Nick Cave gives advice about overcoming writer's block in latest Red Hand Files response

A person named Marko from Croatia asked Cave on his The Red Hand Files site: "What do you do when the lyrics just aren’t coming?"

Cave shared an enlightening response, in which he advises Marko to have patience and to remember we are "the living instruments through which the idea announces itself".

The Australian musician writes, "In my experience, lyrics are almost always seemingly just not coming. This is the tearful ground zero of song writing - at least for some of us. This lack of motion, this sense of suspended powerlessness, can feel extraordinarily desperate for a songwriter. But the thing you must hold on to through these difficult periods, as hard as it may be, is this - when something’s not coming, it’s coming. It took me many years to learn this, and to this day I have trouble remembering it."

Cave continues, "The idea of lyrics ‘not coming’ is basically a category error. What we are talking about is not a period of ‘not coming’ but a period of ‘not arriving’. The lyrics are always coming. They are always pending. They are always on their way toward us."

He goes on to encourage Marko to have patience, "Marko, our task is both simple and extremely difficult. Our task is to remain patient and vigilant and to not lose heart - for we are the destination. We are the portals from which the idea explodes, forced forth by its yearning to arrive. We are the revelators, the living instruments through which the idea announces itself - the flourishing and the blooming - but we are also the waiting and the wondering and the worrying. We are all of these things - we are the songwriters."