[kj] [OT] was An article (Crowley influence) now Nick Cave stuff

[Darren A. Peace]

(rolls eyes again, and apologies for inconsistencies in quoted fonts – not of my making)

 

I’ll overlook the remark about condescension, as I’m feeling more agreeable then I did when I posted my last message, but really, for you to take offence at somebody else being condescending is most amusing.

 

It was you who brought the album into the conversation, so I fail to see how a reasonable person could have divined that you felt it was irrelevant. However, I’m happy to talk about the song in isolation, if that suits you better.

 

For example : Nick Cave had a recent song about killing beautiful women because he could nt live with their beauty . Yes it may have been a nice song that did nt conform to the normal topics. But the reality of the songs lyrics manifested itself in the recent Suffolk murders .

 

I have tried, really I have, to see what you can possibly mean by this. To compare the incomparable in this way. You must surely accept that there is a fundamental difference between art and reality? And that (unless you are about to be the third arrest) you can have no possible way of knowing the motivations at play in Suffolk? I think I’m right in saying that a ‘70s action comedy with Burt Reynolds (called “Fuzz”, I believe) featured a character being doused in petrol and set alight. A canny lawyer mentioned the film as inspiration in a case where this had actually happened. Does that seem right to you? Should a film be banned in case some maniac got an idea? I’m not going to carry this further into the “well, the Bible has one or two juicy moments in it”, as I’m sure you’ve thought that one through already, but I guess there must be someone polishing a poisoned apple about to sue the arse out of Disney.

 

  ******Hello........Who are you talking too??? You seem to be talking to someone who has suggested that art that uses murder for a base should be curtailed.................theres no one fitting that description here, not here*****************

 

Hello. I’m talking to someone who has suggested

 

Should the grisly act of murder be sanitised and portrayed as an acceptable thing in the name of making art ?

 

who would be you. I don’t recall saying that  art that uses murder for a base should be curtailed , so dispute the relevance of your comment.

 

Two points. First, the Cave song absolutely does not do this. 

 

{Chorus:}
They call me The Wild Rose
But my name was Elisa Day
Why they call me it I do not know
For my name was Elisa Day


>From the first day I saw her I knew she was the one

She stared in my eyes and smiled
For her lips were the colour of the roses
That grew down the river, all bloody and wild

When he knocked on my door and entered the room
My trembling subsided in his sure embrace
He would be my first man, and with a careful hand
He wiped out the tears that ran down my face

{ Chorus }

On the second day I brought her a flower
She was more beautiful than any woman I'd seen
I said, "Do you know where the wild roses grow
So sweet and scarlet and free?"

On the second day he came with a single red rose
Said, "Will you give me your loss and your sorrow?"
I nodded my head, as I lay on the bed
"If I show you the roses will you follow?"

{ Chorus }

On the third day he took me to the river
He showed me the roses and we kissed
And the last thing I heard was a muttered word
As he knelt above me with a rock in his fist

On the last day I took her where the wild roses grow
And she lay on the bank, the wind light as a thief
And I kissed her goodbye, said "All beauty must die"
Lent down and planted a rose between her teeth

{ Chorus }

 

On what basis can you possibly assert that the murder is either sanitised or portrayed as acceptable? Surely the overriding feeling is of the inevitability of loss experienced by this sociopath? Do you not feel that the sensitivity with which the woman’s emotion is portrayed is played in counterpoint to the views of the male protagonist? I guess not. What a pity. Do you think Cave is recommending murdering people on riverbanks, or that the lyrics should describe the state of her face after the attack?

 

Cave, for me, is one of the most insightful and challenging lyricists working today. I applaud your right to think differently, but I need a case to consider if I’m not to dismiss your views as irrelevant to me, and you’ve not given one.

 

Second, perhaps more contentious, point – I think that it is perfectly acceptable for murder, or indeed anything else, to be sanitised in the name of making art. Unless you maintain that everything must be contextualised to the point of redundancy, and that you require (for example) deaths by shooting in war films to be constant explosions of bone, cartilage, teeth and fluids (had this been a good idea, then pretty much no film above a G or U rating would have been made until very, very recently, what with the Hays Code and the extremities of UK film censorship until the late nineties, and the first 20 minutes of “Saving Private Ryan” wouldn’t have had any effect whatsoever – you know the bit, before it descends into interminable Tom Hanks/Spielberg jingoistic bollocks), your argument makes no sense. You are arguing not just for extreme censorship, but that no area of the human condition uncomfortable to the Daily Mail readership should be acknowledged at all. Do you read the Daily Mail, by any chance? Have you burned copies of “Child’s Play”, and felt that warm Fahrenheit 451 glow? Do you think that every song about death deserves the Cannibal Corpse treatment? Do you see no irony in the Dead Kennedys’ “I Kill Children”? Do you think Eric really kills children? Tipper would be so proud of you. Feeling as you do, might I recommend being careful not to play Judas Priest records backwards? Do you think that Killing Joke should have made a video of “Pssyche”, literally interpreting the final verse?

 

I should mention at this point that I am prickly about the ignorance of your position both with regard to Cave, whom I rate very highly, and the events in Suffolk, as I have friends in the area affected by what’s happening, but I don’t believe I'm being reactionary. I may be robustly challenging your position, but I think your position should be able to bear it, unless it’s ill-considered and shaky.

 

Darren

 

PS. “You and I are going to fall out”? I’m not sure we’ve ever seen eye to eye, have we? But I'm willing to justify my position, and trust that you will also, as is your right. If this gets too tedious for others, though, I’ll back off.

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