‘To Be In Your Presence’: Did a hymn inadvertently inspire Nick Cave’s ‘Into My Arms’?
Nick Cave has never been one to stray away from talking about God or religion in his music. His most recent record, Wild God, shows that regardless of how much time passes throughout his career and how much his life changes, topics of religion are never far away from his imagination. His attitude towards religion has changed, as sometimes he speaks upon it questioning; other times he uses it as a source of comfort, while on other occasions he has approached the topic with anger.
This constant subject matter but Cave’s altering state when discussing it is a very interesting way to better understand Nick Cave’s mindset when it comes to writing at different periods in his life. One of the more pivotal moments in his life, both on a personal and professional level, came when he was in rehab. During this period, he turned to religion as a source of comfort and strength.
Cave struggled in rehab, as most people do. While the environment might be set up in a way that can help people, people with an addiction tend to disassociate themselves from those around them and are instead fixated on getting their next high. Cave spoke about how hard rehab can be, especially in the early days. “In the first couple of days when you haven’t slept, you’re withdrawing from drugs, you’re sick,” he said, “You try and make the best of a bad situation.”
One of the places where Cave found the most comfort during this difficult period was at church. While patients in rehab were kept under strict watch, they were permitted to go to church on Sundays if they so wished. Cave decided to take advantage of this rule and so went to church to connect with his faith and find some form of comfort during a challenging period.
Cave claims that it was during this period that he wrote the song ‘Into My Arms’. According to his book Faith, Hope and Carnage, he was walking back from the church through the fields of his rehab facility, and while doing so, he came up with the iconic melody for ‘Into My Arms’. When he got back to the centre, he sat by the piano and started putting the lyrics together, which ended up confronting God, asking him not to change the person he loved.
Given how much of an exceptional musical mind Nick Cave has, it’s not inconceivable that he came up with the melody and the entire song by himself; however, it may have also resulted from one of the hymns at church getting embedded into his subconscious. When you listen to ‘To Be In Your Presence’ by Noel Richards, there is no escaping the fact that the chorus has the same melody as Nick Cave’s song. The track was also written five years before ‘Into My Arms’, so it’s entirely conceivable that they were playing it at churches when Nick Cave was in rehab.
Whether the melody was taken from the Richards song or not is irrelevant. In fact, if the melody comes from Richards’ song, it only adds to the comforting nature that it brings. During an uncomfortable period in his life, Cave wrote about something that brought him comfort (love), using a melody discovered somewhere else he found comfort (church). As a result, ‘Into My Arms’ is truly a testament to the power of faith and how it can bring hope in a time of carnage.
