This Much I Know to Be True (2022) Movie Script
1
I took the...
government's...
advice to...
Fuck, what do you call it?
- Retrain?
- Retrain.
I've retrained as a ceramicist because...
it's no longer viable to be a musician.
- Touring artist. Yeah.
- A touring artist.
So, much to my manager's horror,
I've now retrained as a ceramicist.
These are Staffordshire sculptures.
Original ones.
Beautiful.
With a flat back.
- Yeah. Assembly line.
- They're just trinkets.
They're basically...
And they are made by children.
- Really?
- Yeah.
Basically, children on assembly lines
in the Victorian era.
Small hands, and...
- That's beautiful.
- That one there,
that one up there, was the first one
which was a saint boiling in oil.
- Yeah.
- Right.
But the glaze was all wrong
and we didn't know
what colours it was going to be.
That wasn't very successful.
That I felt a little bit like,
"This is not as easy as it looks."
Yeah.
That's the original drawing...
Yeah, that was the original drawing.
- Is that Nick's drawing?
- Yeah.
That's what I wanted to make.
Like, it was just
a saint boiling in oil, right?
Anyway, should we just start doing them?
Yeah. Take us on a tour
of the life of the Devil from birth.
Hang on. Well, I can...
Okay, so...
Basically, it's telling a story,
in 18 figurines,
of the story of the Devil.
This one is just a resin one.
None of these have been glazed.
That is the Devil...
as a baby.
It's called "The Devil Awakens".
Nestled in this foal here.
This is "The Devil Inherits The World".
And he is now a boy.
This is the Devil now as a child.
And he's with a little monkey there.
A little brown monkey.
This one is the Devil with a sailor.
So this one is the Devil's first love.
So he's growing up
and doing bold, dangerous things.
The Devil now goes to war.
This is called "The Devil Rides to War".
And these little rabbits,
you see here these rabbits,
will all be gold, gilded rabbits.
He's a young man.
He's a young man off to war, yeah?
Yeah.
So this is "The Devil
Returns From The War".
He is now a different person.
His horns are bigger.
And he's coming back from war
covered in medals.
Emboldened and made powerful
by the experience of war,
walking through a field of skulls.
Here is "The Devil Takes a Wife".
She's holding the little rabbit.
The rabbits feature every now and then.
Naked.
Okay, then...
Then the Devil...
This is "The Devil
Who Kills His First Child".
And there's "The Devil
Sacrificing A Child".
So the Devil is now...
Has separated himself
from the world through...
through his transgressions.
And here is...
the world operating as normal.
Rabbits.
Children.
Life goes on,
and he is contemplating the world.
This is "The Devil In Remorse".
For his...
He is alone and separated from the world.
And kneeling in a pile of skulls.
"The Devil Has Grown Old".
And this is "The Devil's Last Dance".
This is called "The
Devil Bleeds To Death".
And he's dying.
And he's dying in the arms of two sailors
who are holding him as he bleeds out.
Down, the blood will all run down here,
into a big lake.
Into a lake at the front of his blood,
where these two white swans...
Whatever swans do.
Two, sort of, goat-like things,
and two women holding torches.
And this is the final...
This is the final one.
So, it's only a resin
mould, so it's not...
It's going to be very beautiful, this one.
This is the Devil,
essentially, dumped somewhere.
His body left to die and rot.
And a child is kneeling down
and presenting its hand
as a gesture of forgiveness to the Devil.
It's going to be very, very beautiful.
What's it called, Nick?
That one, that's called
"The Devil Forgiven".
Here we go.
Marianne, would you
like to be in the chair?
Or would you want to stay in that?
- No, chair. Yes.
- Chair, okay.
- Should we put you in?
- Yes.
Okay.
I can't really have this...
- You ready?
- Yes.
Let's go around.
Okay.
I hope they're not filming this.
I bet they are.
We always are, Marianne.
Oh, dear.
But I'll make a deal with you.
If you don't like it...
No, really, you've got to remember
how ill I've been,
and how it still is.
Now, let's get rid of that. Okay.
So, where's my lyrics?
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
And it has to be really disciplined
because I can't breathe properly.
And you have to say, "Now, do it."
- And I'll do it.
- Okay.
And then I have to take my oxygen off.
Okay.
- Do you understand?
- I do.
Good.
Now, Waz, have you got your computer?
Are you set up?
- Warren?
- Yes.
