Nick Cave has spoken for the first time about his grief following the death of his 15-year-old son Arthur in 2o15.
In a new interview with The Guardian, Cave said: “We’re going to have to talk about Arthur for this, aren’t we?”, before adding: “The thing is – I feel like there are things I’d like to say about Arthur, but I’ve been too frightened to say them.”
Describing the creative quagmire he found himself in while surrounded by grief and trying to write about it, he continued: “Like there’s just this thing, and there’s no way to navigate it. It just sits there and fills up all the space. It fills up your body. It’s like a physical thing. You can feel it pressing against the insides of your fingers. There’s just no room for the luxury of creation.
“I wrote a bunch of songs after Arthur died, but I felt they were somehow a betrayal of what we were going through at the time or worse, a betrayal of Arthur himself; that they didn’t possess the required emotional reach, so I scrapped them… Anyway, they are floating around. But I am writing new stuff. Lots of new stuff.”
He added: “It’s hard to know what to say that is helpful… People often say they can’t imagine how it would feel to lose a child, but, actually, they can – they can imagine what it is like… A lot is said about grief, especially the conventional wisdom that you do it alone. I personally have found that not to be the case. The goodwill we received after Arthur’s death from people who I did not know, especially through social media, people who liked my music and kind of reached out, was extraordinary… the way they wrote about their own sadnesses and their own griefs was monumental and amazingly helpful for me and my family.
“Initially I thought it would be impossible to do this in the public eye. The impulse was to hide. But it turns out that being forced to grieve openly basically saved us. Of course, there is something that feels almost heroic about suffering on your own, to be locked into a world of memory, almost a nobility, I understand this, but it is an illusion and a very dangerous, life-threatening situation to put yourself in. Susie and I have grown to understand this. We are vigilant around each other, watchful that we don’t shut down.”
Cave will be touring the UK in autumn and releases a career-spanning collection of his finest tracks, Lovely Creatures, today.
