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On changing their mind
Back then I thought I was remaking the world, tearing down the old and erecting something new in its place.
Nick Cave
Musician and writer; answers readers' questions weekly at The Red Hand Files, and fronts Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
Nick Cave did not write this page. What is this?
It collects the places they publish and what they have said there, each linked to the source. They have no account here. Is this you? Claim it, correct it, or ask us to remove it from ppll.
Where they publish
Site The Red Hand Files Where he answers one reader's question a week, at length.
“You can ask me anything. There will be no moderator. This will be between you and me.” Begun in September 2018; the answers range from grief and faith to songwriting and what he thinks of a particular record.
Link verified 20 Sept 2026.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 15 beliefs, 1 changed mind — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
A work does not have to be unlike everything before it to be worth making; what makes it new is that this particular person made it.
There may be nothing new under the sun, but it is our distinctiveness that matters, our specialness.
How have your beliefs evolved? What did you once hold true in your beliefs that you don't hold now? Said 29 Jun 2026
The past is not something a maker should discard but something to draw on, and approaching it with humility is what lets the work come out distinct.
Over time, that fiery intensity ebbed away, and I realised that the past wasn’t something to discard but to respect.
How have your beliefs evolved? What did you once hold true in your beliefs that you don't hold now? Said 29 Jun 2026
Suffering is not an interruption of a good life but the ground the good things grow out of.
Suffering is the essential and nourishing ground from which all the delightful gifts of life emerge.
Do you think humans have to suffer before harnessing genuine human sympathy? Said 23 Jan 2026
Show 12 more
The feeling of creative control is an illusion: the work has its own destiny and does not belong to the person making it.
But I have come to understand that the feeling of creative control is an illusion, that the songs are predetermined and have their own destiny, that they are not our own.
What do I do with these songs? Said 20 Nov 2023
The only thing a maker really controls is telling the good work from the bad; what arrives is not up to them.
Where we do have control is in identifying which is which.
What do I do with these songs? Said 20 Nov 2023
Mechanising the imagination commodifies the human spirit, because it makes a person's own part in making things look valueless.
ChatGPT is fast-tracking the commodification of the human spirit by mechanising the imagination. It renders our participation in the act of creation as valueless and unnecessary.
I work in the music industry and there is a lot of excitement around ChatGPT... what's wrong with making things faster and easier? Said 10 Aug 2023
The struggle of making something is not an obstacle in front of the work; it is where the meaning comes from.
It is our striving that becomes the very essence of meaning.
I work in the music industry and there is a lot of excitement around ChatGPT... what's wrong with making things faster and easier? Said 10 Aug 2023
What a generative model makes is a replication of art rather than art, because it can only imitate or average the choices human makers have already made.
What ChatGPT is, in this instance, is replication as travesty. ChatGPT may be able to write a speech or an essay or a sermon or an obituary but it cannot create a genuine song.
I asked Chat GPT to write a song in the style of Nick Cave and this is what it produced. What do you think? Said 16 Jan 2023
Songs come out of suffering, and a system that has endured nothing has nothing to make one from.
Songs arise out of suffering, by which I mean they are predicated upon the complex, internal human struggle of creation and, well, as far as I know, algorithms don’t feel. Data doesn’t suffer.
I asked Chat GPT to write a song in the style of Nick Cave and this is what it produced. What do you think? Said 16 Jan 2023
Making something great is the opposite of resembling what is already recognised as great.
What makes a great song great is not its close resemblance to a recognizable work. Writing a good song is not mimicry, or replication, or pastiche, it is the opposite.
I asked Chat GPT to write a song in the style of Nick Cave and this is what it produced. What do you think? Said 16 Jan 2023
Making art is a job you turn up to whether or not you feel inspired, and the work only arrives for people who are already at the desk.
I also have an affinity with artists who treat their craft as a job and are not dependent on the vagaries of inspiration — because I am one of them. Like most people with a job, we just go to work.
Do you think it is more important to find inspiration or to get to work and write? Said 29 Jun 2021
A maker cannot summon the good line, only be at the desk when it arrives, and the outcome is not theirs to influence.
Pen poised, I sit to attention, in my suit, on the edge of my imagination, prepared for the beautiful line to arrive. Sometimes it does, sometimes it does not — either way I am powerless to influence the outcome.
Do you think it is more important to find inspiration or to get to work and write? Said 29 Jun 2021
Desire and the making of art draw on the same faculty, and neither dries up with age.
With regards to sexual desire and songwriting, creativity and desire have always been inextricably linked for me.
How is the correlation between the sexual and the creative going in old age? Said 31 May 2019
A sense of awe depends on the limits of the person who made the thing, so unlimited potential has nothing left to transcend.
A sense of awe is almost exclusively predicated on our limitations as human beings. It is entirely to do with our audacity as humans to reach beyond our potential.
Considering human imagination the last piece of wilderness, do you think AI will ever be able to write a good song? Said 23 Jan 2019
What moves a listener is not the song alone but a human being straining against their own limits, which is why a machine can write a good song and never a great one.
What we are actually listening to is human limitation and the audacity to transcend it. Artificial Intelligence, for all its unlimited potential, simply doesn’t have this capacity.
