evelynanne's Profile

Nick Cave Believes in Love and Knows that You Do T

I was about to finish my freshman year of college and very much in love with the music of Nick Cave (and the boy who introduced me to it).

Four of us got tickets to two nights of back to back shows by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at the Beacon Theater in New York City.  Being poor college kids and having blown all our money on tickets, we were in desperate need of a cheap place to stay.

Lucky for us, one of our classmates had a mother with a psychiatry practice in Spanish Harlem who graciously offered to let us sleep on mattresses in her office's storage room.  We took her up on her offer immediately.

The day of the concert, I had a terrible migraine, so I told my friends to go on to the show and I would meet up with them closer to when we thought Nick Cave would actually play.  I fell asleep and when I woke up, it was pitch black outside.  I quickly threw on my hoodie sweatshirt and walked outside.  The closest subway station was only about a block away, but never having visited New York alone, I wasn't aware that certain stations close after a certain point in the evening.  The station had a gate up and sign saying that it was closed for the night.

It was at this moment that I took a look around and realized just how far from home I was.  There I was, a short, young, white girl completely alone in Spanish Harlem in city I hardly knew. 

With barely any money in my pocket and no cabs in sight, I did the only thing I could think to do; I started walking.  As I walked, I hummed to myself and the first song that came into my head was "Into My Arms" by Nick Cave. 

I walked and hummed, block after block, verse after verse.  Just as I reached the end of the song, I found myself on some part of the Columbia campus and knew there had to be an open subway soon. 

I finally caught a train, met up with my friends and enjoyed one of the best concerts of my life.  When Nick Cave finally sang "Into My Arms" somewhere towards the end of the show, I felt like it was a little love song to me.

That song remains my favorite love song to this day and it plays on my phone every time my husband calls me.  Nick Cave may not believe in an interventionist God, but someone was looking out for me that night, and someone still is.