Bono vs Nick Cave on Jesus
Greg Clarke
Irish band U2 are currently knocking the socks of American audiences with their 360º Tour. Meanwhile, Australia’s gothic prince, Nick Cave, has put out a novel, held a travelling exhibition of his work, and co-written the soundtrack for the forthcoming film based on Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road.
These
men hitting their 50s have helped to redefine rock n roll creativity;
it’s not just for the kids anymore. In fact, it’s hellishly serious.
Both
U2’s Bono and Nick Cave put their creative drive down to losing a
parent at a young age. That tragedy gave them both a ‘Father-shaped’
hole in the heart that has to be filled with something. Bono says
there’s something questionable about a middle-aged man who still needs
to hear a stadium full of people chanting his name to know he’s OK.
Nick Cave describes himself, using biblical language, as ‘doing the
work of his father.
But
both Bono and Cave acknowledge that the most significant man in history
is not their respective fathers, but Jesus of Nazareth.
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Cave’s Christ is creatively powerful, but not present nor divine |
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At the Nick Cave exhibition, currently at the National Library in Canberra, you can view the bust of Jesus that sits on Cave’s piano as he composes, along with a Gospel of John, open at Chapter 17 with an annotation, reading, “Why is faith essential for eternal life? Why the need to believe?”. Everywhere, the importance of Christ (among other things) for his writing is on display.
Cave seems troubled by Christ, not comforted. In fact, it is Christ’s own sense of conflict and turmoil that appeals to Cave most. He sees Jesus is the example par excellence of the human creative spirit set free. His protests against the restrictions and hypocrisy of the religious leaders of his time is for Cave evidence of Jesus’ higher calling, his capacity to lift his eyes beyond the petty concerns of the mortal realm into something eternal. This is the task of the true artist, in Cave’s view.
Cave wrote in his Foreword to an edition of The Gospel of Mark
that Christ was “the victim of humanity's lack of imagination, was
hammered to the cross with the nails of creative vapidity”. Christ
wants to heal, set free, rage against monotony and fear, and help
humanity to escape gravity.
Cave’s Christ is creatively powerful, but not present
nor divine. “There’s a man who spoke wonders, though I’ve never met
him”, he sings on “Are You The One That I’ve Been Waiting For?” For
Cave, Christ’s story is potent and the Man of Sorrows is the highest
expression of the tragedy of existence to whom we might look for
inspiration.
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It’s no secret that U2’s lyrics are Christ-soaked |
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In contrast, Bono has never hidden the fact that he is not simply an admirer of Jesus, but a worshipper. Like Cave, his view of Jesus is hard, rough and earthy: “There’s nothing hippie about my picture of Christ, “ he told the journalist Michka Assayas in the book Bono on Bono, “The Gospels paint a picture of a very demanding, sometimes divisive love, but love it is.”
Bono’s
image of Christ moves beyond inspiration to something more morally and
personally significant. Bono told Assayas that he is “holding out that
Jesus took my sins onto the Cross” and, on Jesus’ life, “No, but
seriously, if we only could be a bit more like Him, the world would be
transformed”.
It’s no secret that U2’s lyrics are Christ-soaked, from
the early days of teenage devotion to their current album, where Bono
sings the song of Mary, the Magnificat, in praise of God and his Son,
on the track ‘Magnificent’. Even in their ‘postmodern period’, with the
three albums Achtung Baby!, ˆZooropa and Pop, anyone with ears to hear realised that they were still “looking for baby Jesus under the trash”.
Both Cave and Bono come to the foot of the cross of
Christ, but only one of them looks beyond it. For Cave, the cross is
dejection and sorrow and the victory of Death; for Bono, it’s the
beginning of something eternal.
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Both Cave and Bono come to the foot of the cross of Christ, but only one of them looks beyond it. |
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In the 2006 U2 single, ‘Window in the Skies’, Bono sings a line best understood as a theology of the cross:
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The rule has been disproved, the stone it has been moved
The grave is now a groove, all debts are removed.
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It’s a lyric that I can imagine Nick Cave liking: the rule is disproved, the nitpickers and hypocritical powermongers lose; something more transcendent, more real, wins. But the concept of sins forgiven, death’s power broken: that seems distant in Nick Cave’s work. Even ‘The Mercy Seat’, perhaps his most famous song, is about fear in the face of death, not victory over it.
Nick Cave appears to take the words and deeds of Christ seriously—but more as an artist than a pilgrim. For Cave, desire and its expression is the ultimate end of human existence. To use Bono’s words for Cave, perhaps he “kills his inspiration and sings about his grief”. For Bono, the words and deeds of Jesus are a ‘window in the skies’, revealing God. For me, I love both artists, but I’m clinging to the belief that Bono has been swept up in the reality of eternity, and praying that Cave is, too.
Greg Clarke is Director of the Centre for Public Christianity
| 21-Oct-2009 12:52 PM Anonymous |
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| 22-Oct-2009 02:42 AM Anonymous |
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| 18-Nov-2009 01:20 PM Andrew J Brown |
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| I'm listening to that U2 album at the moment - 'Magnificent' certainly very close to being a worship song at heart (and more appealing to me than ordinary worship music) - quite inspired. But Bono does have a bet each way at times, or appears to border on disillusionment or perplexity over the Christian view of God, e.g. "When You Look at the World" on 'All That You Can't Leave Behind.'
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| 20-Nov-2009 04:53 PM Anonymous |
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| I just went to the Nick Cave exhibition in Canberra and found his fascination with Jesus confusing. It was helpful to have Cave's views contrasted with Bono's. |
| 20-Dec-2009 06:30 AM Anonymous |
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| I'm not a fan of Nick Cave but have pondered his philosophy in a couple of his songs and am intrigued! Greg's analysis has been helpful. |
| 20-Jan-2010 05:59 AM Arnold |
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| Good article - It's one thing to nitpik and have the inner turmoil evident, however I might add that Bono has also taken his faith and mobilized compassion - (Is.58) to the'streets with no name'. That outward expression and action is Christian maturity. God says in Is. 58 that He's sick and tired of all the long-faced morose meetings (my words paraphrase) and desires justice and mercy. |
| 28-Feb-2010 07:49 PM Anonymous |
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| I hope that Bono is a jesus loving rock star that I can be glad to admire both for his great music and a shared love of Jesus, but I'm never quite sure we are on the same wavelength. But alas, how can you ever tell? |
| 11-Mar-2010 04:04 PM Big John |
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| Back in the Zoo TV tour we saw U2 at the Sydney Football ground, back in the 90's before I was a believer in Jesus Christ. I remember saying wow! "THIS WAS FANTASTIC" if only U2 was a religion, I would be in Very euphoric . Little did I know until I became a Christian that a lot of their songs had a Christian spin on them. A lot of it went over my head. Like "All because of you" , "Yahweh" & "Crumbs from your table" now I'm 41 and been a Christian for 2 years, the songs I loved mean that much more to me. God works in mysterious ways............sound like a song! |
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