Nick Cave usually writes his thoughts in his Red Hand Files newsletter, answering fans about things like music, sadness, and the mess the world is in.
Last year, everyone was talking about how Nick Cave totally roasted ChatGPT, calling AI lyrics “a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human” and even saying it was like the end of the world. Later, he went even further and said that using artificial intelligence to write songs was “participating in [the] erosion of the world’s soul and the spirit of humanity itself.”
But then, something totally unexpected happened. Andrew Dominik, who’s worked with Cave a bunch and made movies like Blonde and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, secretly created a music video for “Tupelo” using AI to make Elvis float around in the video. Cave didn’t even know about it until the 40th anniversary of the song, but when he saw it, he called it “a soulful, moving, and entirely original retelling of ‘Tupelo,’ rich in mythos and a touching tribute to the great Elvis Presley.”
The pictures of Elvis made by Dominik’s AI were so weird and real that Cave said, “it had an uncanny quality, as if he had been raised from the dead, and the crucifixion-resurrection images at the end were both shocking and deeply affecting.” He also said he and Susie Cave “were blown away.” Watching the video, Cave started to feel differently about AI in art, and Andrew even told him, “It’s a tool, like any other.”
Fans think it’s kind of wild how fast things can change.
Instead of feeling embarrassed for changing his mind, Cave wrote, “I believe that the ability to change one’s mind is the very definition of strength.” He talked about searching for the truth, staying open to new ideas, and being brave enough to admit when you need to adjust your thinking, even if it’s uncomfortable. According to him, “Rigidity breaks; flexibility endures.” If you want, you can watch the video below.
