I love rock-n-roll. I think it's an exciting art form. It's revolutionary. Still revolutionary and it changed people. It changed their hearts. But yeah, even rock-n-roll has a lot of rubbish, really bad music.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a deep appreciation for rock-n-roll as a transformative art form, despite its flaws.
Nick Cave celebrates rock-n-roll not only as a genre of music but as a powerful form of art that has the ability to evoke strong emotions and bring about change in individuals' lives. He acknowledges the revolutionary nature of this musical style, emphasizing that while it has produced both remarkable and mediocre works, its impact on culture and people's hearts is undeniable.
In practice
In a discussion about the impact of music on society, this quote can be used to emphasize rock-n-roll's significance.
The idea of songwriting is a transformative thing, and what I do with songwriting is take situations that are quite ordinary and transform them in some way. Apart from things like the murder ballads, the songs I write, at their core, are quite ordinary human concerns, but the process of writing about them transforms them into something else.
The writer who refuses to explore the darker regions of the heart will never be able to write convincingly about the wonder, the magic and the joy of love for just as goodness cannot be trusted unless it has breathed the same air as evil.
But if you're gonna dine with them cannibals Sooner or later, darling, you're gonna get eaten . . .
Music is storming, driving, relentless, devotional, slinky, subtle, heartbreakingly-beautiful sounds that, lyrically, switch from the cynical to the sanguine, the defeated to the defiant, dealing in love, war, beauty, children, romance, rejection, Pethedine, poetry, panties, God, Auden, Johnny Cash, cold potatoes, too-much-money, not enough money, writer’s block, flowers, animals and more flowers. But maybe I’m projecting here.
Who knows their own story? It certainly makes no sense when you’re in the middle of it
And I wish that I was made of stone So that I would not have to see A beauty impossible to define A beauty impossible to believe A beauty impossible to endure The blood imparted in little sips The smell of you still on my hands As I bring the cup up to my lips No God up in the sky No devil beneath the sea Could do the job that you did, baby Of bringing me to my knees
The creative act is not hanging on, but yielding to a new creative movement. Awe is what moves us forward.
What I've learned how to do as I've gotten older is to take all of the information that I have, and push it aside, and try to distill each song into an emotional theme. The hardest thing that I've ever had to learn how to do in playing music is use the sound of my instrument to create an emotional effect.
I wanted to use what I was, to be what I was born to be - not to have a 'career', but to be that straightforward obvious unmistakable animal, a writer.
I'm the oldest son of a crazy man, I'm in a cowboy band.
Movement is expressive. I've never denied that. I don't think there's such a thing as abstract dance.
Women do not have as great a need for poetry because their own essence is poetry.
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