Nick Cave, the poet of sorrows: He couldn't fill the void left in him first by his father's death and later by his son's death

Born on September 22, 1957, Nicholas Edward Cave is an Australian rock musician, songwriter, book writer, screenwriter.

By David Foster Published on 23 Ağustos 2022 : 10:33.
Nick Cave, the poet of sorrows: He couldn't fill the void left in him first by his father's death and later by his son's death

Nick Cave, the son of a teacher father and a librarian mother, was raised in Australia as a faithful member of the Anglican church. His first acquaintance with music was in the church children's choir. He has always loved rivers as part of his childhood was spent by the river. It was always far from the sea. Maybe that's why he likened his mother to the river and his father to the sea. As he admitted, he had the battle to surpass his father.

After graduating from high school, he decided to study painting. But he left his education in order to be able to make music professionally. By this time, his rebelliousness had increased, getting into trouble from time to time and spending the night in custody. One of these nights, his father died in a car accident. When his mother, who came to get him out of custody, told him that his father was dead, an all-encompassing void opened up in his life. He had lost the man who had taught him the importance of literature.

Nicholas Edward Cave AO (born 22 September 1957) is an Australian singer, songwriter, poet, lyricist, author, screenwriter, composer and occasional actor. Known for his baritone voice and for fronting the rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Cave's music is generally characterised by emotional intensity, a wide variety of influences and lyrical obsessions with death, religion, love and violence.

Years later, when he was asked about his father in his documentary "20,000 days on Earth", he could not continue. Although years passed, neither the songs he wrote nor the books he wrote could fill the void of his father's death.

Nick Cave has always been a religious person. He composed many songs inspired by the holy books. The period when he was most interested in religion was when he was a drug addict. On the days when he went to church as soon as he woke up, he tried to establish a kind of inner balance. All he did was repair the destructiveness of addiction with faith.

The first band, Boys Next Door, soon became The Birthday Party. He made songs such as "King Ink" and "She's Hit" in this process. After a while, actions started to happen at group concerts. The group disbanded as they began to become a band that is known for events rather than the music they made.

Along with former member Nick Cave, Mick Harvey remained, and Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds were formed. The band made a good start with the album “From Her to Eternity” and moved from Los Angeles to Berlin. It was here that Cave completed his novel "And the Donkey Saw the Angel". Too much fed from Berlin. Here he spent his most productive years.

Continuing to live in different cities such as London and Sao Paulo after Berlin, Cave built houses consisting of only one room for himself. In that room, he found the creativity of restlessness. He built songs from his memories. He tried to see the essence of everything, always told stories to the audience in his songs.

Nick Cave thinks nature is taking revenge on people with the weather, but when he puts it into words, everything turns into fiction. Now the reality is behind him, which puts him at ease. He has screenplays as well as novels and prose. He explains this situation as follows:

“The words I've written over the years are just a polish. There are truths that lie beneath the surface of words. Facts that pop up like the hump of a sea monster and then disappear again. Performing and singing is the way for me to bring out this beast.”

One of their twin children, Arthur, dies at the age of fifteen after falling off a cliff. From that day on, Nick Cave adds the pain of burying his son to the pain of burying his father. A year later, he makes the album "Sketelon Tree". This album is like a father's lament for his son. An overflowing pain is felt in all the songs featured here. It is noteworthy that it is a slower album than his other albums in general. It's as if Cave is too tired to take another breath. He makes us feel everything he's been through, from the intro of "Jesus Alone" to the song "Girl in Amber".

Boys Next Door time

The musical journey of Mick Harvey, Phill Calvert and Nick Cave, which started with the band they formed during their high school years in Australia, first gained momentum with an album and tour they released under the name Boys Next Door. The first compositions of the group, which became famous with their concerts in which they reinterpreted many proto-punk songs in the late 1970s, would be referred to as new wave classics in the following years. Boys Next Door, which became a band swimming in the waters of free jazz and punk with Rowland S Howard, who joined the team in 1978, took the name The Birthday Party after their first album, Door, which was released a year later, and released three albums in the early 1980s. .

Colin Frank Cave

Nick Cave's father, Colin Frank Cave, who died in a car accident at the age of 19, is one of the names that had a significant impact on the Australian musician's career. Colin Cave, who introduced his son to many literary classics at a young age, succeeded in instilling in Nick Cave his belief that art and beauty can make the world a better place. Nick Cave, who was at the police station when his father was involved in the accident, refuses to answer questions about tonight in interviews.

Euchrid Eucrow

Nick Cave's book And The Ass Saw The Angel, first published in the late 1980s, is known as one of the most important books of the Australian artist and underground literature. Nick Cave tells the life of Euchrid Eucrow, who was born as the son of an alcoholic mother and a father who has a hobby of torturing animals, in a very dark way, as we are familiar with from his production in many different disciplines. The character of Euchrid Eucrow is also one of the cult characters of underground literature.