Nick Cave has responded to 16-year-old Tyler Hartfield, who suffers from cerebral palsy, after hearing his song that had been inspired by the Bad Seeds frontman’s music.
ABC first reported the touching story about the Denmark Senior High School student, who is non-verbal and requires a voice app to verbalise his thoughts, as he enlisted the help of his class to write a track inspired by Nick Cave, titled “The One You Feed”.
The song told the story of what Tyler describes as “the battle inside my brain” as well as his relationship with his carer.
Hearing the impressive tune through another fan via his Red Hand Files blog, Cave immediately heaped praise upon Tyler’s work.
“This is so good. The band are great. I love the slow crawl of the song, the backing vocals coming in halfway, and everything kicking in at 3:15. Genuinely thrilling,” he responded to the fan who brought the effort to his attention.
“And Tyler’s writing is something else. ‘The wolf who wins? The one you feed’ – is about as smart and as true as something can be, and the final verse ‘Playing on my heartstrings / You never pour your picky jealousy / Onto my growing love for you / Help me beat my way to you’ – is as good as it gets. That last line! ‘Help me beat my way to you’ Wow!”
According to Tyler’s music teacher Ben Power, despite being non-verbal, the teen has flourished since undertaking music class.
“He came out with this poetry, which was just the most gorgeous, deeply thoughtful stuff I have read in ages. One day he says he’s been listening to this bloke called Nick Cave … I thought right, we’re on here!”
Tyler shared his lyrics with the class and from there, the group created a full ensemble piece of music inspired by Nick Cave.
“[Tyler] is the composer and music director — he’s the conductor essentially and the other students are his instrument, his orchestra,” Mr Power said.
