Sometimes I wonder if Nick Cave ever gets tired of being so awesome. But what could he do, at this point? Pick his nose and eat it? Fine. He could be a nose-mining snot-eater, be as big a shithead as the Gauguin figure in The Moon and Sixpence, enjoy the novels of Ayn Rand, cover it all in an anorak, and still remind us he's the awesomest pipol person in circulation with a double play of the a capella "Black Betty" from Kicking Against the Pricks and his narration of The Cat Piano:



Oh, how I wish normal Australians actually sounded like that, it would make my post-this-October life so much more pleasant. It's all enough to reconcile me to "Brompton Oratory". Although actually I think "Brompton Oratory" is enough to reconcile me to "Brompton Oratory". The tune is very pretty indeed and I really love the second verse for some reason:

The reading is from Luke 24
Where Christ returns to his loved ones
I look at the stone apostles
Think that it's alright for some

(BTW, we saw Brompton Oratory when I was dragging my niece and nephew around London the other week. What the fuck is it with Anglicans and Anglo Catholics, incapable of constructing a pretty bit of religious architecture; the fucking Methodists were putting up better things than they were. Anyways, a bit of a squat of a church but better than the Basilica here in Brussels, which is certainly the building I'd choose to demolish by fucking hand if necessary if they were handing out demolishing licenses. Seriously, it's piss-ugly inside and out; more basilisk than basilica. I have never seen such a hideously ugly place of worship anywhere. It's like a toad that looked at Medusa).

So he's all awesome, but does he write poetry? I keep thinking his lyrics flirt with poetry - cross into it very often. Certainly more often than most people's, and sometimes absolutely undeniably, like "The Curse of Millhaven". Probably that wouldn't surprise me or even present itself in my mind as a question, except he is a pipol person, and The Boatman's Call in particular is so problematic in those terms because it's such common knowledge that it's about a relationship with another pipol person. And my feeling of what art is, that it's a thing that speaks meaningfully to our collective unconsciousness on purpose, is hard to reconcile with songs about a specific pipol person relationship.

I think the only thing I can do is avoid reading about any pipol person there's even a possibility I might respect as an artist - reviews included, and certainly interviews included - and concentrate any coverage I read on people like Mel "give me a blow-job before I burn your house down" Gibson.