Did he call you "Waz"?
- He did, Marianne. Yeah.
- Waz.
Is that your nickname?
Well, yeah...
That's terrible.
It's easy.
- Waz?
- Waz is his nickname.
Waz... It was.
I'm shocked.
Why?
- I don't know, I just am.
- You know Australians.
They kind of do that.
What?
You know how Australians
do that kind of thing?
I suppose that they do, don't they?
Warren is Waz, Barry is Baz.
Yeah.
What's yours?
- Andrew.
- Right.
Well, there you are, you see.
Nobody can shorten Marianne, either.
- Really?
- No.
You've never had a nickname?
- Never.
- It's not Faithfull?
- Faithfull.
- Faithless.
Are we ready?
- How's about it, Chris?
- Yeah.
- Amy?
- Yes, I'm here.
Let me know what's happening.
Are the strobes ready?
When he says, "Are we ready?"
You're meant to say, "Yes."
I want a yes or a no
if the strobes are fixed.
- They are.
- Yes, they are.
- Okay, so...
- Okay.
Right.
- So, Marianne, we're ready.
- Right.
We can take your oxygen off.
Can you take it off?
Okay.
And put a bit more on my cheek, quickly.
- Right. Okay.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
- All right. Everyone ready?
- Yeah.
Let's fade out the light.
- Yeah.
- Action.
That's your cue, Chris.
"Prayer before work."
"Great One, austere,
"by whose intent
"the distant star holds its course clear.
"Now, make this spirit soar.
"Give it that ease
out of the absolute abstracted grief.
"Comfortless, mute, sound the clear note,"
"pure, piercing as the flute,
give it precision."
"Austere, Great One,
"by whose grace,
"the unalterable song,
"may still be rested from"
"the corrupt lung."
"Give it strict form."
Oh, dude.
That's sweet.
Done that.
Back in ice sculpture business.
Done that.
Waiting For You, done that.
Bright Horses, done that.
So, Hollywood...
Yeah.
Crank it out.
Come in.
I left about a week ago
and came back in, and it was just like...
The TV was, literally, lying face down.
It's got this big smashed up thing on it.
It's just shit everywhere.
Like the TV'd had a party.
Thrown itself out the...
Threw itself out the window.
The TV is just like,
"Fuck it all," you know.
It was so funny.
Have you seen this?
It's really beautiful.
This herbarium... It's a reproduction.
It's really incredible.
Emily Dickinson, the poet, yeah.
So, what, is that her herbarium?
It was when she was 14
and she made it, and then...
It's now in, like...
I think it's the most
fragile book that exists.
They photographed it,
and made this facsimile of it.
It's so beautiful.
It was funny going through
- the sessions last night, looking...
- Yeah.
I remembered that, like...
Have a look at this.
Holy, fucking shit!
Look at his desktop, Robbie.
Fucking, what a nightmare!
How do you find anything, mate?
Perfection, isn't it?
Why, isn't everyone's like that?
I don't really
have a sense of form and order.
So we could, sort of,
can cut that into it later,
but it's really about
just being in the moment,
and, I guess, seeing what happens.
We're just throwing things down,
like sit down and start playing.
And you are looking for those moments
in amongst the hours, and hours,
and hours of stuff.
No, I actually had songs...
I actually had song lyrics,
but I know from experience,
that those songs...
probably won't amount to anything.
The thing that's great working with Nick
is that he's up for trying anything.
And more so, and more, and more.
Warren is almost always on transmit,
and not so much on receive, I would say.
Although, he might
see that as unfair and wrong.
I remember with Ghosteen,
towards the last day of the first session,
Nick got up and just walked out,
and he just goes,
"I can't deal with any more soft pad."
That was that sound that kept playing.
And I was just playing it
for 30 minutes at a time.
It's almost pointless,
me sitting down and writing a song
and taking it into the studio because...
Unless I, kind of like,
hold Warren's face and say,
"Warren, I'm going to do a song now."
"It's a song I've written."
"These are the chords."
I don't know what it is with me,
but I will get on something
and then I just can't move away from it.
And I think it's different.
A whole lot of shit happens.
I mean, a whole lot
of terrible shit happens
when me and Warren get into a room.
But there are these
moments when it just...
It gets into this
strange meditative state.
You just have no idea what is going on.
And that's when stuff happens.
It just clicks into something
transcendent, as far as I'm concerned.
