than the little happiness you can squeeze out of it. But I wouldn't like to dwell on it. Perhaps you could lighten up a bit.
  • Blissed Out: The Raptures of Rock, by Simon Reynolds (1988)
• Love is a state that I would like to exist in continuously.
  • The Daily Telegraph (November 20, 1997)

Drugs

Politics, society and humanity

• My social conscience is fairly limited in a lot of ways; there's not much I'm angry about that doesn't affect me quite directly. But the prison system- not particularly capital punishment- but the penal system as it is, and the whole apparatus of judgement, people deciding on other people's fates... that does irritate, and upset me quite a lot. What angers me about the system goes beyond the unreliability of "proof"... it's that the way criminals are dealt with has nothing to do with rehabilitation and readjusting people who've stepped outside society's norms. The same goes for mental institutions and so forth. But it's also the very idea of someone being judged "criminal" or "insane" because they're unable to fit into what a corrupt society considers "social" or "sociable".
• I think there's a certain numbness in modern society, that accepts certain kinds of violence, but represses other kinds of violence.
• I'd rather see what makes me different as something almost congenital. And I have these inklings that what you commit or endure in this world, relates to some kind of justice or balance. Maybe if you get a bad deal in this world, it is because of something you did, or were, in a previous life. Which is why I don't feel sorry for the poor.
  • Blissed Out: The Raptures of Rock, by Simon Reynolds (1988)

Song lyrics

Prayers on Fire (1981)

Zoo-Music Girl

• The sound is beautiful, it's perfect!
  The sound of her young legs in stockings,
  The rhythm of her walk, it's beautiful!
  Just let it twist, let it break,
  Let it buckle, let it bend,
  I want to hear the noise of my Zoo-Music Girl.
• My body is a monster driven insane,
  My heart is a fish toasted in flames.
• Oh! God! Please let me die beneath her fists!

Nick the Stripper

• Nick the Stripper,
  Hideous to the eye,
  Hideous to the eye,
  He's a fat little insect,
  A fat little insect,
  And oooooooh! Here we go again.

King Ink

• King Ink strolls into town...
  He sniffs around.
• Express thyself! Say something loudly! Aaaaaaah!
  What's in that room, Sonny?
• King Ink feels like a bug,
  Swimming in a soup-bowl.
• Oh! Yer! What a wonderful life! Fats Domino on the radio!

A Dead Song

• Hit it! With words like Blood, Soldier and Mother...

Just You and Me

• I tried to kill it in my bed,
  I gagged it with a pillow,
  But awoke the nuns inside my head.

Junkyard (1982)

She's Hit

• Pilgrim gets 1 hacked daughter,
  And all we get are 40 hacked reporters,
  Uptown 100 skirts are bleeding,
  And the Mr. Evangilist says She's hit, ev'ry little bit.

Junkyard

• I am the king! I am the king! I am the king!
  One dead marine through the hatch,
  Scratch and scrape this heavenly body,
  Every inch of winning skin,
  Honey Honey Honey Honey Honey, come and kiss me-e-e-e-e-e!

Release the Bats

• My baby is alright,
  She doesn't mind a bit of dirt,
  She says 'Horror vampire bat bite, sex vampire, how I wish those bats would bite',
  Woooooah! Bite! Bite! Release the bats!
  

From Her to Eternity (1984)

Cabin Fever!

• The Captain's fore-arm like buncht-up rope,
  With Anita wrigglin' free onto skull n' dagger,
  And a portrait of Christ, nailed to an anchor,
  Etched into the upper...
• Tallys up his loneliness, notch by notch,
  For the sea offers nuthin' to hold or touch.

Well of Misery

• Along crags and sunless cracks I go,
  Up rib of rock, down spine of stone,
  I dare not slumber where the right winds whistle,
  Lest her creeping-soul clutch this heart of thistle.
• Put ya shoulder to the handle, if ya dare, and hoist that bucket hither,
  Crank'n'hoist'n'hoist'n'crank, till ya muscles waste'n'wither.
• O the same God that abandon'd her,
  Has in turn abandon'd me,
  Deep in the Desert of Despair,
  I wait at the Well of Misery.

