Nick Cave, who shares his highly personal songs with the world — and sometimes life tragedies, including the death of his son in 2015 — says he finds freedom from fear by disengaging from the outcome of his actions. In the latest Red Hand Files entry, the singer says he agrees with Nina Simone’s assertion that “freedom means having no fear.”

“Freedom for me is the ability to relinquish control of the outcome of things and so, in this respect, I agree with Nina Simone; it is to be delivered from fear. These are fraught times,” he acknowledges, “but, for me, meditation, the loss of my son, and even the fact that I am just getting older, has allowed me to arrive at a place where I do not feel at the mercy of consequence in the way that I used to — it doesn’t matter to me so much these days what happens.”

Cave credits The Red Hand Files for some of his “resilience to the capricious and indifferent nature of the world. … Each answer I write seems to be an act of surrender, but at the same time a kind of armouring up — vulnerability as a form of protection. 

The singer also says that he’s been answering fan questions and musing on things emotional and practical on for two years, and mentioned that his mother’s funeral was this week, thanking people for the nice words on the recent passing of his “dear, dear mother.

“Thank you to the many people who offered their condolences at the loss of my mother and reminded me, over and over again, of her beautiful words — “Head high and fuck ‘em all!” She was the greatest.”