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 town he calls home.

Such is the unlikely trajectory of a musician who, for more than three decades, has staggered along the fissure that separates low life from highbrow art. Like very few other “rock stars” – not a breed he has ever closely identified himself with – Cave has survived the thanatos of his self-destructive impulses to become a canonised artist of the transgressive. He’s made several acclaimed albums, written novels and screenplays, and been showered with awards. He’s…