“That’s why, if we’re talking about this record, it’s a joyful record.”
“And there is joy and there is happiness in a way you could never believe possible on the other side of grief. It’s a difficult, it’s a terrible truth about grief that you ultimately feel, you can feel joy in a way that you never thought you could.
If we look at the world for what it is, there’s great joy to be experienced.”
That’s Nick Cave from the following interview, which I recommend viewing in full. Go ahead, I’ll wait:
Nick Cave has come a long way from his angry early days. And as he explains, devastation helped reform his view of the world.
My wife recently cleaned out an old cabinet and those are some of the things I found in my drawer within it. Evidence of my long term love of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Grinderman, and missing in action are the nonexistent tickets to The Birthday Party, a band I’d have loved to see back in the day.
As I recently wrote about Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ latest, Wild God…Before I hit ‘Play’ I had a similar kind of concern when listening to a new record from another favorite, PJ Harvey, and a big part of that concern is a reluctance on my part to accept change. While it’s embarrassing to admit, I fall into the common trap of thinking my tastes, bolstered by familiarity, are somehow more important than what the artist chooses to make. And this is embarrassing because limiting one’s ability to experience something new without prejudice is an essential ingredient in personal growth, where an ever-expanding world (view) leads to joy while the opposite, an ever-shrinking world, leads to self imposed misery.
I’ve been listening to and through Wild God, an experience that deepens with each listen. It is a joyful record, a beautiful record, and a moving record that may help keep our heads above the meaningless fray.
You can buy Wild God from everywhere joyful music is sold and directly from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.
