Bob Dylan was deeply moved by a song called Joy where he sings: “We’ve all had too much sorrow, now it’s time for joy.” These were the words that resonated with him after attending Nick Cave’s concert in Paris on November 19th. The public appearance of “His Bobness” alone would be newsworthy. But beyond the amusement of this “new tweeting Dylan” as kindly written by Claudio Todesco for Rolling Stone, the focus is on “Joy”. A rediscovered joy that has been a long time coming in Nick Cave’s life.
But first, let’s enjoy Australian singer-songwriter Nick Cave’s response to Bob Dylan’s tweet, which alone speaks volumes about his providential and blessed nonconformity.
A pleasant surprise after the “mass twitterectomy”
Asked by a fan, Nick Cave first explained that he had no idea that Dylan – whom he admires – was present at the concert. Then came the ironic reference to the social media platform and the small but noisy anti-Musk exodus underway:
“I’m glad to see Bob on X, while many on the left have had a mass twitterectomy moving to Bluesky [the new American social media platform]. I found it a perverse thing, but admirably, in a Dylan-esque way.”
Finally, Cave returns to the point: joy.
“I really think it’s time for joy and not sorrow. There has been such an excess of despair over the elections that one couldn’t help but wonder if politics hadn’t swallowed everything up.”
The obsession with political leaders has caused – as the singer writes – barriers to be raised that have prevented us from experiencing anything remotely resembling the spiritual, the sacred, or the transcendent, the holy place where joy resides. “I am proud to have been on tour with the Bad Seeds and to have offered, with a rock concert, an antidote to this despair.”
“I’m giving something back”
But who is this man who effortlessly shuts down the scandalized, sells out every stop of his Wild God tour (including the one at the Forum in Assago, the only Italian date of his world tour), has his majesty Bob Dylan attending his concerts without even knowing it, and discusses the sacred (with expertise) whenever he can?
Nick Cave – Australian, born in 1957 – is a stylish rocker inside and out (he sings in a suit and tie like Leonard Cohen did), who in just a few years has faced a double violent trial from life: the sudden deaths of his two sons. The youngest, Arthur, disappeared in 2015 at just 15, falling from a cliff near Brighton. A few years later, his eldest son, Jethro Lazenby, 31, an actor and model diagnosed with schizophrenia, also passed away.
To process all this, but also to definitively leave behind a past of heroin and alcohol, the “Bard of Melbourne” in 2020 entrusted his broken heart to the care of Red Hand Files, a completely open newsletter where many people, his fans but not only, share problems and questions. Some have called it a form of “spiritual direction” between Cave and his audience. “You can ask me anything. There will be no moderator. It will be just between you and me. Let’s see what happens. With love, Nick.” With these words, the rocker committed to responding without filters and with all the dedication possible to the emails he encourages people to send.
The incredible mutual support unleashed by these exchanges, both virtual and concrete, Cave recounted to the New York Times. The musician recalls in a long interview with David Marchese:
“When Arthur died, I was sucked into the darkest place imaginable; it was practically impossible to get out of that state of despair. I know it may sound cheesy, but I made it through thanks to the reactions of people who kept writing me things like: ‘It happened to me too.’ It was incredibly touching.”
He then adds:
“The support of the audience saved me. My audience helped me a lot, and today when I perform, I feel like I’m giving something back.”
The “clash” with ChatGpt
On Red Hand Files, a forum named after Milton’s Paradise Lost, everything is discussed. Especially humanity, how to be better people. Consequently, also everything that risks distancing us from the heart of things. Artificial intelligence is a topic that the singer has revisited often, especially after a New Zealand fan named Mark, using ChatGpt, sent him a piece expressly “in the style of Nick Cave,” asking for his opinion. The rocker’s brilliant response – a constant invitation to remain human against every danger of “objectification” – also reveals the utmost care for every person who writes to him. Here are his words for Mark:
“In the future, ChatGpt may be able to create a song indistinguishable, on the surface, from a human one, but it will forever be a replica, something grotesque. Songs come from suffering, and algorithms, as far as I know, are not able to predict the complex struggle of man. Data does not suffer.
The Melancholy of ChatGpt’s Role
ChatGpt’s melancholy lies in its destiny to imitate a human experience it can never live, regardless of how much the human experience may be devalued in the future.
“It might seem like I’m taking it a bit too personally, but I’m a songwriter, and writing is an act that requires courage and blood. Only this way can something new be created. There is an extreme need for humanity. […] Mark, thank you for the song, but with all the love and respect in the world, it’s crap, a grotesque mockery of what it means to be human. I don’t like this song, but reading it again, there’s a line that speaks to me. ‘I have the fire of hell in my eyes,’ the song says ‘in Nick Cave style,’ and it’s true. I have the fire of hell in my eyes, and that hell is ChatGpt.”
The Interview with Rowan Williams
Wild God is perhaps the first album not “driven by a sense of loss,” as Cave revealed in a recent interview, explaining that “music and art, in general, remind us that we are capable of creating extraordinary things compared to the ugliness and twistedness of life.” As proof of this, Wild God, his eighteenth album, is a sunny record, perfect to be performed live, with that warm interaction of handshakes and hugs that the Australian has always sought from his audience.
