Quillette: "Nick Cave: “Conservatism Is an Aspiration”" - Morrissey mention (February 12, 2023)

Nick Cave: “Conservatism Is an Aspiration”

"You mentioned Morrissey. He made an enormous amount of exceptionally beautiful music, lest we forget, but he remains forever a thorn in the side of the prevailing cultural mood. Morrissey has the audacity, the courage, not to be boring. I admire that. Thank God there are some people like that still kicking around.

As for advice, I’m not sure I have any, other than to say, don’t spend too much of your precious time trying to please people. Most people, in the end, respond to authenticity, they yearn for it, and they will seek you out if they recognise in you that genuineness. It is the artist’s way to be at least that. Authentic. Genuine. Real. So be true to yourself, and what will come will come."

Nick Cave: “Conservatism Is an Aspiration”

The lead Bad Seed shares his thoughts on creativity, marriage, and having a conservative temperament.

quillette.com

Regards,
FWD.

---

Related item:

• The New Statesman: "Nick Cave: “I don’t think art should be in the hands of the virtuous”" - Morrissey mention (November 24, 2022)

 

[Thewlis]

Nick Cave: “Conservatism Is an Aspiration”

"You mentioned Morrissey. He made an enormous amount of exceptionally beautiful music, lest we forget, but he remains forever a thorn in the side of the prevailing cultural mood. Morrissey has the audacity, the courage, not to be boring. I admire that. Thank God there are some people like that still kicking around.

As for advice, I’m not sure I have any, other than to say, don’t spend too much of your precious time trying to please people. Most people, in the end, respond to authenticity, they yearn for it, and they will seek you out if they recognise in you that genuineness. It is the artist’s way to be at least that. Authentic. Genuine. Real. So be true to yourself, and what will come will come."

Nick Cave: “Conservatism Is an Aspiration”

The lead Bad Seed shares his thoughts on creativity, marriage, and having a conservative temperament.

quillette.com

Regards,
FWD.

Surely main page material?

 

[gashonthenail]

Beautiful words. Well said.

They showed me that there was a solemn duty as an artist, to challenge, to offend, to piss people off, in particular my peers.

 

[Miss Ann Thorpe]

Just read the article. I like this answer...

CL (Claire Lehmann): Woody Allen has quipped that 80 percent of success is showing up. I was very impressed in Faith, Hope and Carnage when I read that over your career you had never missed a show (until the time you were arrested for possession).

How important has performing—and more broadly “showing up”—been to your success?

NC (Nick Cave): For me, showing up to the job at hand is extremely important and something I saw that I needed to do from early in my career.

 

[Richard The Fourth]

I love nick cave, how about releasing a live version of Bonfires ? It may get around any legal issues?

 

[Uncleskinny]

Well, this is nice, but the public vote with their wallets.

 

[gashonthenail]

The bit at the end of the interview in answer to 'do you have hope?' is also very well put.
There's something on the NME website about Nick Cave being asked about his attitude to songs being 'cancelled', in particular 'Delilah', which has recently been flagged up for cancellation.
Should Bonfire of Teenagers now officially be considered as 'cancelled'?

Nick Cave shares his thoughts on tracks that get 'cancelled'

Nick Cave has shared his thoughts on music being 'cancelled', saying he "like[s] the fact some songs are controversial enough to be outlawed".

www.nme.com

 

[ACTON]

Good on Nick Cave. What a legend.
The Blonde soundtrack will be on its way to me on release day. Great soundtrack by a great artist. His Ghosteen album is superb too.

 

[Roman Holiday]

He must be joking when he says Elvis' later music is better than his early stuff—and yet it reads as straight. There's no disputing over taste.

The last part about having hope and "believing in the ingenuity and imagination of our species" was too saccharine for me. Is Nick Cave into Elon Musk and and carbon capture and solar reflectors? No, "the human race is obsolete" and "the little kids, they live in hell now."

