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Nick Cave reveals some of the lows he's experienced while on drugs

16 December 2019, 16:05 | Written by Cerys Kenneally

In the latest response on his The Red Hand Files site, Nick Cave shares details of some of the bad experiences he had while on drugs.

The latest response on Nick Cave's The Red Hand Files site sees the musician answer two questions - the first about his "Ku Klux furniture" lyric from "Deanna", and the second about his experiences sober compared to while on drugs.

Responding to Serge, who asks about his "Ku Klux Furniture" lyric from his "Deanna" song, Cave writes, "As for your question, Serge, Deanna’s mother was American and each Christmas she would leave Melbourne and head back to the U.S. for the holidays, leaving her maverick daughter in charge of the house that sat high up on the south bank of the Yarra River. Perhaps anticipating our behaviour, her mother covered the furniture in the living room with protective white sheets - the Ku Klux furniture, we called it."

He also responds to another question from Craig, who asks: "Have you ever reached the same highs when sober as when you were on some sort of lovely substance?" Cave writes, "Craig, I’m not sure if I have quite reached the same highs as those times while sober, but then again I also haven’t reached the kind of lows that eventually came with taking those 'lovely substances'."

Cave goes on to list some of the low experiences he's had while on drugs, "bashed up in police stations, dehumanised in rehabs, near-death experiences, suicidal thoughts, routine overdoses, reduced motivation, broken bones, being ripped off, liking Charles Bukowski, social and physical anhedonia, herd mentality, dead friends, fucked up relationships, abscesses, car accidents, psychosis, reading The Hobbit, malnutrition, creative impotence, epic time-wasting, singing flat (still working on that), talking shit (still working on that too), life-threatening diseases, and not ringing my mother on her birthday."

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