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Nick Cave has opened up on what he believes freedom to mean in a new post on his Red Hand Files website.
The Bad Seeds singer marked the two year anniversary of his official question and answer forum this week by responding to a fan called Tim, who wrote: “Nina Simone once said: Freedom means having no fear. Sometimes on stage, she added, she would reach that kind of state. How do you free yourself from fear?”
In his reply, Cave said: “Freedom for me is the ability to relinquish control of the outcome of things and so, in this respect, I agree with Nina Simone; it is to be delivered from fear.
“These are fraught times but, for me, meditation, the loss of my son, and even the fact that I am just getting older, has allowed me to arrive at a place where I do not feel at the mercy of consequence in the way that I used to — it doesn’t matter to me so much these days what happens.”
He continued: “I feel that if I stay true to myself and follow my intuitions, if I surrender control of life’s outcomes, things tend to work out okay.”
Cave then reflected on the idea of freedom in terms of his musical output, writing: “On an artistic level, I play what I want to play, and say what I want to say, and let the chips fall where they may. This is a kind of freedom.
“…The universe has had its best shot at me and I am still kicking around,” he added, explaining that the Red Hand Files site has “played a significant part” in making him feel “stronger”.
“Each answer I write seems to be an act of surrender, but at the same time a kind of armouring up — vulnerability as a form of protection.”
Cave concluded the entry by thanking “the many people who offered their condolences at the loss of my mother and reminded me, over and over again, of her beautiful words – ‘Head high and fuck ‘em all!’ She was the greatest.”
The musician confirmed the death of his mother Dawn, who was 93, in a Red Hand File post last week (September 15), describing her as “the most extraordinary woman” who was “greatly loved”.
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