"Getting married, for me, was the best thing I ever did. I was suddenly beset with an immense sense of release, that we have something more important than our separate selves, and that is the marriage. There's immense happiness that can come from working towards that"
About this Quote
Cave talks about marriage the way he talks about songs: as a structure sturdy enough to hold chaos. The surprise in the quote is the word "release". Most celebrity marriage talk leans on destiny or romance; Cave frames it as relief from the tyranny of the self. "Beset" even makes the feeling sound involuntary, like grace arriving with its own weather system. That’s a very Nick Cave move: surrender described with the intensity of a haunting.
The subtext is less about romance than about containment. Cave’s public persona has long been built on extremes - desire, violence, devotion, faith, doubt. In that context, "something more important than our separate selves" reads like a quiet rebuke to the modern cult of autonomy, the idea that adulthood is a solo project. He’s arguing for a third entity - the marriage itself - with needs, dignity, and gravity. It’s not two people preserving their brands; it’s two people consenting to be remade.
"Working towards that" is the tell. Happiness here isn’t a mood, it’s labor with a shared direction, which makes the line feel earned rather than sentimental. Coming from a musician whose work often circles tragedy and transcendence, the statement also carries an implied theology: commitment as a practice, not a promise. It’s compelling because it doesn’t sell marriage as completion; it sells it as escape - from narcissism, from aimlessness, from the exhausting project of being entirely oneself.
The subtext is less about romance than about containment. Cave’s public persona has long been built on extremes - desire, violence, devotion, faith, doubt. In that context, "something more important than our separate selves" reads like a quiet rebuke to the modern cult of autonomy, the idea that adulthood is a solo project. He’s arguing for a third entity - the marriage itself - with needs, dignity, and gravity. It’s not two people preserving their brands; it’s two people consenting to be remade.
"Working towards that" is the tell. Happiness here isn’t a mood, it’s labor with a shared direction, which makes the line feel earned rather than sentimental. Coming from a musician whose work often circles tragedy and transcendence, the statement also carries an implied theology: commitment as a practice, not a promise. It’s compelling because it doesn’t sell marriage as completion; it sells it as escape - from narcissism, from aimlessness, from the exhausting project of being entirely oneself.
Quote Details
| Topic | Marriage |
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