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
[May 1958, on playing Macbeth at age 30 and age 48] When you're a young man, Macbeth is a character part. When you're older, it's a straight part.
Much of songwriting is simply a mystery.
There are days when I think the National Endowment for the Arts should issue a quota system for the production of plays by women - especially when you realize women buy 70 percent of all theater tickets.
A scientist can pretend that his work isn't himself, it's merely the impersonal truth. An artist can't hide behind the truth. He can't hide anywhere.
Nobody really needs a painting. It's something you kind of create value for in a way that you don't with a company. It's an act of collective faith what an object is worth. Maintaining that value system is part of what a dealer does, not just making a transaction but making sure that important art feels important.
Art supplies constantly to contemplation what nature seldom affords in concrete experience - the union of life and peace.
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