I'm literally taken away by it.
I'm amazed by...
Not at the time,
although I get lost in it at the time,
but you just suddenly hear these things
and go, "Oh, my God!"
But they are just snippets
in an ocean of bullshit...
- Yeah.
- You know.
We're just messing around.
- There we go.
- Yeah, here it goes.
It's difficult to perform even,
because I'm just
- waiting for the fucking chord.
- Waiting for the chord.
'Cause it feels unnaturally slow.
Why don't we try it without it?
Yeah, it's just getting your sound
and stuff like that.
- We got all that going?
- Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't need much of that.
How did he fit into the Bad Seeds
when it was Mick and Blixa, and all that?
He took a subordinate role, right,
of just embellishing
what was already going on there.
And slowly, one by one,
taking out each member of the Bad Seeds.
I think you better watch out, mate.
It might just be me and Waz left.
Yeah, I know.
I know I'm the next to go.
He's singing a lot more, I've noticed.
Yeah.
- Ready?
- Yeah.
- All right, stand by!
- Good luck, everyone!
There are thousands of questions here.
Thousands, and thousands.
There are 38,065 questions.
Now, I won't read them all to you.
Obviously.
But I can just flick through
and grab some, right,
as they come.
"My brother, David, died two years ago.
"He was just 24 and I was 19.
"It feels like everyone
is moving on and forgetting him.
"And I'm afraid of letting go of my anger.
"What if I don't know who I am without it?"
"For so long has my grief
been an inextricable part of me."
"Allison."
The thing I really love
about The Red Hand Files,
and why I almost consider
this to be like a spiritual practice,
is that I'm forced to think
about these questions
and not respond immediately.
When I do respond immediately,
in my mind, I don't respond with the
better part of my nature, I would say.
- Does that make sense?
- Yeah.
It requires some days
to think about what the person is saying,
and to arrive at a compassionate...
relationship to the question
and to the person who is writing it.
That actually doesn't
come naturally to me.
And so, The Red Hand Files, literally,
keep me at the better end of my nature.
Billy from Scotland.
"My wife has thrown me out.
"I've lost my job, all within a week."
"Suicidal thoughts in abundance."
"How does one handle having
seemingly no control over one's life?"
This is a really beautiful question, too.
And incredibly sad.
They are incredibly moving,
these questions, because...
You know, you don't...
If something happens to you,
the first thing that comes to mind
is not to write to...
These are desperate questions
from people who don't have anyone to ask.
They are just sending these questions
out into the, whatever...
- The void. Yeah.
- To the void, yeah.
Dear Billy,
the majority of letters
that come into The Red Hand Files,
in all their various forms,
are essentially asking the same question.
Your question.
How are you, Corin?
Yeah, good. Yeah, really good.
Haven't seen you since yesterday.
How do I handle seemingly
having no control over my life?
This question is often accompanied
by feelings of betrayal,
and rage, and resentfulness,
of hopelessness.
The truth is
we all live our lives dangerously
in a state of jeopardy,
at the edge of calamity.
You have discovered
that the veil that separates
your ordered life from disarray
is wafer thin.
This is the ordinary truth of existence
from which none of us are exempt.
In time, we all find out
we are not in control.
We never were.
We never will be.
But we are not without power.
We always have the freedom to choose
how we will respond
to whatever it is that life offers us.
You can collapse and be dragged under.
You can harden around your misfortune
and become embittered.
Or you can move toward the opportunity
that is offered to you.
That of change and renewal.
The next best action
is always presented to you, Billy.
Look for it and move toward it.
This is the great act of insubordination
toward the vagaries of life
afforded to us all.
Love, Nick.
Say something...
Are these better for me than in-ear?
Let's put it down, Nick.
Yeah, put it down as low as you can.
- Better? I don't know.
- You tell me.
I can do what you tell me
if you want me to hold it.
No, no, no, a bit of balance is good.
Okay, we need to shut the curtain.
- We need to shut the curtain!
- Mark it.
Thanks.
Okay, everybody just take a minute.
Let's settle.
- Yes.
- Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I'm much happier
now than I used to be.
That's not to say that I don't struggle.
But it's not happiness
that's the most important thing for me.
It's like having
a sense of meaning about things.
I really feel much more connected to that.
And that respect makes me happier.
That I do feel a real sense of meaning...
in my life that's not
dependent on my work.
It's not dependent on my creative life.
