Nick Cave on songs that get cancelled: "On some level I like the fact that some songs are controversial enough to be outlawed"

For the latest entry on his fan Q+A site The Red Hand Files, Cave was asked about how he feels about Tom Jones' "Delilah" getting banned, and how worried he is about his "future cancellation" due to writing an album titled Murder Ballads. After writing about how he's not a fan of Jones' "Delilah" song, he wrote about singing with Jones, and how he does like him. Cave continued, "As someone who knows a thing or two about murder ballads, for my taste, it’s ["Delilah"] all too waltzy and strident and hammy and mariachi and triumphant. And the words are ugly – "I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more." Really? Most damning of all, even The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll bands of all time, couldn’t do anything with it, although there is a wonderfully perverse attempt on the Old Grey Whistle Test. The inimitable Australian comic, Norman Gunston, lest we forget, also did a very funny parody of it back in the late seventies, which at the very least made you laugh."

Cave concluded, "So, I don’t know, Tom, I can’t get too animated by the fact that "Delilah" has been banned. I understand there is a principle here, but on some level I like the fact that some songs are controversial enough to be outlawed. It fills me with a kind of professional pride to be a part of the sometimes contentious business of songwriting. It’s cool. I like it. I just wish it was a more worthy song to be awarded that greatest of honours, indeed that supreme privilege, of being banned."

Earlier today (13 February) Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds launched a new site, and announced a limited, free release for their Push The Sky Away performance at LA's Fonda Theatre to mark the album's tenth anniversary.