Nick Cave has revealed he passed on the chance to feature on a new Morrissey track.
It was due to the fact that the request involved delivering what he called a “slightly silly anti-woke screed” over a Greek bouzouki intro.
Writing on his Red Hand Files site, Cave said he and Morrissey had shared a few “pleasant” email exchanges but had never actually met in person. Nevertheless, through these exchanges Moz had floated a feature on a new track.
Cave was initially open to it as well—until he actually heard the concept. While he found the song “quite lovely,” things fell apart when it became clear that Morrissey didn’t want Cave to sing, but to deliver a spoken word rant about wokeness. Cave politely declined, calling the piece “unnecessarily provocative” and “not my thing.”
“I try to keep politics, cultural or otherwise, out of the music I’m involved with,” he wrote. “I find that it has a diminishing effect.”
Still, Cave had kind words for the former Smiths frontman, calling him “probably the best lyricist of his generation,” and praising Morrissey’s ability to “usher us toward what is true,” even when his songs feel “jaundiced and disaffected.”
The Bad Seeds frontman also took a moment to shout out rising New York noise-rockers YHWH Nailgun, saying he spent his morning listening to the band and calling them “completely awesome” and “able to point us to the heavens by going all the way down.”
Cave has long held a nuanced view on separating the art from the artist. Back in 2019, after Morrissey voiced support for far-right figures like Nigel Farage and the For Britain party, Cave urged fans to still engage with the music. “Whatever inanities he may postulate, we cannot overlook the fact that he has written a vast and extraordinary catalogue,” he said at the time.
As Cave hits Europe on his solo tour and Morrissey continues his summer run, it seems the two legends will remain on separate paths—connected only by admiration, a few emails, and one very awkward rejected bouzouki monologue.
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