He’s out 7 Psalms from Nick Cave. That it cannot be reviewed as a music album, because it is not. If anything, we can only delve into his world and try to understand what path he is seeking with insistence and suffering and if he is reaching in his own way, what he accepted before him and then reached. Leonard Cohen. Why Cohen? What does it have to do with Nick Cave? Because he is the only one who can help him in some way, Cohen is the only one who can be close to him on this path. Because we are no longer speaking only of music, but of a musical discipline that tends towards spirituality, to the highest peaks. Let’s talk about learning to breathe through music. And not everyone can breathe well. Not everyone is chosen.
Seven: in the meantime, let’s start from here, from this number, which contains in its unity two opposites, as well as in things and in people, to represent light and shadow, solitude and completeness. 7 is the number between the earth and the sky. 7 as 7 deadly sins, 7 the days when God created the world and the universe and rested on the seventh day. 7 is the number of the Hebrew candlestick (Menorah), 7 is the number of the completeness of Buddhism, 7 is the heavens created by God according to the Koran, 7 the gifts of the Holy Spirit, 7 are the acts of atonement and purification. 7 the planets, 7 the musical notes. 7 is the number of the whole, 7 which becomes binary number 111, the Holy Trinity, which corresponds to the crucifixion of Jesus, 111 were the Roman soldiers witnesses. 7 Psalms are the 7 psalms created by Nick Cave which, as he himself stated, were composed during the lockdown, one for each day of the week, voluntarily to follow a sort of religious musical discipline. Finally 7 (November) is the day Leonard Cohen died. To die from the Greek “brotos” which derives from the root of “bro” from the verb brosko which means to eat, so literally to die means to be eaten / devoured. By whom and by what?
Eaten and devoured both by the inner demons, eaten and devoured both by the external weights and by the external pains, as if to say that someone up there has loaded them with immense gifts but also with immense weights. The choice of psalms may seem complex but it is not, indeed it is the necessary choice for him at this moment if you know the musical path and the changes that Nick Cave has been making to himself for some years now. The psalms are nothing more than an appeal to God, formulated by men and are God’s answer and his revelation in prayer. So when Nick Cave in “Have a mercy on me” turns to God like “Have mercy on me Lord, I was wrong but have mercy on me” he does nothing but apologize for what has been, for not having been there perhaps, for having created pain with his absence, and begs him to leave that door still open, which Nick Cave seems to have always kicked, the door which he fears to enter but who knows very well that only by accepting his predestined condition, by being chosen, if you prefer, he can find inner peace. Easier said than done you will say. But is not so. In fact, perhaps it is easier for Nick Cave to do it than to say it. He does it through this whole series of albums, documentaries and prayers that are becoming more and more read, where the music becomes the background first to his pain and then to his voice and finally to his breath. Only the genius of Warren Ellis stands beside him in this path which is not tortuous, on the contrary. This path made of psalms, of deep breath is the clearest and most linear path of a Nick Cave who finally looking in the mirror sees himself and no longer a fiery shadow.
Nick Cave pleads and is now on his knees before the “Lord” and he needs it to stay bent in that condition. Do you know the story of Lucifer, the angel fallen from heaven etc etc? Here’s Nick Cave is the story in reverse. Born on earth and on earth, a figure who has always liked to crawl into the dark depths of the soul, gain strength and feed on the pain that was around him and mix it with his, as the only potion to go on. Born in the flames, the higher they were, the more he felt at home. Son of flames and fire, waiting to burn, not realizing that on the outside he was already devoured by the flames. Just as it was in his musical beginnings, that frenzied punk rock, that semi-terrified look at life and that Lord who knew who was waiting for him at the gate every time he himself called him in his lyrics in an incandescent way but from which he is always fled. But in reality the Lord that he begs now in this “7 Psalms” has had different plans for him, he has shown him that he is not the master of his destiny (like all of us) that he was not born of flames and Nick Cave actually has to accept, as he did with difficulty, also fleeing from pain, fleeing to a Tibetan monastery L. Cohen, which is not destined to make up for in the flames but is actually destined for something angelic, is destined more clearly that to the darkness, even though there is only death around him. And as painful and incredulous as we all may be at the death of his two children, only Nick Cave can know how he handles every second of his life the darkness that is always behind him taking your breath away, and how difficult and exhausting it is. train constantly in search of the presence of those who are no longer there. It takes constant training, internal and external discipline to feel next to you who is no longer there. Nick Cave knows this very well now that he is no longer allowed any distractions. He is undressing completely and he needs more and more to show him his suffering, to feel weak. And the more he let himself go in showing his suffering of him, the more he finally let himself go to his weakness and the lower the flames became, the clearer the pains were. And it is as Cohen said “sometimes when it happens that you no longer feel like the protagonist of the film of your life, or you don’t expect there to be one victory after another, when you really realize that this is not heaven, if you are a privileged as we understand that this valley of tears is still beautiful and perfectible and that we must never give up but we have a duty to improve it. From that moment on, everything appears simpler because you understood that you can’t always win … often you have to abandon the idea of the masterpiece you dreamed of to sink into a more authentic work that is your life “.