From Her to Eternity

• O ah hear her walkin',
  Walkin' barefoot 'cross the floor-boards,
  All thru this lonesome night,
  And ah hear her crying too.
  Hot-tears come splashin' down,
  Leaking thru the cracks,
  Down upon my face, ah catch'em in my mouth!
  
• Ah read her diary on her sheets,
  Scrutinizin' every lil' piece of dirt,
  Tore out a page'n'stufft it inside my shirt.
  Fled outa the window,
  And shinning it down the vine,
  Outa her night-mare, and back into mine.

Saint Huck

'O come to me!, O come to me!' is what the dirty city say to Huck.

• 'O come to me!, O come to me!' is what the dirty city say to Huck.
• Straight in the arms of the city goes Huck,
  Down the beckonin' streets of op-po-tunity,
  Whistling his favorite river-song...
  And a bad-blind nigger at the piano puts a sinister blooo lilt into that sing-a-long,
  Huck senses something's wrong!
• The mo-o-o-on, its huge cycloptic eye,
  Watches the city streets contract, twist and cripple and crack.
  
• O you recall the song ya used to sing-a-long,
  Shifting the river-trade on that ol' steamer,
  Life is but a dream!

A Box for Black Paul

• When ya done ransackin' his room,
  Grabbin' any-damn-thing that shines,
  Throw the scraps down on the street,
  Like all his books and his notes.
  All his books and his notes and all the junk that he wrote,
  The whole fucken lot goes right up in smoke.
• Here is the hammer, that build the scaffold, and built the box...
• From the words and the thickets,
  Come the ghosts of his victims,
  'We love you!'
  'Ah love you!'
  This will not hurt a bit.
• Death favours those that favour death.
• Ah've cried one thousand tears, it's true.

The Firstborn Is Dead (1985)

Tupelo

• Looka yonder! Looka yonder! A big black cloud come!
• In a clap-board shack with a roof of tin,
  Where the rain came down and leaked within,
  A young mother frozen on a concrete floor,
  With a bottle and a box and a cradle of straw.
• Well saturday gives what sunday steals,
  And a child is born on his brother's heels,
  Come sunday morn the first-born is dead,
  In a shoebox tied with a ribbon of red.
• Tupelo-o-o! Hey, Tupelo! You will reap just what you sow.

Black Crow King

• I just made a simple gesture,
  They jumped up and nailed it to my shadow,
  My gesture was a hooker,
  You know, my shadow's made of timber.
• I am the black crow king,
  Keeper of the forgotten corn,
  The King!

Knockin' on Joe

• O Warden, I surender to you,
  Your fists cain't hurt me anymore,
  You know, these hands will never wash,
  These dirty Death Row floors.
• O You kings of halls and ends of halls,
  You will die within these walls,
  And I'll go, all down the row,
  Knockin' on Joe.

Blind Lemon Jefferson

• Blind Lemon Jefferson is a-comin',
  Tap tap tappin', with his cane.
• Here comes the Judgement train! Git on board!

The Six Strings That Drew Blood

• Numbin' the runt of reputation they call rat frame,
  Top-E as a tourniquet,
  A low tune whistles across his grave,
  Forever the slave of his Six Strings.

Your Funeral… My Trial (1986)

Your Funeral… My Trial

• A thousand Marys lured me,
  To feathered beds and fields of glover,
  Bird with crooked wing cast,
  Its wicked shadow over,
  A bauble moon did mock,
  And trinket stars did smile,
  Your funeral, my trial.

The Carny

• The carny had a horse, all skin and bone,
  A bow-backed nag, that he named "Sorrow",
  Now it is buried in a shallow grave,
  In the then parched meadow.
• And as the company passed from the valley, into a higher ground,
  The rain beat on the ridge and on the meadow, and on the mound,
  Until nothing was left, nothing at all except the body of Sorrow,
  That rose in time, to float upon the surface of the eaten soil.

Tender Prey (1988)

The Mercy Seat

I hear stories from the chamber,
How Christ was born into a manger,
And like some ragged stranger died up on the cross...

