Responding to a fan question, the singer said he felt the words were ‘unnecessarily provocative’ but called Morrissey ‘probably the best lyricist of his generation’
Nick Cave has said that he turned down Morrissey’s request to appear on a new song in 2024, claiming that the former Smiths frontman wanted him to sing “an unnecessarily provocative and slightly silly anti-woke screed he had written”.
In response to a fan question on his Red Hand Files site about his relationship with the singer, Cave said that “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.”
The Guardian has contacted representatives for Morrissey for comment.
In 2019, Cave said: “Regardless of the virtuous intentions of many woke issues, it is its lack of humility and the paternalistic and doctrinal sureness of its claims that repel me.” A year later, he called cancel culture “bad religion run amuck”.
