Nick Cave has previously criticized cancel culture and being "woke," and remains a Morrissey fan — but now, Cave has revealed that he turned down Moz's invitation to deliver a "slightly silly anti-woke screed" on an upcoming song.
Asked by a fan about his relationship with Morrissey on his Red Hand Files website, Cave clarified that he's never actually met the fallen Smiths singer, but they had "a few pleasant email exchanges last year."
This led to Moz asking him to contribute to a song, and while Cave said that he would have been "would have been happy to do so," he wasn't a fan of what Morrissey was asking him to do. Cave described the proposed collab like this:
while the song he sent was quite lovely, it began with a lengthy and entirely irrelevant Greek bouzouki intro. It also seemed that he didn't want me to actually sing on the song, but deliver, over the top of the bouzouki, an unnecessarily provocative and slightly silly anti-woke screed he had written. Although I suppose I agreed with the sentiment on some level, it just wasn't my thing. I try to keep politics, cultural or otherwise, out of the music I am involved with. I find that it has a diminishing effect and is antithetical to whatever it is I am trying to achieve. So, Astrid, I politely declined. I said no.
Cave went on to speak about Christianity, saying that a yearning for God is a key part of the human experience, and that great music is able to fill that feeling of emptiness — including Morrissey's. Read the full post here.
Perhaps this song was an addition to his long-discussed album Bonfire of Teenagers, which Morrissey recorded several years ago but claims that no label is willing to release. Meanwhile, he's touring this summer.