Boy With A Secret

´Welcome to the ‘Mash-up.’ For me, songwriting has always been primarily a visual thing. Since I began writing songs, I have created a visual language to accompany them. I always ‘saw’ my songs. In my Berlin years the visual element —— the drawings, photographs, collages, found objects and paintings —— ended up becoming the dominant element in the creative process. I have continued this habit of joining together disparate elements, of words and images, to this day.

In this, the first of a series of ‘Mash-ups’, I have used a photograph my mother took of me as a small child. It is a favourite of mine. I have added part of a letter that I wrote to a boy named Ptolemy on The Red Hand Files, which, in a way, was written to my child-self. This ‘Mash-up’ is called BOY WITH A SECRET and is part of a larger as yet undisclosed project called ‘The Secret Life of Children.’

Nick Cave