Nick Cave Thinks You Should Get That Dumb Tattoo You Want

Sometimes, we think that The Red Hand Files is the finest creation by Nick Cave. The website allows fans from all over the world to ask the Into My Arms singer anything, and if they're lucky, they'll check the website one day, and their questions have been answered.

This time, Luca from Rome asked Cave, "How do you feel when you stand before the mirror? Do you like your tattoo?" and Chris from Southport added, "I came across a photo of a very "younger" Nick Cave, a Nick Cave as you would say "not in perfect showroom condition" but one sporting quite a menacing skull and dagger tattoo. And I wondered, are you still, after all these years, comfortable with this tattoo? Should I get a new tattoo?"

Of course, Nick Cave doesn't just give yes or no answers.

Addressing his fans, Cave began, "I was sitting in a bar in Sydney’s red light district with Tracy Pew, the bass player in The Birthday Party," and told the story of the tattoo he has in honour of Black Seeds member Anita Lane, who passed away last year. 

"I handed Tracy a beer mat and asked him to draw a skull and crossbones with a knife stuck in it, and a banner that said ANITA, who was my girlfriend at the time," Cave said. He added, "We went over the road and I showed the tattooist the drawing. He was in the process of tattooing a large black swastika on the chest of some crazy fucker, but looked at the beer mat and said, 'That drawing is bloody awful, mate, you’ll live to regret it.' 

"I pointed to the guy in the chair and said, 'What, and he won’t?' The tattooist said, 'Fair enough' and an hour later I walked out of the tattoo parlour with a skull and crossbones with my girlfriend’s name on it on my arm."

Cave continued, "Now, nearly fifty years later, as I stand before the mirror, I would say, Luca, that the tattoo is the least of my worries. 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."

Concluding his answer, Cave said, "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."

How can you not love Nick Cave? Read more of The Red Hand Files here.