Nick Cave - Southbank Show "The Autobiographical Love Song"

An excerpt from the Southbank Show's bio on Nick Cave about the "autobiographical love song". West Country Girl is discussed.

Interview excerpt from "From Her to Maturity" Melody Maker May 1997 (Nick discussing the song in greater detail):

It's commonly thought that the songs of failed and star-crossed relationships on The Boatman's Call which are not about Cave's ex-wife Viviane might be about a "West Country Girl" named Polly Harvey. No, I don't mention her name. No, of course he doesn't, either. You've always surrounded yourself with creative women. Have you ever felt you neglected their creativity in favour of your own?

"Yes. I guess a lot of the creative women around me suffered through the drive I had - were consumed by it, in a way. Anita, especially, is an incredibly talented person and gave a lot of ideas. Gave them to me; she was very generous. And after a while, that seemed to become her role. To give over herself to me while I just raged forward. I didn't do it deliberately," he adds. "I guess the pattern of my past relationships has been that I've met very strong women and, through the course of our relationship, have exhausted them in some way. And it's something I've had to face up to: why is this happening?"

"I'm in a fairly unusual situation now of being, um, single," he adds suddenly.




"And that, for me, is pretty much the first time since I started all this..."




He waves a hand. "So, maybe that gives me some kind of opportunity to look at what's going on." Nick stirs his tea. And begins again.




"I've painted a picture of past relationships, a pattern, but there have been newer relationships where I have invested a lot of time and interest and care, and put my whole heart into it. And then found that it availed me of nothing. And I was left with - um..." He looks away. "Well, I was left."




He laughs the smallest, saddest laugh I've ever heard. "And that is a difficult lesson. That all the love you have, sometimes it just isn't enough."




So, love can't move mountains after all, I mutter.

"I believe it can," he replies. "It's just finding out a way to do it."

I assume the women these songs are about can see themselves in them. Not because you put their home addresses in, or anything...

"No, journalists put their home addresses into them," Nick laughs, a little bitterly.

Didn't it make you feel vulnerable knowing that we would?

"A lot of those songs are written specifically for a person or... began as poems to a person," he explains, delicately hovering around the word "person" like it's a haven of privacy in this most unprivate of conversations. "And then I thought, I can't just allow that to be a poem, I'd better put some music to it and stick it on a record. But they did begin as letters or poems, to a particular person, in order to... to show that person how I felt about her."

Did it work? Nick sighs almost imperceptibly.

"It worked, in its way. But all the songs are different; They're talking about different times within a relationship. I mean, it's my form of communication. I'm not very... I find it quite difficult to communicate in other ways. Or I don't feel that I'm actually getting it right. But I can sit down and write about it, and I feel I am getting it right. At the time it seemed like the right thing to do, to write these songs and to record them and sing them. I don't regret it now, because I love the songs. But they are private messages to people. To a person..."

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Nick
• Cave
• Southbank
• Show
• PJ
• Harvey
• West
• Country
• Girl
• Boatman's
• Call
• Mick
• Will
• Self

[TheEvilelvis89]

@lilyslimit

ha ha exactly, I know it's true because I'm in love, and when I realised I was she became so much more beautiful to me lol sappy but true.

[lilyslimit]

@TheEvilelvis89 Thanks! The old saying is "love is blind" but I alwas thought love had a way of opening ones eyes o the beauty that others can't ---or won't---see.

[TheEvilelvis89]

@lilyslimit

I completely agree with the love comment.

[lilyslimit]

Do you have the rest of this? if so can you/will you post it?

[lilyslimit]

@chrisnouvelle41 She's not ugly. Besides, he obviously loved her and when you love someone they are BEAUTIFUL! I think she broke up with him anyway, didn't she?

[ravenmwood]

*muah*