Faith, Hope and Carnage is the end result of nearly 40 hours of recorded phone conversations that took place, without delay, between August 2020 and the summer of 2021. In the following chapter, Nick talks about the prescient, even unusually prophetic nature of some songs, the vulnerability that attends songwriting and his working relationship with his collaborator and friend, Warren Ellis. He speaks candidly about the disruptive nature of grief, but also the small, but transformative, acts of kindness he experienced from strangers in the wake of the death of his son, Arthur, and the “impossible realm” he entered while making the famous album, Ghosteen. SO’H: I was just re-listening to your 2016 album Skeleton Tree and was remembering when I first heard it. At the time, I had assumed that most of the songs had been written after Arthur’s death [Cave’s son Arthur died in 2015 after a fall].NC: No, quite the opposite actually, but I can see why you might think that. I found this aspect of Skeleton Tree quite confusing, to tell you the truth. It bothered me, especially at the time. But when I think about it, it was always the way. I’ve always suspected that songwriting had a kind of mystical dimension, without getting too mystical about it. Nick Cave and author Sean O’Hagan in London, August 2022. Photo: Lynette Garland/The Observer You actually touched on this idea in 1998, in your lecture The Secret Life of the Love Song, that songs could be prophetic in some way. Yes that’s how it is! If I remember correctly, I wrote about how my songs seemed to have a better handle on what was going on in my life than I did, but back then, it was more of a playful, even comical observation. Are you taking the idea more seriously now? Yes, I think so. In the lecture you used Far from Me from The Boatman’s Call (1997) as an example. Yes. In its three verses, this song describes the trajectory of a particular relationship I was in at the time. And then, in the last verse, he details the unhappy demise of that relationship. Now, in that case, the song had written its last verse long before the relationship fell apart, so it was like he had some secret knowledge or ability to look into the future. In the essay, I wrote about it in a light, whimsical way, but, as I say, I’m not sure I feel that way anymore. My music often seems to be one step ahead of what’s really going on in my life “The song had written its last verse” is an exciting way to put it. Do you think the song was written in some way? Well, that’s how it is with some songs. The more I’ve written, the harder it is to ignore the fact that so many songs seem to be a few steps ahead of the actual events. Now, I’m sure there are neurological explanations for this in the same way there are for a phenomenon like deja vu, say, but it’s become increasingly disturbing – the uncanny foresight of the song. And despite how it might seem from what I’m saying here, I’m not really a proactive person. But the predictive aspect of the songs became too frequent, too persistent and too accurate to ignore. I don’t really want to make too much of it, except to say that I think songs have a way of talking about the future. I tend to think that my records are built out of an unconscious longing for something. Whether that’s a yearning for disruption, or a yearning for peace, depends a lot on what I’m going through at the time, but my music often seems to be one step ahead of what’s actually going on in my life. I suppose a song, like any work of art, will always unconsciously reveal something of the person who created it. If you write a really honest song, it can’t help but be emotionally and psychologically revealing. Yes this is true. The songs have the quality of being revelatory, so intense. There is much they can teach us about ourselves. They are dangerous little truth bombs. Can you elaborate on the idea that songs often have a hidden meaning that is revealed much later? It’s a fascinating area. I guess I believe there is a genuine mystery at the heart of songwriting. Some lines may seem at the time almost incomprehensible, but nevertheless they feel very real, very real. And not just real, but necessary, and buzzing with a kind of unfulfilled meaning. Through writing, you can enter a space of deep longing that drags its past with it and whispers to the future, that has an acute understanding of the way things are. You write a line that requires the future to reveal its meaning. That imaginative space you describe sounds pretty intense. You’ve described it as disturbing before – were you specifically referring to Skeleton Tree? Skeleton Tree definitely bothered me, because there was so much on that record that hinted at what happened next. It clearly foresaw the future, so much so that it was hard for many to believe that I had written almost all the songs before Arthur died. The way he spoke of the events surrounding Arthur’s death was, at the time, very poignant. Now, I’m not really someone who is into that sort of thing. In fact, in the past, if someone started talking to me that way, I would have dismissed them completely. I think you and I are similar in that respect, but at the same time, we are open to certain ambiguities in life. We carefully recognize that there are, I don’t know, mysteries. Yes, I never quite know what to do with these kinds of experiences, either accept them or try to find a rational explanation for them – which is always somehow unsatisfying. This is very true. But after Arthur died, things intensified for me in that regard. I felt both disturbed and reassured by a preternatural energy around certain things. The predictive nature of the songs was a small part of that. Actually, Susie [Cave’s wife] I was totally scared by my songs. He had always seen the world in signs and symbols, but even more so since Arthur died. To me, her openness and multi-layered understanding of things is one of her most deeply attractive qualities. Do you feel able to talk a little more about the nature of this “preternatural energy” you felt? Was it similar to a heightened state of awareness? Well, after Arthur’s death, the world seemed to vibrate with a strange, spiritual energy, as we’ve talked about. I was really surprised by how prone I became to a kind of magical thinking. How easily I dismissed that completely rational part of my mind, and how comforting it was to do so. Now, this may well be a survival strategy and therefore a part of the usual mechanics of grief, but it is something that persists to this day. Maybe it’s some kind of delusion, I don’t know, but if it is, it’s necessary and well-intentioned. Cave performs at New York’s Beacon in March. Photo: Megan Cullen If so, this type of magical thinking is a survival strategy that many people use. Some skeptics might say that it is the very basis of religious belief. Yes. Some see it as the lie at the heart of religion, but I tend to believe it is the much-needed utility of religion. And the lie – if the existence of God is, in fact, a lie – is, in a way, irrelevant. In fact, sometimes it seems to me that the existence of God is a detail or a technical detail, so incredibly rich are the benefits of a worship life. Entering a church, listening to religious thinkers, reading scriptures, sitting in silence, meditating, praying – all these religious activities eased the way back into the world for me. Those who dismiss them as bogus or superstitious nonsense, or worse, collective mental weakness, are made of sterner stuff than I am. I got my hands on everything I could and, since I did, I never let them go. This is completely understandable. But even in the most mundane moments, all these things you mention – sitting in silence in a church, meditating, praying – can be helpful or enriching even to a skeptic. You know what I mean? It’s as if skepticism somehow makes these moments of reflection even more quietly fanciful. Yes, there is a kind of polite skepticism that makes faith stronger rather than weaker. In fact, it can be the forge upon which a stronger belief can be forged. When you came to perform Skeleton Tree, was that a concern for you as well? Well, it suddenly became very difficult to sing these songs. I mean, without stating the obvious, the first line of the first song on this record, Jesus Alone, begins with the lines: “You fell from the sky and landed in a field near the Adur River.” It was hard to hear and sing – and hard to understand how I had come to write such a line given the events that followed. And the record is full of such cases. I know I might be rambling a bit here, but what I’m basically trying to say is that maybe we have deeper intuitions than we realize. Perhaps the songs themselves are channels through which some kind of greater or deeper understanding is released into the world. Could it even be that the heightened imaginative space you enter when writing a song is inherently revelatory? Poets like William Blake and WB Yeats certainly believed this. I doubt they would have…
