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Nick Cave praises fans’ covers of his music

Nick Cave at Beacon Theatre
photo by Dana Distortion

This past weekend, Nick Cave‘s 24/7 YouTube channel, Bad Seed TeeVee, played a non-stop loop of cover videos submitted by fans. There were 130 in all, and Nick apparently watched them all.

Not only did he watch them, he wrote in depth about the covers over at his Red Hand Files. “I was absolutely blown away. Seriously. The cover versions were awesome. Many of them, as far as I am concerned, were glorious advancements on the originals.” He mentioned many specifically:

Maria Højrup’s gorgeous Bright Horses, the operatic Avalanche, Saint Agnes’ chilling and superior No Pussy Blues and Asa’s Loverman-riot, the absolutely epic Galleon Ship and the super-disturbing Jack the Ripper, that seriously great Higgs Boson Blues from Ladyship Warship — wow, the rendition of Wild Rose (finally in tune), and the beautiful Covid-harp version, the Watching Alice snuff video, Paul at the piano playing Push the Sky Away, the kid singing We No Who U R on the acoustic guitar in the Clash t-shirt, and many other lovely versions of this song….

Nick also picked his two favorites:

But there were two songs, both off Ghosteen that, for me, stopped time itself. The deeply moving version of Spinning Song by Ilya Gruzdev, with its extraordinarily affecting home video footage, was such a strange, bold and emotional elevation of the original. I loved this. Watching it, well, it was very hard for me to keep my shit together.

And the other song, Waiting For You by Juldiz, with its incredibly haunting video, felt like it was attached by the tips of its fingers to the very edge of the world and could float away at any moment. It really was one of the most beautiful and precarious musical moments I have heard in a very long time. It was a performance that emerged deep within the song itself, on that delicious brink of collapse where so much great art lives, beamed from a million sorrowing miles away. Unbelievably beautiful.

Concluding, he wrote, “There have been a lot of cover versions of my songs over the years, but rarely have I heard them played with such honesty, understanding, creativity, conviction and pure heart. This stuff is the real deal and exactly what music should be about. Thank you all so much. It was an honour to be a part of it.”

In other news, he also recently launched a new shop called “Cave Things,” where you can find all kinds of odd and wonderful knick-knacks.