Nick Cave shares his thoughts on updating "problematic" lyrics from old songs

For his latest response, Nick Cave chose to answer Gavin from Dublin's question about updating lyrics from old songs. Gavin wanted to know if Cave ever feels "the need to change lyrics, when performing live, which may be problematic in 2020, for example "a fag in a whalebone corset dragging his dick across my cheek"? Or are you happy to preserve the lyric as a product of its time, and respect the original content?"

Cave offers up a brilliant response, personifying his songs and revealing that they "are feeling a little nervous". He adds, "But what songwriter could have predicted thirty years ago that the future would lose its sense of humour, its sense of playfulness, its sense of context, nuance and irony, and fall into the hands of a perpetually pissed off coterie of pearl-clutchers? How were we to know?"

The singer/songwriter goes on to write that "we writers should have been more careful with our words - I can own this, and I may even agree - however, we should never blame the songs themselves. Songs are divinely constituted organisms. They have their own integrity. As flawed as they may be, the souls of the songs must be protected at all costs. They must be allowed to exist in all their aberrant horror, unmolested by these strident advocates of the innocuous, even if just as some indication that the world has moved toward a better, fairer and more sensitive place."

Wrapping up his response, Cave adds, "If punishment must be administered, punish the creators, not the songs. We can handle it. I would rather be remembered for writing something that was discomforting or offensive, than to be forgotten for writing something bloodless and bland."