• I hear stories from the chamber,
  How Christ was born into a manger,
  And like some ragged stranger died up on the cross,
  And might I say it seems to fitting in its way,
  He was a carpenter by trade,
  Or at least that's what I'm told.
• In heaven His throne is made of gold,
  Where the ark of His testament is stowed,
  A throne from which I'm told all history does unfold,
  Down here it's made of wood and wire,
  And my body is on fire,
  And God is never far away.
• And the mercy seat is melting,
  And I think my blood is boiling,
  And in a way I'm spoiling,
  All the fun with all this truth and consequence.
  An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,
  And anyway I told the truth,
  And I'm not afraid to die.

Up Jumped the Devil

• My oh My,what a wretched Life.
  I was born on the day that my poor mama died.
  I was cut from Her belly with a stanley knife.
  My daddy did a jig with the drunk midwife
• O poor heart, I was doomed from the start,
  Doomed to play the villian's part,
  I was the baddest Johnny in the apple cart,
  My blood was blacker than the chambers of a dead nun's heart.
• Who's that yonder all in flames?
  Draggin' behind him a sack of chains
  Who's that yonder all in flames?
  Up jumped the Devil and staked his claim

• O no don't go O no O slow down Joe!
  The righteous path is straight as an arrow,
  Take a walk and you'll find it's too narrow,
  Too narrow for the likes of me.

Mercy

• Thrown into a dungeon,
  Bread and water was my portion,
  Faith - my only weapon,
  To rest the devil's legion.
  The speak-hole would slide open,
  A viper's voice would pleade,
  A voice think with innuendo,
  Syphillis and greed.
• The moon was turned toward me,
  Like a platter made of gold,
  My death, it almost bored me,
  So often was it told.

City of Refuge

• In the days of madness, my brother, my sister,
  When you're dragged toward the Hell-mouth,
  You will beg for the end, but there ain't gonna be one, friend,
  For the grave will spew you out! It will spew you out!

New Morning

One morn I awakened, a new sun was shining,
The sky was a kingdom, all covered in blood.

• One morn I awakened, a new sun was shining,
  The sky was a kingdom, all covered in blood.
  The moon and the stars, where the troops that lay conquered,
  Like food left to wither, poor spirital food.
  
• The spears of the bright sun, all brave with its conquest,
  Did hover unearthly, in banners of fire.
  I knelt in the garden, awash with the dawning,
  And a voice came so brightly, I covered my eyes.
• Let there be no sadness, no sorrow,
  Let there be no road too narrow,
  There'll be a new day, and it's today,
  For all of us.

The Bad Seed EP (1993)

Wild World

• Hold me up baby, for I may fall,
  Hold my dish-rag body tall,
  Our bodies melt together, we are one,
  Post-crucifixion baby, post-crucifixion and all undone.

Fears of Gun

• Fingers down the throat of love! Love! Love!

Deep in the Woods

• The woods eats the woman and dumps her honey-body in the mud,
  Her dress floats down the well and it assumes the shape of the body of a little girl,
  Yeah, I recognize that girl,
  She stumbled in some time last loneliness,
  But I could not stand to touch her now,
  My one and only onlyness.
• I took her from rags right through to stitches,
  Oh baby, tonight we sleep in separate ditches.

Mutiny (1993)

Jennifer's Veil

• Another ship ready to dock... the rigging comes loose... like Jennifer's Veil.

Mutiny in Heaven

• If this is heaven ahm bailin' out!
• Ah wassa born...
  And Lord shakin', even then was dumpt into some icy font,
  Like some great stinky unclean!
  From slum-chuch to slum-church, ah spilt mah heart to some fat cunt behind a screen...
• Punishment? Reward! Punishment? Reward!
• Well, ah tied on, percht on mah bed ah was,
  Sticken' a needle in mah arm, Ah tied off,
  Fucken wings burst out mah back!
• Rats in paradise! Rats in paradise!

