Nick Cave: The SICK BAG Song (Canongate)

WHEN YOU'VE personally witnessed Nick Cave nodding out on heroin and slowly lowering his head into a candle flame – his mass of dyed black hair igniting as you rush over with a tea towel to extinguish the blaze – you are likely to do a minor double-take when, years later, you hear that he's been made an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Brighton, the English seaside city he calls home.