London: Nick Cave is no monarchist. Nor, he says, is he an ardent republican.
What I am also not is so spectacularly incurious about the world and the way it works, so ideologically captured, so damn grouchy, as to refuse an invitation to what will more than likely be the most important historical event in the UK of our age, Cave says.
Nick Cave says hes not a monarchist nor an ardent republican, but described the coronation as the most important historical event in the UK of our age.Credit: AP
Not just the most important, but the strangest, the weirdest.
The veteran Australian singer-songwriter, synonymous for his five decades with the Bad Seeds, has written to some of his incredulous fans, telling them why hes attending the coronation service of King Charles III on Saturday.
Cave, who has lived in Britain since the 1980s, is among a select group of prominent Australians to be invited to attend the service alongside Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who is a music fan who loves a selfie with his favourite musos.
A poet, screenwriter, composer and occasional actor, Cave said he felt the need to explain his thinking on his personal blog, The Red Hand Files, after fans asked: Why the f--- are you going to the Kings coronation?
I once met the late Queen at an event at Buckingham Palace for Aspirational Australians living in the UK (or something like that), the 65-year-old wrote on Tuesday.
It was a mostly awkward affair, but the Queen herself, dressed in a salmon-coloured twin-set, seemed almost extraterrestrial and was the most charismatic woman I have ever met.
Maybe it was the lighting, but she actually glowed. As I told my mother who was the same age as the Queen and, like the Queen, died in her nineties about that day, her old eyes filled with tears.
Cave said, to his own bafflement, that he found himself weeping during the Queens funeral last year when he watched, on television, her coffin being stripped of the crown, orb and sceptre and lowered through the floor of St Georges Chapel.
I guess what I am trying to say is that, beyond the interminable but necessary debates about the abolition of the monarchy, I hold an inexplicable emotional attachment to the royals the strangeness of them, the deeply eccentric nature of the whole affair that so perfectly reflects the unique weirdness of Britain itself, he wrote.
Im just drawn to that kind of thing the bizarre, the uncanny, the stupefyingly spectacular, the awe-inspiring.
Launched in September 2018, the site is essentially a public forum, where Cave answers questions from fans. Interestingly, most of those questions are not about creativity or music. He has used the Q&A format to weigh in on thorny issues, including censorship, where last year he denounced the removal by the BBC of a homophobic slur from The Pogues and Kirsty MacColls Fairytale of New York, calling it a [mutilation of] an artefact of immense cultural value.
Cave, who was raised in regional Victoria before completing his schooling in suburban Melbourne, has suffered deep personal trauma during the past decade, losing two sons in tragic circumstances.
Nick Cave, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Matildas captain Sam Kerr will be among the Australian delegation at the coronation.Credit: Shakespeare
In May, he publicly announced the death of his oldest son, Jethro, 31, who had a successful modelling career and was based in Melbourne. It followed the death in 2015 of another son, Arthur, who was 15 when he fell from a cliff near their home................................................0 in Brighton, on the British south coast. Cave has two other sons: Arthurs twin, Earl, and Luke.
In the past year, he has opened up about his journey to faith, telling UnHerd in a recent interview the way to rebel in 2023 was to go to church and be a conservative.
Having been famously anti-establishment in his early career, he has transformed over the years from a counter-culture icon and said he delights in f---ing with people.
And as for what the young Nick Cave would have thought well, the young Nick Cave was, in all due respect to the young Nick Cave, young, and like many young people, mostly demented, so Im a little cautious around using him as a benchmark for what I should or should not do, he wrote.
He was cute though, Ill give him that. Deranged, but cute.
He said with all that in mind, he was looking forward to going to the coronation.
I think Ill wear a suit.
-- Edited by Santa on Wednesday 3rd of May 2023 10:54:34 AM
I don't think it's about being ashamed or unashamed monarchist but more about Australia moving from
being a teenager to a fully flung adult by becoming a republic.