That feels like I'm
moving towards something,
that feels like the world
is a meaningful place.
The very nature of
the world is meaningful.
And people are meaningful beings.
Come on.
Come down.
Come towards us.
Thank you, all,
for looking after us
and everything you've done.
It's been very beautiful.
Thank you, all.
The singers.
The strings.
Now that kind of feels like an ending.
- The Covid lady.
- But it's not.
Okay, it's not. Not at all.
Back to one.
All right.
That might be the ending.
Okay.
"Thank you for the words, the music,
"the grounding sanity
that your music brings to me"
"in my times of strife."
"I'm curious, behind it all,
the music, the words,
"the suits, the grief, the tenderness,
"and shame, and guilt, and joy,"
"who are you?"
"Kev, from Ireland."
How do you answer that one?
I don't know.
I think I would define myself
differently now than I would have...
some years ago.
I would have defined myself as a musician,
or a writer.
And I'm trying to wean myself
off those definitions of myself
that are about my occupation.
And see myself as a person.
As a husband, as a father.
As a husband, and father,
and friend,
and citizen that makes music
and writes stuff.
Rather than the other way around.
But despite getting annoyed,
and stuff like that,
I really loved doing this film.
I mean, I don't like...
being...
I don't like the process of making films.
Mate, no one does.
- No, no.
- Yeah.
I was talking to Earl...
I'm talking to Earl on the phone.
Let's say hi to Earl.
But...
You're being filmed
now, so you better hide.
No, don't hide, Earl-ie.
I'm not hiding, I'm right here.
I was lying on the floor of my band room
in the fetal position,
in between...
Before I had to go on
and redo Balcony Man.
Redoing it. I don't know what you guys
did the fucking first time around.
Yeah, when you see it, you're going to go,
"Wow, that's fucking awesome."
And Earl was like...
I'm like, "Fuck!
He wants me to go and redo it."
And he goes...
'Cause he's in Belfast making a movie.
He's going, "Dad, I know it's real hard."
"I know it's really difficult
to make a movie."
"It really gets under your skin."
"But what you need to do
is stop being such a fucking pussy."
And I'm like, "Okay."
He goes, "Get up on your fucking feet
and go and do the song."
- I'll call you later then.
- All right.
See ya, Earl!
Are you okay, you okay there?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- All right.
See ya.
Bye, bye, bye.
- Yeah!
- Yeah.
I mean...
Yeah, and just join the Kumbaya.
Do I have to do the um bay as?
Mate, you're not getting
out of the um bay as.
Dude.
How was that fucking flare, Robbie,
right on the piano note?
Unbelievable.
Awesome.
Okay, we can stop
going around in circles now.
- Yeah!
- Thank God for that. Well done, Rob.
Windows up.
Yeah.
So, in the original,
it plays in the second half.
We were playing the second half
of the first verse.
Is that what happens?
Yeah, the second half.
It's cutting out, Jake.
I think you better unrotate it.
But you were very...
It's not good for it with the lights.
- They seem not to be as strong, yeah.
- Yeah, Susie's not gonna come tomorrow.
It is cutting... It's still the same.
Okay, so...
You can, but I'm really...
I'm disappointed and upset.
We go back to...
She's sick from the vaccine.
- It's now day three.
- Yeah.
If she's still sick tomorrow...
So I feel that she's
just not going to do it.
You can talk to her about it.
- Long, long ago...
- I don't know.
Hello.
No, literally...
Andrew married my...
girlfriend.
Had a baby with her.
- Okay! Do not cut...
- I wrote a song about it.
Let's go to the next
quarter on the clock.
It's called Deanna.
You know that song?
We need to roll again.
Next quarter on the
clock. Quickly, quickly.
- We're rolling.
- He married her.
What are we doing? Come on! Reset!
What do you mean?
Always look at it in terms of distance.
Have you got...
Is there a part for you to play?
Anyone got a pen?
Yeah, can we get coffee?
Get Rachel to get me an America no.
No, just a cup of coffee
with some cold milk in it.
So clever.
You ready?
Let's just do that...
- Camera rolling.
- Camera rolling.
Steadicam will catch up, hopefully.
End board!
Sorry, sorry.
- Cut!
- Sorry.
- Cut! Cut! Cut!
- Sorry.
- Sorry...
- Somebody better run...
Let's start again, shall we?
All I can hear is Andrew screaming.
