Nick Cave on how David Bowie carried “a certain kind of immortality”
One might argue that the tendency of being a think can be applied too much in the case of Nick Cave, but regardless of your opinion on his more controversial views, he’s still clearly someone who likes to ponder the deeper meaning of things.
From his days in the 1980s as the frontman of punk blues trailblazers The Birthday Party, up until more recent ballad-driven works with The Bad Seeds, his lyrics are vividly descriptive, frequently evoking literary themes as well as referencing mythology and historical events, woven in with deeply personal themes.
Given his propensity for touching on morbid topics of death and grief, it’s easy to describe him as someone who has an air of darkness hanging over him, but in other parts, a lightness and a sense of humour do pervade, which is frequently reinforced by his onstage theatricality and intense methods of delivering such emotive material.
Thus, the deep introspection behind every iteration of his creative persona is fairly evident, even if these twists and turns all end up contributing to the birth of a deeply confusing character. However, that’s arguably what makes him so profound and appealing to his audience, and the unpredictability of what path he’ll end up taking always comes as a result of his thoughts being meticulously sculpted and considered before entering new territory.
Nevertheless, Cave is far from being alone in this regard, and there are many others from the history of rock music who have similar traits to him, plenty of whom he looks up to as major sources of inspiration. As someone else who was constantly trying to shapeshift, taking dramatic left turns and even sometimes creating controversial guises whose morality could be called into question, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to learn that Cave is a massive admirer of David Bowie and his artistry.
Bowie is the one artist who has arguably devoted the longest amount of time to this unpredictable approach throughout his career, and the amount of mainstream success that he managed to have in spite of refusing to play by anyone else’s rulebook is still frightening to comprehend, considering how inflexible the industry can be towards change.
In a 2013 interview with German magazine Spex, Cave tapped into his more ponderous side and proclaimed that Bowie was the sort of artist whose achievements will allow him to remain in the public consciousness for eternity, claiming that he far exceeded the standard of what is expected of any other musician. “David Bowie’s not merely a performer,” he noted, “He was part of our childhood. In my eyes, Bowie stands for a certain kind of immortality”.
While Bowie’s corporeal form would end up leaving the world only three years later, his influence has hardly waned in the slightest in the decade since his passing, allowing him to continue weaving his magic from the spiritual realm.
He’s still the artist we think of first when it comes to developing characters alongside new musical directions, being able to adapt himself and having this endless streak of creativity, and even in his passing, he’s managed to retain his position of being synonymous with this approach to the art form. If staying this present in the world of music after death illustrates anything, it’s that Cave couldn’t be more accurate in his assertion that Bowie was, and always will be, immortal.
