Nick Cave gives fan advice on getting a tattoo: "I would advise against it, which is why I think you should probably get one"

In the latest response on his Q+A site The Red Hand Files, Nick Cave recalls getting his skull and crossbones tattoo with ANITA's name on it while in Sydney’s red light district with The Birthday Party bass player Tracy Pew, and gives another fan advice on whether to get a tattoo or not.

As well as revisiting his experience getting a tattoo, Cave wrote that when he stands in front of a mirror now, "the tattoo is the least of my worries." He continued, "It seems to be just one part of a general emerging calamity. Having said that, I feel a sweet and teary pang as I look at the tattoo - I see that the name Anita has blurred and become unreadable, and the skull, sagging and old now, looks deranged and contemptuous. Still, I’m happy to carry this remnant of my youth with me, not just as a reminder of two of the most beautiful people who walked the earth - Anita Lane, who passed away recently, and Tracy Pew, who died not too many years after that carefree day in Sydney - but also that there was a time when I was both heroic and dumb enough to get a tattoo of a badly drawn skull with my girlfriend’s name on it."

"I guess I am wiser now, but that folly of youth will always go with me, and when I am finally in the ground, the grinning skull will continue to mock and jeer at all the lofty pretensions and vanities and cautions of these, my latter years," Cave added.

He concluded, "So, should you get a tattoo, Chris? As a sage man of a mature age I would advise against it, which is why I think you should probably get one."