That's the title of the film.
I took the...
government's...
advice to...
Fuck, what do you call it?
- Retrain?
- Retrain.
I've retrained as a ceramicist because...
it's no longer viable to be a musician.
- Touring artist. Yeah.
- A touring artist.
So, much to my manager's horror,
I've now retrained as a ceramicist.
These are Staffordshire sculptures.
Original ones.
Beautiful.
With a flat back.
- Yeah. Assembly line.
- They're just trinkets.
They're basically...
And they are made by children.
- Really?
- Yeah.
Basically, children on assembly lines
in the Victorian era.
Small hands, and...
- That's beautiful.
- That one there,
that one up there, was the first one
which was a saint boiling in oil.
- Yeah.
- Right.
But the glaze was all wrong
and we didn't know
what colours it was going to be.
That wasn't very successful.
That I felt a little bit like,
"This is not as easy as it looks."
Yeah.
That's the original drawing...
Yeah, that was the original drawing.
- Is that Nick's drawing?
- Yeah.
That's what I wanted to make.
Like, it was just
a saint boiling in oil, right?
Anyway, should we just start doing them?
Yeah. Take us on a tour
of the life of the Devil from birth.
Hang on. Well, I can...
Okay, so...
Basically, it's telling a story,
in 18 figurines,
of the story of the Devil.
This one is just a resin one.
None of these have been glazed.
That is the Devil...
as a baby.
It's called "The Devil Awakens".
Nestled in this foal here.
This is "The Devil Inherits The World".
And he is now a boy.
This is the Devil now as a child.
And he's with a little monkey there.
A little brown monkey.
This one is the Devil with a sailor.
So this one is the Devil's first love.
So he's growing up
and doing bold, dangerous things.
The Devil now goes to war.
This is called "The Devil Rides to War".
And these little rabbits,
you see here these rabbits,
will all be gold, gilded rabbits.
He's a young man.
He's a young man off to war, yeah?
Yeah.
So this is "The Devil
Returns From The War".
He is now a different person.
His horns are bigger.
And he's coming back from war
covered in medals.
Emboldened and made powerful
by the experience of war,
walking through a field of skulls.
Here is "The Devil Takes a Wife".
She's holding the little rabbit.
The rabbits feature every now and then.
Naked.
Okay, then...
Then the Devil...
This is "The Devil
Who Kills His First Child".
And there's "The Devil
Sacrificing A Child".
So the Devil is now...
Has separated himself
from the world through...
through his transgressions.
And here is...
the world operating as normal.
Rabbits.
Children.
Life goes on,
and he is contemplating the world.
This is "The Devil In Remorse".
For his...
He is alone and separated from the world.
And kneeling in a pile of skulls.
"The Devil Has Grown Old".
And this is "The Devil's Last Dance".
This is called "The
Devil Bleeds To Death".
And he's dying.
And he's dying in the arms of two sailors
who are holding him as he bleeds out.
Down, the blood will all run down here,
into a big lake.
Into a lake at the front of his blood,
where these two white swans...
Whatever swans do.
Two, sort of, goat-like things,
and two women holding torches.
And this is the final...
This is the final one.
So, it's only a resin
mould, so it's not...
It's going to be very beautiful, this one.
This is the Devil,
essentially, dumped somewhere.
His body left to die and rot.
And a child is kneeling down
and presenting its hand
as a gesture of forgiveness to the Devil.
It's going to be very, very beautiful.
What's it called, Nick?
That one, that's called
"The Devil Forgiven".
Here we go.
Marianne, would you
like to be in the chair?
Or would you want to stay in that?
- No, chair. Yes.
- Chair, okay.
- Should we put you in?
- Yes.
Okay.
I can't really have this...
- You ready?
- Yes.
Let's go around.
Okay.
I hope they're not filming this.
I bet they are.
We always are, Marianne.
Oh, dear.
But I'll make a deal with you.
If you don't like it...
No, really, you've got to remember
how ill I've been,
and how it still is.
Now, let's get rid of that. Okay.
So, where's my lyrics?
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
And it has to be really disciplined
because I can't breathe properly.
And you have to say, "Now, do it."
- And I'll do it.
- Okay.
And then I have to take my oxygen off.
Okay.
- Do you understand?
- I do.
Good.
Now, Waz, have you got your computer?
Are you set up?
- Warren?
- Yes.
Did he call you "Waz"?