Yet, it is precisely grief, pain, faith, God, the cornerstone of the singer-songwriter’s later years. In The Times on March 4, 2023, Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, in an intriguing interview with the songwriter, recounts meeting him “in a dusty sacristy of a church in central London,” and that to talk they sat on “hard wooden chairs, wardrobes, brooms, and buckets scattered here and there.” A place only seemingly inadequate, as Nick Cave, writes Reverend Williams, “raised in the Australian city of Wangaratta, sang in the choir of his cathedral as a boy, that of the Holy Trinity, then surprised his audience throughout his career with texts saturated with God and echoes of the Bible. So – aside from inhospitable chairs – he is anything but a stranger in this sacristy.”
“I Refuse to Submit to the World”
The conviction of the Emeritus of Canterbury, that “Cave’s faith is not that of a man seeking shortcuts,” is supported by the confessions the songwriter grants him in the most prestigious English newspaper:
“The spiritual audacity born in me at the death of my son Arthur makes me live a sort of reckless refusal to submit to the world’s way of thinking.”
For this reason, the author of The Boatman’s Call – an album in which Cave urges to listen to the call of Jesus, the boatman – after so much wandering confesses to Williams that he “naturally found himself at home in the Catholic Church.” The songwriter confides in the archbishop:
“I realized that I am part of a vast river of suffering. It was shocking to discover that my tragedy was in a sense ‘ordinary.’ I felt part of something. Someone called it ‘the club nobody wants to be in.’ Instead, I became a more complete, fully realized person, unlike the past where my personality was only partially formed, fragmented.”
“Nick Cave? To Me, He’s an Atheist”
The composer of the music for The Road (a film based on the novel by his beloved Cormac McCarthy); the artist who in Wim Wenders’ masterpiece Wings of Desire sings, suffers, and agitates on the stage of a smoky punk club, perhaps has the right to appear enigmatic at times, as there are those who have ventured controversial perspectives for Nick Cave. One of them is the Passionist Massimo Granieri, who in the Osservatore Romano has dealt with the singer-songwriter several times (here and here). He partially changes his mind, but in an old interview with Avvenire, Granieri “spiritually psychoanalyzes” Cave, tracing an unexplored path for him: “From my point of view, Nick Cave is profoundly atheistic, he remains within his secularism. As always, he is obsessed with the Bible, delves into the Scriptures, uses religious symbolism to tell his personal story. His recent works, in particular, are steeped in personal pain for the loss of his son. Cave has a strong physical need for someone to translate this suffering, and what better means than sacred scripture? He wants to redeem himself from pain, but he finds the strength within himself, not outside of himself. And this is a profoundly secular attitude, expressing little confidence in an afterlife that he cannot define. Like a son searching for his father but absolutely unable to reach him. Of course, the conversation with God remains suspended, it is still an open game.”
The Urgency of “Bringing Joy”
That Cave’s game with God is still open is also evident in his way of leaving behind the old man. Just like Giovanni Lindo Ferretti, who in the Berlin of the early eighties frequented the same club as the Australian, even for the latter, a certain type of criticism (always the same!) has not been lacking. “Joy, love, peace. What a vomit! Where did the anger, the rage, the hatred go? Lately, reading your writings is a bit like listening to an old preacher rambling during Sunday mass.” Ermine’s anger on Red Hand Files, a candid forum strongly desired by Cave, sums up the position of certain old fans quite well.
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds – Bringing Joy to the World
Recently, Nick Cave shared some heartfelt reflections during a concert in Paris. He spoke about how his perspective on life and emotions shifted after the loss of his first son. The depth of his words and the sincerity behind them were truly moving.
“Things changed after the death of my son. I changed. The anger you speak of lost its allure in my eyes. Perhaps I have become a ‘postcard hippie,’ as you say. Hate no longer seemed interesting to me. I shed those old feelings like a layer of skin. They were indeed repugnant.”
Cave then delves into his past self, the one who reveled in chaos and contempt for the world. He reflects on how he used to scorn beauty, joy, and the happiness of others, only to realize the foolishness of such behavior.
“It seemed noble to be messed up, angry at the world, disdainful towards people… Despising beauty, despising joy, despising the happiness of others. Eventually, this behavior seemed truly stupid.”
Through his response, Cave reveals a transformation akin to the Eastern concept of “kenosis,” a self-emptying born out of profound pain. He also echoes Bob Dylan’s tweet about embracing joy in the present moment. Cave concludes by expressing his newfound urgency to contribute joy to the world, rather than reveling in judgment.
“When my son died, I had to face genuine pain, and effortlessly, that pose of contempt towards the world began to falter and collapse. I started to understand the fragility of worldly things… Suddenly, I felt the urgency to lend a hand to this beautiful, terrible world, the urgency to bring some joy instead of merely denigrating it with my judgment.”
An unexpected atheist emerges, shouting “Joy!”
