Nick Cave is apparently going to the coronation of King Charles III and the queen consort, Camilla, as the king and queen of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth realms. He also, apparently, does not care what anyone thinks about his decision to attend. In a new edition of his newsletter, The Red Hand Files, Cave responded to four readers who asked (some incredulously) why the musician was choosing to go to the coronation. “I’ll make this a quick one because I’ve got to work out what I am going to wear to the Coronation,” Cave quipped.
The Bad Seeds musician continued:
Cave also wrote that he once met Queen Elizabeth II and that he surprisingly found himself crying while watching her funeral last year. “I guess what I am trying to say is that, beyond the interminable but necessary debates about the abolition of the monarchy, I hold an inexplicable emotional attachment to the Royals—the strangeness of them, the deeply eccentric nature of the whole affair that so perfectly reflects the unique weirdness of Britain itself,” he explained. “I’m just drawn to that kind of thing—the bizarre, the uncanny, the stupefyingly spectacular, the awe-inspiring.”
Cave concluded, “So, with all that in mind, I am looking forward to going the Coronation. I think I’ll wear a suit.”
Nick Cave was born and raised in Australia—a Commonwealth nation whose head of state is ceremonially King Charles III—and he has spent many years of his life living in England. In 2017, he was named an Officer of the Order of Australia.
The coronation takes place on Saturday, May 6, at Westminster Abbey. It will be the first coronation since Charles’ late mother, Elizabeth II, was crowned in 1953.