- He did, Marianne. Yeah.
- Waz.
Is that your nickname?
Well, yeah...
That's terrible.
It's easy.
- Waz?
- Waz is his nickname.
Waz... It was.
I'm shocked.
Why?
- I don't know, I just am.
- You know Australians.
They kind of do that.
What?
You know how Australians
do that kind of thing?
I suppose that they do, don't they?
Warren is Waz, Barry is Baz.
Yeah.
What's yours?
- Andrew.
- Right.
Well, there you are, you see.
Nobody can shorten Marianne, either.
- Really?
- No.
You've never had a nickname?
- Never.
- It's not Faithfull?
- Faithfull.
- Faithless.
Are we ready?
- How's about it, Chris?
- Yeah.
- Amy?
- Yes, I'm here.
Let me know what's happening.
Are the strobes ready?
When he says, "Are we ready?"
You're meant to say, "Yes."
I want a yes or a no
if the strobes are fixed.
- They are.
- Yes, they are.
- Okay, so...
- Okay.
Right.
- So, Marianne, we're ready.
- Right.
We can take your oxygen off.
Can you take it off?
Okay.
And put a bit more on my cheek, quickly.
- Right. Okay.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
- All right. Everyone ready?
- Yeah.
Let's fade out the light.
- Yeah.
- Action.
That's your cue, Chris.
"Prayer before work."
"Great One, austere,
"by whose intent
"the distant star holds its course clear.
"Now, make this spirit soar.
"Give it that ease
out of the absolute abstracted grief.
"Comfortless, mute, sound the clear note,"
"pure, piercing as the flute,
give it precision."
"Austere, Great One,
"by whose grace,
"the unalterable song,
"may still be rested from"
"the corrupt lung."
"Give it strict form."
Oh, dude.
That's sweet.
Done that.
Back in ice sculpture business.
Done that.
Waiting For You, done that.
Bright Horses, done that.
So, Hollywood...
Yeah.
Crank it out.
Come in.
I left about a week ago
and came back in, and it was just like...
The TV was, literally, lying face down.
It's got this big smashed up thing on it.
It's just shit everywhere.
Like the TV'd had a party.
Thrown itself out the...
Threw itself out the window.
The TV is just like,
"Fuck it all," you know.
It was so funny.
Have you seen this?
It's really beautiful.
This herbarium... It's a reproduction.
It's really incredible.
Emily Dickinson, the poet, yeah.
So, what, is that her herbarium?
It was when she was 14
and she made it, and then...
It's now in, like...
I think it's the most
fragile book that exists.
They photographed it,
and made this facsimile of it.
It's so beautiful.
It was funny going through
- the sessions last night, looking...
- Yeah.
I remembered that, like...
Have a look at this.
Holy, fucking shit!
Look at his desktop, Robbie.
Fucking, what a nightmare!
How do you find anything, mate?
Perfection, isn't it?
Why, isn't everyone's like that?
I don't really
have a sense of form and order.
So we could, sort of,
can cut that into it later,
but it's really about
just being in the moment,
and, I guess, seeing what happens.
We're just throwing things down,
like sit down and start playing.
And you are looking for those moments
in amongst the hours, and hours,
and hours of stuff.
No, I actually had songs...
I actually had song lyrics,
but I know from experience,
that those songs...
probably won't amount to anything.
The thing that's great working with Nick
is that he's up for trying anything.
And more so, and more, and more.
Warren is almost always on transmit,
and not so much on receive, I would say.
Although, he might
see that as unfair and wrong.
I remember with Ghosteen,
towards the last day of the first session,
Nick got up and just walked out,
and he just goes,
"I can't deal with any more soft pad."
That was that sound that kept playing.
And I was just playing it
for 30 minutes at a time.
It's almost pointless,
me sitting down and writing a song
and taking it into the studio because...
Unless I, kind of like,
hold Warren's face and say,
"Warren, I'm going to do a song now."
"It's a song I've written."
"These are the chords."
I don't know what it is with me,
but I will get on something
and then I just can't move away from it.
And I think it's different.
A whole lot of shit happens.
I mean, a whole lot
of terrible shit happens
when me and Warren get into a room.
But there are these
moments when it just...
It gets into this
strange meditative state.
You just have no idea what is going on.
And that's when stuff happens.
It just clicks into something
transcendent, as far as I'm concerned.
I'm literally taken away by it.