 

[Gregor Samsa]

He must be joking when he says Elvis' later music is better than his early stuff—and yet it reads as straight. There's no disputing over taste.

The last part about having hope and "believing in the ingenuity and imagination of our species" was too saccharine for me. Is Nick Cave into Elon Musk and and carbon capture and solar reflectors? No, "the human race is obsolete" and "the little kids, they live in hell now."

He is quite right. From 1969 and onwards, Elvis rarely if ever released music he didn’t feel deep down in his soul. His seventies output might not have been as groundbreaking as his fifties stuff, but there was a depth to those songs and albums that the giddy rockabilly stuff of the fifties lacked (lacked is the wrong word, they never intended to be deep or profound). In the seventies, Elvis sang his heart out in songs of lost love, religion, alienation and loneliness. It’s the gorgeous sound of a man on the brink of personal disaster and destruction.

I know it’s popular to claim that he never produced anything of worth in the last decade of his life (especially among those who never really listened closely to Elvis or with any profound interest), but I think it’s a trope that needs to be destroyed.

 

[Roman Holiday]

He is quite right. From 1969 and onwards, Elvis rarely if ever released music he didn’t feel deep down in his soul. His seventies output might not have been as groundbreaking as his fifties stuff, but there was a depth to those songs and albums that the giddy rockabilly stuff of the fifties lacked (lacked is the wrong word, they never intended to be deep or profound). In the seventies, Elvis sang his heart out in songs of lost love, religion, alienation and loneliness. It’s the gorgeous sound of a man on the brink of personal disaster and destruction.

I know it’s popular to claim that he never produced anything of worth in the last decade of his life (especially among those who never really listened closely to Elvis or with any profound interest), but I think it’s a trope that needs to be destroyed.

I don't think his later stuff is negligible. Some of the songs are very good, but for me the misses are far more frequent than the hits. And even the "deep or profound" lyrics borrow from tired gospel tropes. Come to think of it, that may explain Nick Cave's appreciation. He harbors a fondness for the soul-baring Pentecostal religiosity of the American South, and that's not nothing. But by the late 60s it was pretty much done to death, and late Elvis was overbaking the recipe anyway. I think "giddy rockabilly" is too much a knock for the early songs. They utterly transcend the inanity of the lyrics. The beauty is in the simplicity and the delivery. Nothing he did later comes close to the thrill of Blue Suede Shoes or All Shook Up. I think even the bishops and prudes who came out against him must've been secretly tapping their feet.

 

[Gregor Samsa]

I don't think his later stuff is negligible. Some of the songs are very good, but for me the misses are far more frequent than the hits. And even the "deep or profound" lyrics borrow from tired gospel tropes. Come to think of it, that may explain Nick Cave's appreciation. He harbors a fondness for the soul-baring Pentecostal religiosity of the American South, and that's not nothing. But by the late 60s it was pretty much done to death, and late Elvis was overbaking the recipe anyway. I think "giddy rockabilly" is too much a knock for the early songs. They utterly transcend the inanity of the lyrics. The beauty is in the simplicity and the delivery. Nothing he did later comes close to the thrill of Blue Suede Shoes or All Shook Up. I think even the bishops and prudes who came out against him must've been secretly tapping their feet.

I really don’t see it this way. I think you exaggerate the influence of the supposed gospel tropes on his secular seventies output (the ballads). Either that or you’re focusing on the wrong thing and listening with your brain and not your heart. I think you’re missing something. Something riveting and very beautiful.

Don’t get me wrong, I love his fifties stuff. A lot. But it doesn’t feel as relevant or interesting to me as his later stuff. I listen to Elvis on a weekly (if not daily) basis, and I keep coming back to his seventies stuff, his gospel music and his mellower stuff in general. Rarely the rockabilly stuff. But sure, when I’m in the mood nothing beats it. And of course it’s thrilling, groundbreaking and fiery stuff. Every pop music fan has early Elvis to thank for everything.

