The coronation of King Charles III and his wife Camilla will take place this weekend, with a ceremony at Westminster Abbey. On the guest list for the ceremony is Nick Cave, one of a handful of Australians who will be attending alongside Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, former politician Julie Bishop and soccer star Sam Kerr.
Now, in a new edition of his Red Hand Files Q&A newsletter, Cave has answered fans who are curious about his decision to accept such an invitation. “Why the fuck are you going to the King’s coronation?” one asked, while another wondered if Cave was a monarchist. “What would the young Nick Cave have thought of that?!” pondered another.
“I Hold 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,” Cave wrote in his response. “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. Not just the most important, but the strangest, the weirdest.”
Cave – who has lived in the UK for decades – went on to say that he once met the late Queen Elizabeth II at an event held at Buckingham Palace for notable Australians living in the UK. “It was a mostly awkward affair, but the Queen herself, dressed in a salmon coloured twin-set, seemed almost extraterrestrial and was the most charismatic woman I have ever met.” Cave added that he later told his mother the story, and her eyes “filled with tears.” He later found himself weeping while watching the Queen’s funeral last year.
“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.
“And as for what the young Nick Cave would have thought – well, 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. So, with all that in mind, I am looking forward to going the Coronation. I think I’ll wear a suit.”
Since 2018, Cave has used his Red Hand Files newsletter to answer all manner of questions from fans. Earlier this year, he used the website to rally against the use of artificial intelligence in art, labelling songs generated through the technology “a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human.”
Further Reading
REVIEW: Nick Cave – This Much I Know To Be True
Nick Cave Labels AI-Generated Songs “A Grotesque Mockery Of What It Is To Be Human”
Nick Cave Reveals Plans To Make A New Bad Seeds Album In 2023