Quotes about Nick Cave

• He is an Australian artist like Sidney Nolan is an Australian artist - beyond comparison, beyond genre, beyond dispute.
  • Ed St John, ARIA Awards Committee Chairman on Cave
  • Source: Nick Cave to enter ARIA Hall of Fame (2007)
• I'm looking forward to working with Nick on something special one day. .... He has an amazing gift, a level of spirituality and self-realisation in his writing you don't often find. A Hemingway or Xavier Herbert of our time.
  • Russell Crowe on Cave
  • Source: Crowe praises Cave's 'Gladiator' script (2005)
• Nick Cave and myself got up and did karaoke in Brisbane one night at this Mongolian BBQ karaoke restaurant. It was just a bunch of normal, Brisbane folk. Me and Nick got up to do "Fernado", "Sometimes When We Touch" and "He's Not Heavy, He's My Brother". I was just playing the straight man, but Nick was doing the whole Birthday Party bit, with the kneedrops and the 'Raarrggh!', running up to tables doing the cabaret terrorist act, kissing old ladies. They took it for two numbers, and by the third they'd had enough and wanted to go back to, well, enjoying their evening.
  • Tex Perkins
  • Source: Rolling Stone Magazine (July, 1993)
• There was one review [of Stadium Arcadium] by an English newspaper where the guy really hated us and it was full of insults and descriptions about how terrible and worthless we are and how inane our music is. The guy mentioned that Nick Cave really thought we were a shitty band and printed a quote that Nick Cave had said in that regard. For a second that hurt my feelings because I love Nick Cave. I have all of his records. I don't care if Nick Cave hates my band because his music means everything to me and he is one of my favourite songwriters and singers and musicians of all time. I love all the incarnations of the Bad Seeds. But it only hurt my feelings for a second because my love for his music is bigger than all that shit and if he thinks my band is lame then that's OK.
  • Flea aka Michael Peter Balzary, bassist of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers
  • Source: Chili Pepper Hurt by Cave's Opinion (2006)
• Nick Cave's making a lot of money, which is braindeath. I mean, going on tour with the same band for 20 years and playing the same songs–I don't care how you twist them, or torture the songs, you know? If it takes to be a posturing grandpa Wayne Newton-sounding bad Vegas-balladeer to get rich, I don't give a shit. I think this is lame. You know, he was one of the great poets and rocked like no other, but he's pathetic. How do these goth kids buy this crap? That's his genius; he's convinced goth kids to listen to their grandfathers' music.
  • Lydia Lunch, No Wave artist and past collaborator with Cave
  • Source: Lydia Lunch interview with Åke Strömer and Tobias Pålsson (2004)
• I heard Nick Cave for the first time on an independent radio station in Australia, and the way he uses words is breathtaking. And it’s very melodic at the same time, very anthem-like. He also wrote a book called And the Ass Saw the Angel, from the perspective of a fetus in a womb. He’s really arrogant, but he can afford to be.
  • Portia de Rossi, commenting on Nick Cave in a list of her 10 favourite albums (Henry's Dream at #2)
  • Source: "The Bleaker the Better." (2006)
• He taught me to never veer too far from who I am, but to go further, try different things, and never lose sight of myself at the core.
  • Kylie Minogue on Cave and how he has influenced her
  • Source: Nick Cave: Devil's advocate (1998)
• Outside the world of politics, one person in the world of the arts I would mention as an influence is Nick Cave, another person who has been around since the late 1970s. He has developed and changed remarkably, whilst remaining true to his vision. He has been a great help to me as well, without his knowing it.
  • Andrew Bartlett, former leader of the Australian Democratic Party
  • Source: First Speech (1997)
• I listen to his records and go to his concerts. That's the greatest compliment I can pay an artist.
  • Iggy Pop on Cave
  • Source: Nick Cave vs. Iggy Pop (1999)
• On 30 March 1983 The Birthday Party played Los Angeles. Me and all the guys from Black Flag went to see them do two sets at a small place called The Roxy, and they were thoroughly godhead. They were one of the all-time premier live bands. .... I see Nick about once a year, which is about as much as I see anybody I don't work with. But that means when I do run into him it's really great to see him. He's an excellent human and I love him a lot and that's the bottom line, he's one of my favourite people, and I think he's a tremendous artist. He has a great band, too. The Bad Seeds are a band I will travel a great distance to see whenever possible. What Nick goes after is so incredibly interesting every time, because it's always different. He always takes chances. The art comes before the commerce. As far as the music business goes, he's one of the good guys. He's the real thing.
  • Henry Rollins when asked to recall the first time he met Cave
  • Source: How We Met (1997)

Unsourced

• All of the great works of art, it seems to me, are the ones that have a total disregard for anything else; just a total egotistical self-indulgence.

• I want to write songs that are so sad, the kind of sad where you take someone's little finger and break it in three places.

External links

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Nick Cave