 

[Johnnie Ray]

I prefer the guy who came after Sinatra and before Elvis. The forgotten legend, Johnnie Ray.

 

[gashonthenail]

He must be joking when he says Elvis' later music is better than his early stuff—and yet it reads as straight. There's no disputing over taste.

The last part about having hope and "believing in the ingenuity and imagination of our species" was too saccharine for me. Is Nick Cave into Elon Musk and and carbon capture and solar reflectors? No, "the human race is obsolete" and "the little kids, they live in hell now."

Saccharine? maybe. But the world needs a bit of hope at the moment. It's bloody grim out there. Not least the desperate scenes from Turkey and Syria. Life without hope is unbearable. And music is all about hope. Without music the world dies...

 

[Roman Holiday]

Saccharine? maybe. But the world needs a bit of hope at the moment. It's bloody grim out there. Not least the desperate scenes from Turkey and Syria. Life without hope is unbearable. And music is all about hope. Without music the world dies...

Maybe the one hope worth having at this point is that life won't go on. That seems to be the message of Saint In a Stained Glass Window—at least on the individual level. It's like what Anthony Burgess said: "as we are all solipsists, and all die, the world dies with us." I'm sure Morrissey and Nick Cave will both keep making music, but I wonder if Morrissey's new title isn't a way of saying there's not much music left to speak of. "Love is on its way out," and so is music—and so, it seems, is the world. It might be more a statement of resignation than of hope.

 

[ACTON]

I don't think his later stuff is negligible. Some of the songs are very good, but for me the misses are far more frequent than the hits. And even the "deep or profound" lyrics borrow from tired gospel tropes. Come to think of it, that may explain Nick Cave's appreciation. He harbors a fondness for the soul-baring Pentecostal religiosity of the American South, and that's not nothing. But by the late 60s it was pretty much done to death, and late Elvis was overbaking the recipe anyway. I think "giddy rockabilly" is too much a knock for the early songs. They utterly transcend the inanity of the lyrics. The beauty is in the simplicity and the delivery. Nothing he did later comes close to the thrill of Blue Suede Shoes or All Shook Up. I think even the bishops and prudes who came out against him must've been secretly tapping their feet.

Yes but..... does Elvis's rockabilly come close to our Moz's masterpiece King Leer? With the lyric 'your boyfriend, he went down on one knee, well could it be he's only got one knee?' which has only been surpassed by the finely crafted lyrics of Roy's Keen 'We've never seen a keener window cleaner'. Those kind of timeless lyrics will never be seen again in our lifetime.


Thankfully.

 

[BrokenFrame]

Well, this is nice, but the public vote with their wallets.

You're missing the point, he likes Moz because he's not a people pleaser.

 

[Dante6]

Morrissey and Cave have one important thing in common. They're both older privileged white male celebrities who live in bubbles. I like songs by both artists but I'm tired of them trying to tell me how to think.

 

[Seymour Glass]

He is quite right. From 1969 and onwards, Elvis rarely if ever released music he didn’t feel deep down in his soul. His seventies output might not have been as groundbreaking as his fifties stuff, but there was a depth to those songs and albums that the giddy rockabilly stuff of the fifties lacked (lacked is the wrong word, they never intended to be deep or profound). In the seventies, Elvis sang his heart out in songs of lost love, religion, alienation and loneliness. It’s the gorgeous sound of a man on the brink of personal disaster and destruction.

I know it’s popular to claim that he never produced anything of worth in the last decade of his life (especially among those who never really listened closely to Elvis or with any profound interest), but I think it’s a trope that needs to be destroyed.

You're insane. Everything he did after Sun Records was staged commercial trash.

 

[Seymour Glass]

Morrissey and Cave have one important thing in common. They're both older privileged white male celebrities who live in bubbles. I like songs by both artists but I'm tired of them trying to tell me how to think.

Then watch some BET or Soul Train!!