It’s been a year since Nick Cave’s book Faith, Hope and Carnage was published. In it, the Australian singer reflects on his relationship to grief, loss and faith in several conversations with journalist Seán O’Hagan.
Since the tragic death of his son Arthur eight years ago, Nick Cave has been open about his grief. He enters into a dialogue with his fans via the “Red Hand Files” in order to better understand his own feelings. The serious loss also led to a unique solo tour, in which the singer simply sits at a piano and seeks conversation with his audience.
In the book “Faith, Hope and Carnage”, his son’s death also provides a guide to the conversations he had with the journalist Seán O’Hagan over two years. The loss of his mother and his former partner and Bad Seeds pianist Anita Lane are also included. Another of his sons died shortly after the book was completed.
A year after the publication of the book and at the same time as the publication of a paperback version, Cave tells the story in an interview with the American ROLLING STONE about how his understanding of grief has changed.
Nick Cave: The magnitude of loss should never be trivialized
The Australian rejects one of Nietzsche’s much-quoted aphorisms. “I don’t think Nietzsche’s quote ‘What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger’ is even remotely true,” Cave said. “It is bad, unhelpful information that suggests to us that we are somehow weak when we give in to our grief. There is a lack of compassion. I have seen people driven mad by the relentless and overwhelming nature of their losses. It’s terrible to witness, but completely understandable.”
The singer also criticizes the well-known “Kübler-Ross” model, which attempts to systematically order grief. According to him, grief manifests itself as “awesome and godlike.” It wouldn’t be about accepting what happened. Rather, grief is an “obliterating force” that requires “a kind of transformation of being.”
“The experience of losing my two sons was a reorganization of one’s being,” he says. “If we’re lucky, we eventually stop focusing on our own wounds and look at the wounds of the world.”
His internet portal “The Red Hand Files” also helped the musician better understand grief as part of the human condition. The musician now understands people as “creatures of loss”. “It is this brokenness that makes us so shockingly human, and even though we suffer, we still have the ability to do and create wonderful things,” Cave said.
Grief affects us all and is a common problem
He later continues: “I have met other people who have turned around and been able to look at the world and understand that loss is a common problem and that we are all in this together, and that our existence is vulnerable or is precarious. This is a common binder. If you can understand that, it goes a long way toward reducing the absolute feelings of despair that you have when you lose someone.”
But although dealing with grief has been a large part of his life in recent years, the musician describes himself as a predominantly happy person. “I am often happy. Most of the time, I would say,” shares Cave. “I make music! This is a joyful thing! I love my family, my friends, my wife. I talk to people, have conversations, have disagreements. I work on my ceramics, which is also a kind of joy. Right now I’m about to jump into a freezing mountain river in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Joy!”