Nick Cave: Trending quotes (page 4)

“The song is heroic because the song confronts death. The song is immortal and bravely stares down our own extinction. The song emerges from the spirit world with a true message: Some day I will tell you how to slay the dragon.”

Nick Cave

monologue in 20,000 Days on Earth
Music

Death , World

“Ah wassa born…
And Lord shakin', even then was dumpt into some icy font,
Like some great stinky unclean!
From slum-chuch to slum-church, ah spilt mah heart to some fat cunt behind a screen…”

Nick Cave

Song lyrics, Mutiny (1993), Mutiny in Heaven

Heart

“Well, ah tied on, percht on mah bed ah was,
Sticken' a needle in mah arm, Ah tied off,
Fucken wings burst out mah back!”

Nick Cave

Song lyrics, Mutiny (1993), Mutiny in Heaven

“Nick the Stripper,
Hideous to the eye,
Hideous to the eye,
He's a fat little insect,
A fat little insect,
And oooooooh! Here we go again.”

Nick Cave

Song lyrics, Prayers on Fire (1981), Nick the Stripper

“Hold me up baby, for I may fall,
Hold my dish-rag body tall,
Our bodies melt together, we are one,
Post-crucifixion baby, post-crucifixion and all undone.”

Nick Cave

Song lyrics, The Bad Seed EP (1993), Wild World

Baby

“From the words and the thickets,
Come the ghosts of his victims,
'We love you!'
'Ah love you!”

Nick Cave

This will not hurt a bit.
Song lyrics, From Her to Eternity (1984), A Box for Black Paul

Love , Hurt

“Death favours those that favour death.”

Nick Cave

Song lyrics, From Her to Eternity (1984), A Box for Black Paul

Death

“And as the company passed from the valley, into a higher ground,
The rain beat on the ridge and on the meadow, and on the mound,
Until nothing was left, nothing at all except the body of Sorrow,
That rose in time, to float upon the surface of the eaten soil.”

Nick Cave

Song lyrics, Your Funeral… My Trial (1986), The Carny

Time

“My responsibility as an artist is to turn up at the page or the piano or the microphone. The rest is up to God.”

Nick Cave

The Daily Telegraph (Novevember 20, 1997)
God and religion

God

“The mo-o-o-on, its huge cycloptic eye,
Watches the city streets contract, twist and cripple and crack.”

Nick Cave

Song lyrics, From Her to Eternity (1984), Saint Huck

“I took her from rags right through to stitches,
Oh baby, tonight we sleep in separate ditches.”

Nick Cave

Song lyrics, The Bad Seed EP (1993), Deep in the Woods

Sleep , Baby

“I tried to kill it in my bed,
I gagged it with a pillow,
But awoke the nuns inside my head.”

Nick Cave

Song lyrics, Prayers on Fire (1981), Just You and Me

“A thousand Marys lured me,
To feathered beds and fields of glover,
Bird with crooked wing cast,
Its wicked shadow over,
A bauble moon did mock,
And trinket stars did smile,
Your funeral, my trial.”

Nick Cave

Song lyrics, Your Funeral… My Trial (1986), Your Funeral… My Trial

Smile , Star , Bird

“Put ya shoulder to the handle, if ya dare, and hoist that bucket hither,
Crank'n'hoist'n'hoist'n'crank, till ya muscles waste'n'wither.”

Nick Cave

Song lyrics, From Her to Eternity (1984), Well of Misery

“And the mercy seat is melting,
And I think my blood is boiling,
And in a way I'm spoiling,
All the fun with all this truth and consequence.
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.”

Nick Cave

Song lyrics, Tender Prey (1988), The Mercy Seat

Truth , Way , Thinking

“I'd rather see what makes me different as something almost congenital. And I have these inklings that what you commit or endure in this world, relates to some kind of justice or balance. Maybe if you get a bad deal in this world, it is because of something you did, or were, in a previous life. Which is why I don't feel sorry for the poor.”

Nick Cave

Blissed Out: The Raptures of Rock, by Simon Reynolds (1988)
Politics, society and humanity

Life , World , Justice , Feeling

“I don't particularly believe all love is doomed. But I guess, one is usually kinda suffering from some aborted love affair or association, rather than being at the peak of one. I think it's fairly obvious that a lot more suffering goes on in the name of love than the little happiness you can squeeze out of it. But I wouldn't like to dwell on it. Perhaps you could lighten up a bit.”

Nick Cave

Blissed Out: The Raptures of Rock, by Simon Reynolds (1988)
Love and relationships

Love , Thinking , Suffering , Happiness

“In heaven His throne is made of gold,
Where the ark of His testament is stowed,
A throne from which I'm told all history does unfold,
Down here it's made of wood and wire,
And my body is on fire,
And God is never far away.”

Nick Cave

Song lyrics, Tender Prey (1988), The Mercy Seat

God , History

“Ah read her diary on her sheets,
Scrutinizin' every lil' piece of dirt,
Tore out a page'n'stufft it inside my shirt.
Fled outa the window,
And shinning it down the vine,
Outa her night-mare, and back into mine.”

Nick Cave

Song lyrics, From Her to Eternity (1984), From Her to Eternity

Reading , Night

“The moon was turned toward me,
Like a platter made of gold,
My death, it almost bored me,
So often was it told.”

Nick Cave

Song lyrics, Tender Prey (1988), Mercy

Death