If you’re looking for guidance when it comes to love, steer clear of Nick Cave and Afghan Whigs.
That’s according to writer and broadcaster Caitlin Moran, this week’s Big Issue cover star and subject of a Letter to My Younger Self.
“When it comes to love, art is a very bad advisor,” Moran said. “In the early Nineties I was listening to Afghan Whigs and Nick Cave who were writing about sex and love being dark and dangerous. They’re not songs about true love, they’re songs about unrequited love or dysfunctional love.
“And so when I met Pete [Paphides, her husband, who she’s been with since she was 19], because he wasn’t a dangerous fucked-up dark boy I just presumed he was a mate. I knew I felt more comfortable around him than anyone else; I didn’t have to pretend to be anyone, I didn’t have to drink or smoke. It took my subconscious about two years to just go, oh for fucksake, and make me have a dream where we were going on an escalator together, and the escalator just went on and on and on and on forever.
The 45-year-old added: “And I turned to him and said, what’s happening here, and he said, it’s OK, we’re just going to stay together till the top. And I woke up and went, I’m in love with him, we’re gonna stay together forever.
“So thanks unconscious for stepping in there, because my conscious mind was too stupid to realise I was in love with him.”
