20,000 Days on Earth Page #2

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Hm.

Um...but I was just sort of in...

really in the thrall of this...

strange, wonderful girl.

What are your earliest memories of him?

- Of my father?

- Mm.

(SIGHS) Oh, I don't know.

You know, there must be earlier ones,

but he...he did actually

take me aside one day

and read me the first chapter of Lolita.

Why that?

Because he said that within that chapter,

great writing kind of existed in there

- ...on so many different levels...

- Mm.

...and he kind of went

through the alliteration

and read it out loud and said,

"See what happens here?"

And...you know,

and that was very powerful...

- Mm.

- ...thing for him to do for me,

because the way that I saw him

become around that kind of stuff...

- Mm.

- ...that was, um...

...you know, different,

that he changed when he read that.

What did he become?

- You know, a...a greater thing.

- And do you ever remember...

Hey, this is great,

having the piano in, er...

- the control room.

- WARREN:
Yeah, yeah.

HERVE:
We can, er...tune

every piano if you need.

Yeah, and...and the one in the barn.

- Yeah.

- NICK:
While Warren is doing something

or Tommy's doing something,

I could take this piece...

- HERVE:
Yeah.

- ...bring it in here and just play it

and work it,

because a lot of the stuff's not...

- you know, it's very free at the moment.

- NICK LAUNAY:
Yeah, yeah.

NICK CAVE:
That's gonna be really nice.

That's See That Girl.

I mean, it's difficult to tell

from some of this stuff what we got.

- You've gotta kind of relax and...

- Mm.

...because we got a lot of ideas

about these things,

which are just f***ing nothing here,

to be honest.

(PLAYING PIANO)

No, it's not gonna rain.

Hey, he's got the camera rolling.

NICK:
I reckon we ought to put down

a couple of basic tracks.

(SYNTHESISER AND PIANO PLAYING)

Here it comes.

(SYNTHESISER AND PIANO PLAYING)

# There was a girl called Animal X

# She was not his type

but she's all right

# She's from the city

where there is no... #

Oh, no, I got that wrong.

All right.

# And there's no more air

# Just the distant humming

of a prejudicial prayer

# And she arrives at the town

# And at the gates she meets a boy

# We'll call him Animal Y... #

# She said there's nothing to fear

# Ah, there's nothing to fear

but a bad idea... #

DARIAN:
Did your father

ever come to see you play?

He came a couple of times. Both times,

I didn't know that he was there.

He came to the first

New Year's Eve show that I did.

It was a show on a street and I was

kind of rolling around drunk and singing.

The whole band were off their faces.

He asked me how it had gone

and I said, "Oh, it was good,"

and he went, "Yeah, I know, I was there."

- Hm, hm.

- But then he saw me before he died.

It was a paid gig at a club,

like a proper band,

and, um...he was at that, too,

and...and he, er...he saw that

and he made this comment.

- "You were like an angel," he said.

- Hm.

I can't imagine how he could have

seen me in that way, quite frankly.

DARIAN:
Seen you as an angel?

(LAUGHS) Yes, an angel.

All things considered.

In that way in which he'd be present,

yet without declaring himself,

did that ever happen at home?

I remember one time my sister

being very upset about something,

and my father putting her to bed

and then leaving the room

and turning the light off, and my sister

was sort of sobbing in the bed, you know,

and then after a while...

We were very young.

I kind of went "Pooh", like that,

and she started to giggle, you know,

and then I went, "Sh*t",

and she started to giggle more,

and I went, "F***"

and so on, and this, er...

- Mm.

- ...until she was kind of laughing

and then I saw the door open

and my father kind of move out...

- Mm.

- ...and I'm kind of like, "Oh!" you know.

So, in all those examples,

he's there like a kind of silent witness?

Yeah. Yeah.

Although he wasn't... To say

that he wasn't present is not correct.

- But in those instances.

- Mm, mm.

My memory of my childhood

was really a kind of wonderful

childhood for a...for a kid.

Does it bring anything to mind,

a memory or...

Well, the Ovens River

ran through Wangaratta

and that's where I spent my childhood,

- just down by that river.

- Mm.

All the kind of cool stuff

that I got up to as a kid.

- What kind of thing?

- Kissing girls.

Jumping off the, er...the railway bridge

that went over this river.

I mean, we would put our ear to

the tracks and listen for the train

and hear it vibrating on the tracks.

Then we would run towards

the train,

along the tracks into the middle of a bridge

and the train would come around like this

and we would run

and then we would leap off the, er...

- Mm.

- ...leap off the bridge into the river.

Mm.

All of that kind of daredevil

stuff of childhood,

which...which was very much about

what a lot of my childhood was about...

- Mm.

- ...um, and that I really miss,

that my own children don't get

to experience that sort of stuff.

Mm. What do you fear the most?

(SIGHS) Er...

Hm...

My...biggest fear, I guess,

is losing my memory.

It does worry me at times

that I'm not gonna be able

to continue to do what I do...

um...and reach a place

that I'm satisfied with.

In the sense?

Because memory is what we are,

you know, and I think

that your very soul

and your very reason...to be alive

is tied up in memory.

I mean, I think for a very long time,

I've been building up a kind of world

through narrative songwriting.

It is a kind of world that's created

about those precious, um...

original memories that define our lives

and those memories

that we spend for ever chasing after.

Which memories

do you think you're chasing after?

I think exactly what

we've been talking about.

Those earlier childhood memories.

Those moments when

the gears of the heart really change

and that's...that could be being,

er...discovering some work of art.

Um...it could be some massive

traumatic experience that happens.

Um...it could be some tiny moment,

er...a fragment of a moment,

and in some way that's really what

the process of songwriting is for me.

It's the retelling of these stories

and the mythologising of these stories.

To lose the faculty of memory

is a massive trauma

within that world, obviously.

(PIANO PLAYING)

NICK:
Yes, is it worth pursuing?

Will I just come back and...

(PIANO PLAYING)

OK, I'll do...I'll do one more.

(PIANO PLAYING)

# Childhood days

# Shimmer in a haze

# Give us a kiss

# In the blue room

you whispered into the music

# And the brown field under the thorn bush

# Give us a kiss

# And then across the overpass and down

# By the blood factory and into town

# Give us a kiss

# Just one little sip, sip, sip

# Before you slip, slip, slip away

# Again

# You are still hanging out in my dreams

# In your sister's shoes

# In your blue jeans

# Ah, give us a kiss

# One little sip, sip, sip

# Before I catch, catch, catch on fire

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