Nick Cave has penned an emotional tribute to his former partner and bandmate Anita Lane, who died this week. 

Lane, who passed away at the age of 61, was an integral member of Cave‘s band The Birthday Party, co-writing tracks like ‘A Dead Song’ and ‘Kiss Me Black’.

Following the band’s disbandment in the early 1980s, she went on to co-write Bad Seeds songs including ‘From Her To Eternity’ and ‘Stranger Than Kindness’ with her then-boyfriend Cave.

Lane also released solo albums including 1993’s Dirty Pearl and 2001’s Sex O’Clock. 

Upon the announcement of Lane’s death, Cave tweeted: “From her to eternity. We love you, Anita,” alongside a photo of her.

Now, Cave has opened up about Lane further over on his Red Hand Files website, responding to questions from fans including “what can you tell us about Anita?” and “please share a favourite memory of Anita with us.”

“You think you know grief, you think you’ve worked out its mechanics, you think you’ve become grief-savvy — stronger, wiser, more resilient — you think that there is nothing more that can hurt you in this world, and then Anita dies,” he began.

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“Standing on the street in a baby-doll dress, surrounded by sunshine, laughing and radiating a piercing beauty of such force you stop breathing… I could not believe my eyes.”

He continued: “Later, at my kitchen table drawing things, she had a quickness of touch and a clear, light line full of humour, throwing each drawing away and starting another, charged with a rampant, unstable, fatal energy that would follow her all her life. My line, amateur and ponderous.”

“Everyone wanted to work with her but it was like trying to trap lightning in a bottle. Mick Harvey managed to corral her into the recording studio, but these precious offerings are a fraction of what she was. She was the smartest and most talented of all of us, by far.”

Cave continued on to discuss Lane’s songwriting career, saying: “She was the brains behind The Birthday Party, wrote a bunch of their songs, wrote ‘From Her to Eternity’, ‘The World’s a Girl’, ‘Sugar in a Hurricane’ and my favourite Bad Seeds song, ‘Stranger Than Kindness’, but was much more than that.”

Calling Lane his “best friend,” he concluded: “Two months ago, speaking to her on the phone she seemed a million miles away. Loved her children more than anything. They were her pride and joy. It was both easy and terrifying to love her. Leaves a big, crying space.”

For more on this topic, check out the Classic Rock Observer.

Check out the tweet by Nick Cave commemorating Anita Lane:

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