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I am not interested in anything that doesn’t have a genuine heart to it. You’ve got to have soul in the hole. If that isn’t there, I don’t see the point.

Nick Cave

The way I take in the world is by seeing it; that is very much evident in the songs that I write.
NICK CAVE

Song World Writing
I write songs in batches and then record them and then can’t write again for ages. I try and build one song upon another, they may not obviously look inter-related but often one song acts as a springboard into another.
NICK CAVE

Age Country Obvious People Song Writing
I think there is a certain perversity in my music in that I continue, you know, to eat at the same ball of vomit year after year.
NICK CAVE

Balls Thinking Years
I look at you and you look at me and deep in our hearts know it That you weren’t much of a muse, but then I weren’t much of a poet
NICK CAVE

Heart Looks Muse Poet
I’m an Australian, and when I grew up much of my influences were American – blues music and country music, all that sort of thing.
NICK CAVE

Country Grew Influence
In the hysterical technocracy of modern music, sorrow is sent to the back of the class where it sits, pissing its pants in mortal terror.
NICK CAVE

Class Pants Sorrow
If I’m hanging around too much, my wife and kids say, ‘Hey, why don’t you go downstairs and start a new novel?’
NICK CAVE

Hey Kids Wife
The singing tells everybody what to do musically.
NICK CAVE

Everybody Musically Singing
The artistic process seems to be mythologized quite a lot into something far greater than it actually is. It is just hard labor.
NICK CAVE

Artistic Labor Process
No wonder sorrow doesn’t smile much. No wonder sadness is so sad.
NICK CAVE

Sadness Sorrow Wonder
My records are basically a litany of complaints against the world, and I’m quite like that in real life as well.
NICK CAVE

Real Records World
We are still struggling with people who don’t feel comfortable going into museums. As a visual artist I ask how artists can be part of enacting a change.
NICK CAVE

Artists Museum Struggle
The society of whores stuck needles in an image of me.
NICK CAVE

Needles Reality Stuck
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.
NICK CAVE

Art Changed Rocks Thinking
I think there’s a certain numbness in modern society, that accepts certain kinds of violence, but represses other kinds of violence.
NICK CAVE

Numbness Thinking Violence
And I kissed away a thousand tears My lady of the Various Sorrows Some begged, some borrowed, some stolen Some kept safe for tomorrow.
NICK CAVE

Safe Sorrow Tears

I am not interested in anything that doesn’t have a genuine heart to it. You’ve got to have soul in the hole. If that isn’t there, I don’t see the point.

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I am not interested in anything that doesn’t have a genuine heart to it. You’ve got to have soul in the hole. If that isn’t there, I don’t see the point.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Nick Cave Quotes