"[It] reflects the unique weirdness of Britain itself": Nick Cave defends his coronation plans
Nick Cave has defended his plans to attend to the forthcoming coronation of King Charles III in the most recent addition to his Red Hand Files blog.
The Australian singer responded to a number of messages questioning his supposed support of the monarchy. Cave justified his appearance by saying he holds “an inexplicable emotional attachment to the Royals”.
"I am not a monarchist, nor am I a royalist, nor am I an ardent republican for that matter; 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," he wrote. "Not just the most important, but the strangest, the weirdest."
The Bad Seeds frontman recalled a time when he met the late Queen at an event at Buckingham Palace, describing her as "almost extraterrestrial" and "the most charismatic woman" he ever met.
He added: "When I watched the Queen’s funeral on the television last year I found, to my bafflement, that I was weeping myself as the coffin was stripped of the crown, orb and sceptre and lowered through the floor of St. George’s 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. I’m just drawn to that kind of thing – the bizarre, the uncanny, the stupefyingly spectacular, the awe-inspiring."
Replying to a comment questioning what the "young Nick Cave" would think of his coronation attendance, the singer wrote: "The young Nick Cave was, in all due respect to the young Nick Cave, young, and like many young people, mostly demented, so I’m a little cautious around using him as a benchmark for what I should or should not do. He was cute though, I’ll give him that. Deranged, but cute."
Back in January, Cave used to Red Hand Files blog to launch a scathing attack on songwriting using artificial intelligence, calling it "bullshit" and a "grotesque mockery of what it is to be human".
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