See Nick Cave Croon ‘Lavender Fields’ in ‘This Much I Know to Be True’ Clip

Nick Cave reconsiders his place in the world in a clip from the upcoming doc about him, This Much I Know to Be True. “Some years ago, I would have defined myself as a musician or a writer,” he says. “And I’m trying to wean myself off those definitions of myself that are about my occupation and see myself as a person, as a husband, as a father … and friend and citizen that makes music and writes stuff rather than the other way around.”

The clip then transitions to a shot of a string quartet playing swelling chords as Cave’s hirsute collaborator, Warren Ellis, conducts them dramatically. The camera then pans to Cave, who starts singing “Lavender Fields,” a song off Cave and Ellis’ recent Carnage album. “I’m traveling appallingly alone on a singular road,” he croons, “into the lavender fields that reach high beyond the sky.” Unfortunately, the clip fades out before he reaches the lyric that supports his observation from the beginning of the clip, reflecting on who he is now: “People ask me how I changed, I say it is a singular road.”

Filmmaker Andrew Dominik, who made Cave’s heartbreaking One More Time With Feeling doc a few years back, reprised his role with This Much I Know to Be True, which chronicles the makings of Carnage and Cave’s most recent excursion with the Bad Seeds, Ghosteen. Dominik has yet to announce the picture’s release date, although the clip says it will come out later this year.

In the meantime, Cave and Ellis will launch their first North American tour as a duo next month. “Playing these concerts is pure happiness, more than I have experienced in a very long time,” Cave has said of the European leg of the tour. “I cannot tell you what it means to Warren and me to walk out on stage and perform the songs.”