Born On this Day: Nick Cave

5 years ago, on Nick Cave’s birthday, I wrote:

Thanks to Nick Cave

– for having the je ne quois (very cool touch) to not take his wife for granted, even admitting, and admitting in a song, that he feels the fear that she might leave him (which celebrity do you know has the guts to say that or the depth of feeling for their spouse to even articulate that; which less known person do you know who could? well, I thought so

– not the common guy, the one who doesn’t give a fig that love is unpopular, that love beyond the smallish self-love),

– for the lines “it ain’t that in their hearts they are bad, they’d stick by you, if they could, but that’s just bullshit, baby”, which woke me up, like a samvega shock, to what is real and what is not,

– for The Boatman’s Call, a haunting, beautiful album, maybe the best music of the 1990s,

– for staying interesting as an artist for more than 3 decades.

He lost his teenage son this summer to a tragedy, so the new album might take some time. I look forward to it.

Happy birthday, Nick Cave.

22 September 2015