In 2018, Nick Cave received a message from a fan named Cynthia on his Red Hand Files site. Going through her own pangs of devastation after the loss of multiple loved ones, she asked Cave "
I have experienced the death of my father, my sister and my first love in the past few years and feel that I have some communication with them, mostly through dreams. They are helping me. Are you and Susie feeling that your son Arthur is with you and communicating in some way?" Cave had lost his son, Arthur, in 2015, the 15-year-old tragically falling from a cliff at Ovingdean, near Brighton. Following his son’s death, Cave’s works have been inspired by Arthur and the lingering effects of his death.
“Grief and love are forever intertwined,” he replied. “Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-negotiable. There is a vastness to grief that overwhelms our minuscule selves. We are tiny, trembling clusters of atoms subsumed within grief’s awesome presence. It occupies the core of our being and extends through our fingers to the limits of the universe. Within that whirling gyre all manner of madnesses exist; ghosts and spirits and dream visitations, and everything else that we, in our anguish, will into existence. These are precious gifts that are as valid and as real as we need them to be. They are the spirit guides that lead us out of the darkness.”
Cave continued in his letter to Cynthia. “I hear him talk to me, parent me, guide me, though he may not be there. He visits Susie in her sleep regularly, speaks to her, comforts her, but he may not be there. Dread grief trails bright phantoms in its wake. These spirits are ideas, essentially. They are our stunned imaginations reawakening after the calamity. Like ideas, these spirits speak of possibility. Follow your ideas, because on the other side of the idea is change and growth and redemption. Create your spirits. Call to them. Will them alive. Speak to them. It is their impossible and ghostly hands that draw us back to the world from which we were jettisoned; better now and unimaginably changed."
This poignant exchange inspired Cave to pen a new single, Grief. “My reply was the first time I was able to articulate my own contradictory feelings of grief,” said Cave. “Letters like Cynthia’s have helped bring me and many others back to the world.”
The poetic spoken-word track came out as a 7″ vinyl in April as a follow-up to their February album, Carnage with Letter to Cynthia on the A-side and Song for Cynthia on the reverse. Cave wrote the lyrics to Letter To Cynthia with music performed and written by Warren Ellis; the latter was performed and written by the pair.
The shivering track carries deep tones that carry the weight of grief, Cave also reflecting on those he has lost. It is heartfelt, bursting with empathy, and a touchstone of comfort for those in mourning.
Cave Things - Letter to Cynthia by Nick Cave
https://www.theredhandfiles.com/communication-dream-feeling/
