It was about the preciousness of that, and how they viewed those birds as art, as something valuable. I didn't care one way or another back then, but now, thinking about my grandparents - who are still alive but getting older - I see the birds as sort of time capsules. Now I go home during the holidays and they hold a lot of weight in terms of nostalgia and memory. Now they mean everything.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the value of memories and connections with family, highlighting how perceptions change over time.
In this quote, Nick Cave expresses a deep appreciation for the memories associated with specific aspects of his upbringing, particularly the birds that were viewed as art by his grandparents. Initially indifferent to their significance, he now recognizes them as important symbols of nostalgia and the passage of time, especially as he contemplates his grandparents' lives. This shift in perspective underscores the preciousness of memories and the bonds of family that deepen as one grows older.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a family gathering to inspire reflection on cherished memories.
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
It seems like just yesterday my son was hiding under the table to avoid reading. Now, he's writing books longer than mine!
A home is not a mere transient shelter: its essence lies in the personalities of the people who live in it.
A good father is one of the most unsung, unpraised, unnoticed, and yet one of the most valuable assets in our society.
Brain scans show synchrony between the brains of mother and child; but what they can't show is the internal bond that belongs to neither alone, a fusion in which the self feels so permeable it doesn't matter whose body is whose.
The presence of a grandparent confirms that parents were, indeed, little once, too, and that people who are little can grow to be big, can become parents, and one day even have grandchildren of their own. So often we think of grandparents as belonging to the past; but in this important way, grandparents, for young children, belong to the future.
Care about your children. Just bless them instead of worrying, as every child is the little Buddha who helps his parents to grow up.
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