Nick Cave Shares The Advice Coldplay’s Chris Martin Gave Him

In his book ‘Faith, Hope, and Courage,’ Nick Cave revealed that the ballad ‘Waiting For You’ from their 2019 album ‘Ghosteen’ changed drastically after Chris Martin’s comments and recommendations for the song.

Cave’s new book, released last month, is a compilation of more than forty hours of recordings of interviews between him and journalist Seán O’Hagan. During one of those, the musician had detailed his relationship with Chris Martin and shared his insightful advice for the ‘Waiting For You’ track.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds recorded their 17th album ‘Ghosteen’ at Chris Martin’s studio in Malibu between 2018 and 2019. The frontman would occasionally drop by to see what they were working on, and the band would play Martin the songs and ask for his opinion.

One of the songs that Cave played to Martin was the third track for the album, ‘Waiting For You.’ Cave shared that the original version of the song was more aggressive and had a loop that overpowered the song. After Coldplay’s frontman heard the track, he gave his honest opinion.

He advised the musicians to take out the industrial loop, which the producer and Cave didn’t like at first. However, when they eliminated the loop, the song turned into an emotional and raw ballad. The band members have been grateful to Martin for his advice, as the track perfectly suits the rest of the album.

About Chris Martin’s advice for the track ‘Waiting For You,’ Nick Cave said:

“The third song on ‘Ghosteen,’ ‘Waiting For You,’ originally had a very loud, super aggressive industrial loop that played completely out of the time of the song – you can hear it at the very beginning of the song. The loop dominated the song, but we never questioned it.

When we played it to Chris Martin, he said: ‘I love you guys very much, but is there any chance I could hear the song again without the f*cking canning factory?’ So we took away the industrial loop and what was left was a lovely, vulnerable song shimmering there on its own – a classic, old-school ballad, raw and fragile and unimpeded. So thank God for that!”

You can listen to ‘Waiting For You’ below.