This week an unexpectedly deep conversation about grief broke out on an ordinary work call with one of my coworkers—one of those moments where suddenly the room feels quieter, more fragile. As he spoke, I found myself thinking about my mom, who passed from cancer in 2016, and how quickly the holidays can turn into a magnifying glass for all the absences we carry. Later that night I stumbled onto Anderson Cooper’s All There Is podcast and saw the episode with Nick Cave. Nick talking about grief always hits differently. Ever since losing his son, his work has taken on this painful clarity, and Ghosteen remains one of the most beautiful, devastating albums I’ve ever heard.
The song I keep returning to is “Bright Horses.” It opens like a soft hallucination: fiery horses galloping home, the world bending toward a hope you desperately want to believe is true. Nick’s voice wavers between dream and confession, and the backing vocals feel like ghostly conversations with him—echoes, reassurances, counter-arguments, all orbiting the same sorrow. It’s as if he’s singing both sides of the dialogue you have with yourself when you’re trying to accept something you can’t change.
There’s that line—“Everything is wrong.” It lands like a floorboard giving way. But the music and melody lift upward. The song never promises a miracle; it just offers space for the impossible wish that someone dear might return, even if only in our imaginations. Maybe that’s the power of “Bright Horses.” It’s deeply personal to Nick, but like all the best songs, it becomes a place for our own stories to settle. A reminder that in a cynical world, holding onto a small, shimmering dream isn’t escape—it’s a way of moving forward.
“OH, THE TRAIN IS COMING AND I’M STANDING HERE TO SEE. AND IT’S BRINGING MY BABY RIGHT BACK TO ME.”