His work may “flirt with ideas of paedophilia, murder and incest,” but singer and author Nick Cave proved yesterday that he is just a big softy at heart.
Asked how he felt about receiving an honorary degree from Dundee University, he said, “This one’s for my mother.”
Cave was honoured at the end of a four-day programme of graduation ceremonies at the Caird Hall that saw more than 3000 students come up on stage to receive their degrees and diplomas.
The Australian-born rock icon arrived clad in his trademark dark suit, with swept back hair, a half-open shirt and sunglasses.
Adding a blue and gold ceremonial robe gave him a distinct coolest-professor-in-the-world look, and he harked back to his somewhat misspent youth in Australia.
He said, “My father was a teacher and my mother also worked at the school I went to.
“I went into tertiary education, to art school, and failed and it broke their hearts.
“So this one is for my mother. She will be really pleased.”
Cave has already received an honorary degree from Monash University in his home state of Victoria.
“Funnily enough it was given to me by the school that failed me. That was very satisfying,” he said, adding that it was an “absolute honour” to be recognised by Dundee.
Did he have any advice for the students graduating alongside him?
With a grin he replied, “I think, go out and fail spectacularly.”
Nick Cave’s career has been spectacular in its own way.
Although he has never been a household name, his work with the Birthday Party and with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds has earned him a cult following.
In her laureation address, the university’s head of creative writing Professor Kirsty Gunn likened him to an alchemist “mixing up the spell delivered straight from the underworld.”
His performances were “at once rhetorical and deranged” and lit up by the “terrifying, self-justifying righteous ire of a shifty born-again minister and the clear-seeing gaze of the poet prophet who understands all, forgives all.”
Professor Gunn said that Cave’s recent work included the novel The Death of Bunny Munro, his garage-rock band Grinderman and soundtracks for the films The Proposition and The Road.
He moved effortlessly between genres, she said, “shadowing us with a reminder of art’s dark power, of its life-enhancing magic, potency and the sheer crazed wonderfulness of the imagination.”
Cave later read from his book at the Dundee Literary Festival.
This Youtube footage from daisydundee contains very adult themes and language.