Lets face it, the monarchy has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the day to day of running Australia.
Therefore it is irrelevant. Queen Elisabeth was a unique human being and Australia retained its monarchy status
out of respect mostly. Now is the time.
Ok so you want us to become a republic.
The second part of your first sentence is facturally incorrect we are already fully flung adults.
So if the monarchy has nothing to do with the day to day running of our country, the current monarch cannot sack government, nor impose law upon us. but the Kings representative is our Govenor General who is appointed by the Australian Parliament is our Head of State.
Rather than get our knickers in a twist, will you please explain how the day to day lives will be better by becoming a republic.
-- Edited by Gundog on Thursday 4th of May 2023 12:56:32 PM
'Fully flung or otherwise I am interested in why anyone might think of our Australian nation as either at an adolescent or adult stage of it's existence.
Personally I very much see modern Australia as a relatively young nation on the world stage, & can think of a couple of things which need to happen before we 'come of age'.
One of which is a more developed insight as to what becoming an adult nation looks like.
"a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory."
Australia has never been more divided than what it is now.
I doubt nations can be classified as being adolescent or adult, populations are constantly renewing by the old making way for the young as well as by migration, migrants bringing their own customs and religious beliefs, Australia is a melting pot of change and will continue this way for the foreseeable future.
I doubt we can even think about becoming a republic until we can demonstrate some form of unification.
-- Edited by Santa on Thursday 4th of May 2023 05:50:42 PM
I doubt we can even think about becoming a republic until we can demonstrate some form of unification.
You mean like the United States of America with their 50 separate jurisdictions? Americans had to make the English go away at the point of a gun. All we have to do is say no.
The concept of heredity rule should be repulsive to every intelligent, freedom loving individual. How can any Australian be proud of their country when they are subservient to a foreign head of state? That should require no explanation.
__________________
"No friend ever served me, and no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full."
We said no to a republic with a head of state elected by politicians. In any case 1999 was 24 years ago. Children become adults within 18 years. Hopefully the Australian electorate has grown up since then, too.
__________________
"No friend ever served me, and no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full."
So if the monarchy has nothing to do with the day to day running of our country, the current monarch cannot sack government, nor impose law upon us. but the Kings representative is our Govenor General who is appointed by the Australian Parliament is our Head of State.
Rather than get our knickers in a twist, will you please explain how the day to day lives will be better by becoming a republic.
-- Edited by Gundog on Thursday 4th of May 2023 12:56:32 PM
Please comment on this or is it all about the vibe
So if the monarchy has nothing to do with the day to day running of our country, the current monarch cannot sack government, nor impose law upon us. but the Kings representative is our Govenor General who is appointed by the Australian Parliament is our Head of State.
Rather than get our knickers in a twist, will you please explain how the day to day lives will be better by becoming a republic.
-- Edited by Gundog on Thursday 4th of May 2023 12:56:32 PM
Please comment on this or is it all about the vibe
famous quote " GOD SAVE THE GOVERNER GENERAL." or as PAULINE says " please explain"
Perhaps, perhaps not, who among us would you suggest as a leader for The Democratic Republic Of Australia?
Here's a likely candidate, think about it.
-- Edited by Santa on Wednesday 3rd of May 2023 07:29:48 PM
The leader of the Democratic Republic of Korea is a hereditary ruler. The people have no way of getting rid of him. All we have to do to get rid of our hereditary ruler is to say "no". Think about that.
__________________
"No friend ever served me, and no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full."
The leader of the Democratic Republic of Korea is a hereditary ruler. The people have no way of getting rid of him. All we have to do to get rid of our hereditary ruler is to say "no". Think about that.
Think about that. You're asking for the impossible. Lack of a certain something preludes some from doing just that.
A monarchist I am not. Have absolute no respect for the institution and what it stands for. I did have respect for the Queen.
Head of state elected by the public. Not by politicians, certainly not by hereditary.