I'm amazed by...
Not at the time,
although I get lost in it at the time,
but you just suddenly hear these things
and go, "Oh, my God!"
But they are just snippets
in an ocean of bullshit...
- Yeah.
- You know.
We're just messing around.
- There we go.
- Yeah, here it goes.
It's difficult to perform even,
because I'm just
- waiting for the fucking chord.
- Waiting for the chord.
'Cause it feels unnaturally slow.
Why don't we try it without it?
Yeah, it's just getting your sound
and stuff like that.
- We got all that going?
- Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't need much of that.
How did he fit into the Bad Seeds
when it was Mick and Blixa, and all that?
He took a subordinate role, right,
of just embellishing
what was already going on there.
And slowly, one by one,
taking out each member of the Bad Seeds.
I think you better watch out, mate.
It might just be me and Waz left.
Yeah, I know.
I know I'm the next to go.
He's singing a lot more, I've noticed.
Yeah.
- Ready?
- Yeah.
- All right, stand by!
- Good luck, everyone!
There are thousands of questions here.
Thousands, and thousands.
There are 38,065 questions.
Now, I won't read them all to you.
Obviously.
But I can just flick through
and grab some, right,
as they come.
"My brother, David, died two years ago.
"He was just 24 and I was 19.
"It feels like everyone
is moving on and forgetting him.
"And I'm afraid of letting go of my anger.
"What if I don't know who I am without it?"
"For so long has my grief
been an inextricable part of me."
"Allison."
The thing I really love
about The Red Hand Files,
and why I almost consider
this to be like a spiritual practice,
is that I'm forced to think
about these questions
and not respond immediately.
When I do respond immediately,
in my mind, I don't respond with the
better part of my nature, I would say.
- Does that make sense?
- Yeah.
It requires some days
to think about what the person is saying,
and to arrive at a compassionate...
relationship to the question
and to the person who is writing it.
That actually doesn't
come naturally to me.
And so, The Red Hand Files, literally,
keep me at the better end of my nature.
Billy from Scotland.
"My wife has thrown me out.
"I've lost my job, all within a week."
"Suicidal thoughts in abundance."
"How does one handle having
seemingly no control over one's life?"
This is a really beautiful question, too.
And incredibly sad.
They are incredibly moving,
these questions, because...
You know, you don't...
If something happens to you,
the first thing that comes to mind
is not to write to...
These are desperate questions
from people who don't have anyone to ask.
They are just sending these questions
out into the, whatever...
- The void. Yeah.
- To the void, yeah.
Dear Billy,
the majority of letters
that come into The Red Hand Files,
in all their various forms,
are essentially asking the same question.
Your question.
How are you, Corin?
Yeah, good. Yeah, really good.
Haven't seen you since yesterday.
How do I handle seemingly
having no control over my life?
This question is often accompanied
by feelings of betrayal,
and rage, and resentfulness,
of hopelessness.
The truth is
we all live our lives dangerously
in a state of jeopardy,
at the edge of calamity.
You have discovered
that the veil that separates
your ordered life from disarray
is wafer thin.
This is the ordinary truth of existence
from which none of us are exempt.
In time, we all find out
we are not in control.
We never were.
We never will be.
But we are not without power.
We always have the freedom to choose
how we will respond
to whatever it is that life offers us.
You can collapse and be dragged under.
You can harden around your misfortune
and become embittered.
Or you can move toward the opportunity
that is offered to you.
That of change and renewal.
The next best action
is always presented to you, Billy.
Look for it and move toward it.
This is the great act of insubordination
toward the vagaries of life
afforded to us all.
Love, Nick.
Say something...
Are these better for me than in-ear?
Let's put it down, Nick.
Yeah, put it down as low as you can.
- Better? I don't know.
- You tell me.
I can do what you tell me
if you want me to hold it.
No, no, no, a bit of balance is good.
Okay, we need to shut the curtain.
- We need to shut the curtain!
- Mark it.
Thanks.
Okay, everybody just take a minute.
Let's settle.
- Yes.
- Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I'm much happier
now than I used to be.
That's not to say that I don't struggle.
But it's not happiness
that's the most important thing for me.
It's like having
a sense of meaning about things.
I really feel much more connected to that.
And that respect makes me happier.
That I do feel a real sense of meaning...
in my life that's not
dependent on my work.
It's not dependent on my creative life.
