Some mixed comments from Nick Cave on Morrissey in the former’s Red Hand Files.

Cave explains his liking for Morrissey: “I’ve never actually met Morrissey, which is probably why I like him,” which isn’t a huge compliment. “He is undeniably a complex and divisive figure, someone who takes more than a little pleasure in pissing people off… As enjoyable as some may find this, it holds little interest for me, but for the fact that Morrissey is probably the best lyricist of his generation – certainly the strangest, funniest, most sophisticated, and most subtle.”

So, good news? Not quite.

“We had a few pleasant email exchanges last year in which Morrissey asked if I’d sing on a new song he had written. I would have been happy to do so, however, while the song he sent was quite lovely, it began with a lengthy and entirely irrelevant Greek bouzouki intro.”

He then dropped the bombshell: “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, I politely declined. I said no.”

A wise decision.