I ought to be listening to Nick Cave’s Wild God a whole lot more instead of retreating back to my usual comfort listening. Take the song “Frogs,” for instance, an astonishing paean to human yearning on this side of eternity: “The frogs are jumping in the gutters/Uh, leaping to God, amazed of love/And amazed of pain/Amazed to be back in the water again.” When a disgruntled fan complained to Cave about the seeming haziness and woo of these words, the songwriter answered, “Those little frogs, Barry, are you and me, and all of humanity—momentarily leaping toward love, wonder, meaning, and transcendence, only to land in the gutter again.” As a lifelong churchgoer, I’m used to being compared to a moronic sheep, but the image of a frog leaping out of the gutter only to land back in the muck again strikes me as startling and deeply inspired.
Jumping animals appear again in the next song, “Joy”: “I jumped up like a rabbit and fell down to my knees.” It’s a different creature, but the same dynamic, the same soaring leap that momentarily frees us from all the hard realities of the ground. We also meet a ghost in “giant sneakers, laughing stars around his head” who proclaims that “we’ve all had too much sorrow, now is the time for joy.” From our moment of chronic anxiety, paranoia, and rage, Cave then nods to the stars, “bright, triumphant metaphors of love” burning above all of our wreckage for all who aren’t too distracted and distressed to look up.
As a lifelong churchgoer, I’m used to being compared to a moronic sheep, but the image of a frog leaping out of the gutter only to land back in the muck again strikes me as startling and deeply inspired.
It’s well known that Cave wrote these words from within the throes of grief, having lost two sons in recent years. The details of both deaths are harrowing and Cave’s previous album, 2019’s Ghosteen, is a wailing monument of grief. In stark contrast, Wild God is all about joy. I have zero desire to even dip my toe into the debate over the proposed major distinction between joy and happiness that takes place in Christian circles. My guess is that it has less to do with etymology and more to do with C.S. Lewis’s peculiar use of the word, particularly in Surprised By Joy. What’s clear here is that for Cave, joy doesn’t entail mere subjective satisfaction. In interview after interview, he has candidly declared that the devastation he’s faced in recent years has brought home to him the unshakeable conviction that the beauty of human life is inextricably bound up with its very fragility. It is this revelation that brought him back to church.
There’s a flurry of interest in Christianity at the moment, with public figures of various stripes finding themselves darkening the doorways of churches. There are declarations of Christianity’s civilizational value and tributes to its moral influence on the West. Some are cynically embracing “cultural Christianity” because they prefer cathedrals to brutalism and have a fondness for Christmas carols. For my money, Nick Cave’s infatuation with the Church is one of the most fascinating and profound of these recent examples. Now it’s clear that if he sat down with my church’s elders, his answers to basic theological questions would get more than raised eyebrows. But there would be no question that his pursuit of God is sincere and, for those who are spiritually adroit, that his vision of humanity isn’t something he could muster on his own strength.
Cave has also blossomed into his role as a kind of sage and elder statesman of grief. The clearest testament to this is his “Red Hand Files” website, which reads a bit like a “Miss Lonelyhearts” for the 21st century. This venture really took off during the COVID lockdown and grew into such an important part of what the man does that I’m convinced it will be part of his legacy. People from all walks of life—fan, ex-fan, skeptic, seeker—flood Cave with emails. And he responds to as many of them as he can, devoting huge amounts of time to the endeavor.
Interactions with ex-fans are highly revealing. If you boil down their complaints, they’d go something like this: “I miss the edge and danger of your earlier work. I’m glad you’ve found peace. I’m sure it’s great for your personal life, but it sure ain’t great for your art!” In a period that feels like a lifetime ago, I remember spewing some petulant comments about Alanis Morissette’s transition from the feral rants of Jagged Little Pill to the seemingly banal gratitude of Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. As embarrassing as this example is, it’s indicative of what we could call the “Milton’s Satan problem”—namely, the disconcerting fact that evil and darkness are usually more compelling to us than goodness and light. Not only are they relatable, they just seem so darn interesting. After all, an adventure doesn’t get off the ground without a villain and Sherlock can’t go to work without a murderer.
Part of growing up is realizing that there’s nothing glamorous, compelling, or even interesting about evil in itself. As Simone Weil says, “Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.” There can be a great deal of energy and exhilaration surrounding evil acts and events. A skilled detective poring over clues in the painstakingly curated world of a fictional high stakes investigation is compelling. Trying to make funeral arrangements while you can barely muster the energy to bring a forkful of casserole to your mouth is not. Cave knows all this and he can look back on his earlier records with the recognition that they constitute the work of a young man whose talent and penchant for outlaw imagery far outweighed his experience. True, he’d shoot up on heroine and lash out at the occasional audience member in his younger years, but he didn’t yet recognize that any stray sparks of vitality were on borrowed credit from something else, something truly beautiful, something good.
Wild God is Cave’s attempt to make something good. As such, it comes with all the risks associated with such an endeavor. Some people will see it as dull, banal, precious, sentimental, cloying, and a host of other artistic pejoratives. I’m not here to defend the record against such accusations. All I’ll say is that I ought to be listening to it more. Why? Because it’s good for me. Yes, I’m saying it’s good for me, like strength training, chicken, rice, and broccoli. Ah, but shouldn’t art be seductive and enchanting? Sometimes, sure. But these days, everything is seductive and enchanting, and most of it places zero demands on you; it jives perfectly with your peculiar sensibilities and paints you into your little digital corner. That’s a description of a gilded cage if ever there was one. It very much looks as though we could use more Chicken Soup for the Soul in the art department of our lives.
Wild God isn’t background music. It’s not part of your mood board. And it’s not going to put you into the pleasurable stupor imposed by most of today’s pop artists whose output is as saccharine as a bag of Skittles. But in much the same way that a willing surrender to the monotony of strength training and good nutrition ends in physical transformation, works of art that aim to capture the good can result in spiritual transformation, enlarging our appetite for truth, goodness, and beauty. So, do I actually like the record? That’s a hearty “yes” and sure, press me, and I’ll give it five stars—but only after I’ve slowed down and put in the work.