And then the psalms whose history is made up of men in supplication like David, according to King of Israel was the one to whom most of the psalms were credited, and David was a warrior, musician and poet, as was Nick Cave, musician , poet and now brave warrior and as L. Cohen suggests in the documentary “I’m your man” of which Nick himself was a part, “there was this wonderful passage in the Bhagavadgita, where Argione, the general, a great general, he was standing on his chariot, ready to start fighting like everyone else, and he was surrounded by the boys, the girls and all the gurus and teachers who had taught him and you know how much the Indians honor these figures. He sees all of them and Krishna, one of the greatest expressions of divinity tells him – You will never understand all the circumstances that have brought you up to this moment. You are a warrior and then stand up and fight warrior, think that they have already been killed so many times just like you, this is my design, this is my will, you are trapped in the circumstances that I wanted for you, you have not established nothing. Therefore fight noble warrior, go to meet your destiny, whatever it is and respect all your duties “.
So both Nick Cave and Cohen warriors, but unlike Nick Cave, Cohen knew how to hide his pains better, he knew how to better dissipate his sadness and his suffering, and he was a master at confusing elegance with pain but no one accepts death. for what it is, no one takes seriously the concept of not having to be there one day, no one imagines ashes and no one thinks of the people we love as ashes, not even Cohen as much as he talked about death and tasted the smell in the end he was ready. Nobody is preparing to die. And the death in the end that he calls, at most humans expect it but nothing more. With death there is no confidence that has been given to us with life, because life is given of the you, death seems alien instead. The worse it is to see the death of those who belong to you in the blood, the worse it is to survive your blood.
THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE OF HIS LIVE:
It is often said of Nick Cave’s live shows (and the Bad Seeds) for those who have had the good fortune to see him and who will see him that one cannot speak of a concert, but Nick Cave live is a religious experience and no one can say the on the contrary, because it is recollection, research, sharing and need at the same time. You train in Nick Cave’s concerts, you train to look for his desperate eyes, because whoever has seen his face has certainly always felt that feeling of pity for him and for all those people who were there, but not in the dirty meaning we have today. The pity that is recognized in his eyes is the pity that brings love and respect, it is the pity that welcomes and does not look away, it is the pity that we have all lost outside and we find ourselves there. Here are Nick Cave’s live shows are full of pity, because at that moment everyone, absolutely everyone, feels loved by him and respected, protected as if he were in a family and you train to recollect, you train, this is the foundation of his art, to seek silence. Through contact, he reaches out his hands, wants and seeks the hands of his audience and when he responds to a boy in New York who yells at him “I love you”, his answer “I love you” is neither trivial nor contextual. too, more than you can image “.
This “More than you can imagine” is emblematic of how much Nick Cave needs his audience and does not want to be alone in this path, he desperately seeks help, his audience full of love and respect is the only potion that is bringing him closer to that project that his Lord has always for him. The audience perceives it and in a certain sense silently obeys this sort of man who asks for help through his music.
Although throughout his life and career he has surrounded himself with flames and tried in every way to stay on the ground, to stay in the middle of the fire, for Nick Cave now the moment of awareness has arrived. If Isaiah told of Lucifer like this “Isaiah 14:11 Your pomp has fallen into hell and the music of your harps” with 7 Psalms Nick Cave no longer belongs to the underworld from which he thought he came but instead returns home, on his knees yes, begging but returns home, because he has understood that he is no longer a standing Lucifer but finally accepts his true nature, that is to to be an Angel on his knees but who has begun to breathe and who no longer suffocates in the flames.
And in any case Nick, in this journey steeped in love, no fear “we are beside you, more than you can image” and as Cohen said “All good things”.