That feels like I'm
moving towards something,
that feels like the world
is a meaningful place.
The very nature of
the world is meaningful.
And people are meaningful beings.
Come on.
Come down.
Come towards us.
Thank you, all,
for looking after us
and everything you've done.
It's been very beautiful.
Thank you, all.
The singers.
The strings.
Now that kind of feels like an ending.
- The Covid lady.
- But it's not.
Okay, it's not. Not at all.
Back to one.
All right.
That might be the ending.
Okay.
"Thank you for the words, the music,
"the grounding sanity
that your music brings to me"
"in my times of strife."
"I'm curious, behind it all,
the music, the words,
"the suits, the grief, the tenderness,
"and shame, and guilt, and joy,"
"who are you?"
"Kev, from Ireland."
How do you answer that one?
I don't know.
I think I would define myself
differently now than I would have...
some years ago.
I would have defined myself as a musician,
or a writer.
And I'm trying to wean myself
off those definitions of myself
that are about my occupation.
And see myself as a person.
As a husband, as a father.
As a husband, and father,
and friend,
and citizen that makes music
and writes stuff.
Rather than the other way around.
But despite getting annoyed,
and stuff like that,
I really loved doing this film.
I mean, I don't like...
being...
I don't like the process of making films.
Mate, no one does.
- No, no.
- Yeah.
I was talking to Earl...
I'm talking to Earl on the phone.
Let's say hi to Earl.
But...
You're being filmed
now, so you better hide.
No, don't hide, Earl-ie.
I'm not hiding, I'm right here.
I was lying on the floor of my band room
in the fetal position,
in between...
Before I had to go on
and redo Balcony Man.
Redoing it. I don't know what you guys
did the fucking first time around.
Yeah, when you see it, you're going to go,
"Wow, that's fucking awesome."
And Earl was like...
I'm like, "Fuck!
He wants me to go and redo it."
And he goes...
'Cause he's in Belfast making a movie.
He's going, "Dad, I know it's real hard."
"I know it's really difficult
to make a movie."
"It really gets under your skin."
"But what you need to do
is stop being such a fucking pussy."
And I'm like, "Okay."
He goes, "Get up on your fucking feet
and go and do the song."
- I'll call you later then.
- All right.
See ya, Earl!
Are you okay, you okay there?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- All right.
See ya.
Bye, bye, bye.
- Yeah!
- Yeah.
I mean...
Yeah, and just join the Kumbaya.
Do I have to do the um bay as?
Mate, you're not getting
out of the um bay as.
Dude.
How was that fucking flare, Robbie,
right on the piano note?
Unbelievable.
Awesome.
Okay, we can stop
going around in circles now.
- Yeah!
- Thank God for that. Well done, Rob.
Windows up.
Yeah.
So, in the original,
it plays in the second half.
We were playing the second half
of the first verse.
Is that what happens?
Yeah, the second half.
It's cutting out, Jake.
I think you better unrotate it.
But you were very...
It's not good for it with the lights.
- They seem not to be as strong, yeah.
- Yeah, Susie's not gonna come tomorrow.
It is cutting... It's still the same.
Okay, so...
You can, but I'm really...
I'm disappointed and upset.
We go back to...
She's sick from the vaccine.
- It's now day three.
- Yeah.
If she's still sick tomorrow...
So I feel that she's
just not going to do it.
You can talk to her about it.
- Long, long ago...
- I don't know.
Hello.
No, literally...
Andrew married my...
girlfriend.
Had a baby with her.
- Okay! Do not cut...
- I wrote a song about it.
Let's go to the next
quarter on the clock.
It's called Deanna.
You know that song?
We need to roll again.
Next quarter on the
clock. Quickly, quickly.
- We're rolling.
- He married her.
What are we doing? Come on! Reset!
What do you mean?
Always look at it in terms of distance.
Have you got...
Is there a part for you to play?
Anyone got a pen?
Yeah, can we get coffee?
Get Rachel to get me an America no.
No, just a cup of coffee
with some cold milk in it.
So clever.
You ready?
Let's just do that...
- Camera rolling.
- Camera rolling.
Steadicam will catch up, hopefully.
End board!
Sorry, sorry.
- Cut!
- Sorry.
- Cut! Cut! Cut!
- Sorry.
- Sorry...
- Somebody better run...
Let's start again, shall we?
All I can hear is Andrew screaming.
That's the title of the film.