Nick Cave
Australian songwriter and writer, frontman of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Since 2018 he has answered readers' questions in public at The Red Hand Files, where most of what he has said about how songs are made now lives.
Nick Cave did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
Filter All topics · Newest first
-
Their wordsOver time, that fiery intensity ebbed away, and I realised that the past wasn’t something to discard but to respect.
↗How have your beliefs evolved? What did you once hold true in your beliefs that you don't hold now?theredhandfiles.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
-
Their wordsThere may be nothing new under the sun, but it is our distinctiveness that matters, our specialness.
↗How have your beliefs evolved? What did you once hold true in your beliefs that you don't hold now?theredhandfiles.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 5 months earlier
-
Our reading
Suffering is not an interruption of a good life but the ground the good things grow out of.
Their wordsSuffering is the essential and nourishing ground from which all the delightful gifts of life emerge.
↗Do you think humans have to suffer before harnessing genuine human sympathy?theredhandfiles.com
- 24 months earlier
-
Their wordsI suppose I do this by practising compassion rather than empathy – being moved by someone’s suffering and wanting to help, rather than putting myself in their position and feeling their pain. Standing a step away and seeking to assist someone in need, rather than being disabled by their despair, seems to be the way to manage these things.
- 2 months earlier
-
Their wordsBut I have come to understand that the feeling of creative control is an illusion, that the songs are predetermined and have their own destiny, that they are not our own.
↗What do I do with these songs?theredhandfiles.com 1st of 2 in this piece
-
Their wordsWhere we do have control is in identifying which is which.
↗What do I do with these songs?theredhandfiles.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 3 months earlier
-
LLMsOpenAIAI and human skillAI writing
Their wordsChatGPT is fast-tracking the commodification of the human spirit by mechanising the imagination. It renders our participation in the act of creation as valueless and unnecessary.
↗I work in the music industry and there is a lot of excitement around ChatGPT... what's wrong with making things faster and easier?theredhandfiles.com 1st of 2 in this piece
-
Their wordsIt is our striving that becomes the very essence of meaning.
↗I work in the music industry and there is a lot of excitement around ChatGPT... what's wrong with making things faster and easier?theredhandfiles.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 7 months earlier
-
Their wordsWhat ChatGPT is, in this instance, is replication as travesty. ChatGPT may be able to write a speech or an essay or a sermon or an obituary but it cannot create a genuine song.
↗I asked Chat GPT to write a song in the style of Nick Cave and this is what it produced. What do you think?theredhandfiles.com 1st of 3 in this piece
-
Our reading
Songs come out of suffering, and a system that has endured nothing has nothing to make one from.
Their wordsSongs arise out of suffering, by which I mean they are predicated upon the complex, internal human struggle of creation and, well, as far as I know, algorithms don’t feel. Data doesn’t suffer.
↗I asked Chat GPT to write a song in the style of Nick Cave and this is what it produced. What do you think?theredhandfiles.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
-
Our reading
Making something great is the opposite of resembling what is already recognised as great.
Their wordsWhat makes a great song great is not its close resemblance to a recognizable work. Writing a good song is not mimicry, or replication, or pastiche, it is the opposite.
↗I asked Chat GPT to write a song in the style of Nick Cave and this is what it produced. What do you think?theredhandfiles.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 19 months earlier
-
Their wordsI also have an affinity with artists who treat their craft as a job and are not dependent on the vagaries of inspiration — because I am one of them. Like most people with a job, we just go to work.
↗Do you think it is more important to find inspiration or to get to work and write?theredhandfiles.com 1st of 2 in this piece
-
Their wordsPen poised, I sit to attention, in my suit, on the edge of my imagination, prepared for the beautiful line to arrive. Sometimes it does, sometimes it does not — either way I am powerless to influence the outcome.
↗Do you think it is more important to find inspiration or to get to work and write?theredhandfiles.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 2 years earlier
-
Their wordsWith regards to sexual desire and songwriting, creativity and desire have always been inextricably linked for me.
↗How is the correlation between the sexual and the creative going in old age?theredhandfiles.com
- 4 months earlier
-
Their wordsA sense of awe is almost exclusively predicated on our limitations as human beings. It is entirely to do with our audacity as humans to reach beyond our potential.
↗Considering human imagination the last piece of wilderness, do you think AI will ever be able to write a good song?theredhandfiles.com 1st of 2 in this piece
-
Their wordsWhat we are actually listening to is human limitation and the audacity to transcend it. Artificial Intelligence, for all its unlimited potential, simply doesn’t have this capacity.
↗Considering human imagination the last piece of wilderness, do you think AI will ever be able to write a good song?theredhandfiles.com 2nd of 2 in this piece