Considering human imagination the last piece of wilderness, do you think AI will ever be able to write a good song? Said 23 Jan 2019
Beliefs others hold too
Making art is a job you turn up to whether or not you feel inspired, and the work only arrives for people who are already at the desk. 3 hold this
I also have an affinity with artists who treat their craft as a job and are not dependent on the vagaries of inspiration — because I am one of them. Like most people with a job, we just go to work.
Do you think it is more important to find inspiration or to get to work and write? Said 29 Jun 2021
A work does not have to be unlike everything before it to be worth making; what makes it new is that this particular person made it. 2 hold this
There may be nothing new under the sun, but it is our distinctiveness that matters, our specialness.
How have your beliefs evolved? What did you once hold true in your beliefs that you don't hold now? Said 29 Jun 2026
What a generative model makes is a replication of art rather than art, because it can only imitate or average the choices human makers have already made. 2 hold this
What ChatGPT is, in this instance, is replication as travesty. ChatGPT may be able to write a speech or an essay or a sermon or an obituary but it cannot create a genuine song.
I asked Chat GPT to write a song in the style of Nick Cave and this is what it produced. What do you think? Said 16 Jan 2023
What is a korrent?
A korrent is a belief a person has stated in their own words: one sentence stating the claim, backed by a quote and a source, kept at korrents.com.
Under a name here, the quoted block is what they actually said. The korrent beneath it is the claim those words support, in korrents' wording — tap it to see the record, its source, and who else holds it.
Nobody here wrote their own korrents. They are compiled from public statements, and a person can change their mind, which is recorded too.
Feed
As its own page →Hiding
29 June
From one piece How have your beliefs evolved? What did you once hold true in your beliefs that you don't hold now? 2 beliefs · theredhandfiles.com
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Their words
Over time, that fiery intensity ebbed away, and I realised that the past wasn’t something to discard but to respect.
-
Their words
There may be nothing new under the sun, but it is our distinctiveness that matters, our specialness.
23 January
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korrents.com
Suffering is not an interruption of a good life but the ground the good things grow out of.Their words
Suffering is the essential and nourishing ground from which all the delightful gifts of life emerge.
20 November 2023
From one piece What do I do with these songs? 2 beliefs · theredhandfiles.com
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korrents.com
The only thing a maker really controls is telling the good work from the bad; what arrives is not up to them.Their words
Where we do have control is in identifying which is which.
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Their words
But I have come to understand that the feeling of creative control is an illusion, that the songs are predetermined and have their own destiny, that they are not our own.
10 August 2023
From one piece I work in the music industry and there is a lot of excitement around ChatGPT... what's wrong with making things faster and easier? 2 beliefs · theredhandfiles.com
-
korrents.com
The struggle of making something is not an obstacle in front of the work; it is where the meaning comes from.Their words
It is our striving that becomes the very essence of meaning.
-
Their words
ChatGPT is fast-tracking the commodification of the human spirit by mechanising the imagination. It renders our participation in the act of creation as valueless and unnecessary.
16 January 2023
From one piece I asked Chat GPT to write a song in the style of Nick Cave and this is what it produced. What do you think? 3 beliefs · theredhandfiles.com
-
korrents.com
Making something great is the opposite of resembling what is already recognised as great.Their words
What makes a great song great is not its close resemblance to a recognizable work. Writing a good song is not mimicry, or replication, or pastiche, it is the opposite.
-
korrents.com
Songs come out of suffering, and a system that has endured nothing has nothing to make one from.Their words
Songs arise out of suffering, by which I mean they are predicated upon the complex, internal human struggle of creation and, well, as far as I know, algorithms don’t feel. Data doesn’t suffer.
-
Their words
What ChatGPT is, in this instance, is replication as travesty. ChatGPT may be able to write a speech or an essay or a sermon or an obituary but it cannot create a genuine song.
29 June 2021
From one piece Do you think it is more important to find inspiration or to get to work and write? 2 beliefs · theredhandfiles.com
-
korrents.com
A maker cannot summon the good line, only be at the desk when it arrives, and the outcome is not theirs to influence.Their words
Pen poised, I sit to attention, in my suit, on the edge of my imagination, prepared for the beautiful line to arrive. Sometimes it does, sometimes it does not — either way I am powerless to influence the outcome.
-
Their words
I also have an affinity with artists who treat their craft as a job and are not dependent on the vagaries of inspiration — because I am one of them. Like most people with a job, we just go to work.
31 May 2019
-
Their words
With regards to sexual desire and songwriting, creativity and desire have always been inextricably linked for me.
23 January 2019
From one piece Considering human imagination the last piece of wilderness, do you think AI will ever be able to write a good song? 2 beliefs · theredhandfiles.com
-
Their words
What we are actually listening to is human limitation and the audacity to transcend it. Artificial Intelligence, for all its unlimited potential, simply doesn’t have this capacity.
-
Their words
A sense of awe is almost exclusively predicated on our limitations as human beings. It is entirely to do with our audacity as humans to reach beyond our potential.
Nothing matches.
About the English under a post
Some people here publish in a language other than English. Where they do, this site shows a machine translation beneath the post, in this typeface — the site's own, not theirs.
The post itself is never changed, moved or hidden: what is set in the serif above is exactly what the person published, and it is what to quote them on. A translation can be wrong in ways that matter, especially about tone.
Only the post's own words are translated. A quoted post, a linked article and a belief on korrents.com are left in their original language.