Neil Tennant revisits songs he’s written since the age of nine

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you're listening to a podcast from the word welcome to this and an old

palavars whose nutritious and fascinating book 100 lyrics and a poem has

just come out and paper by Neil Tedden lovely to see you again lovely to see

you both again great to talk to you now that when you and I and Dave were at

smash hits magazine in the early 80s I can remember conversations about the

bands we liked in the 70s or whatever the 60s I remember the other records the

gigs we went to but I don't remember you ever letting drop that you've been

writing songs since you were at primary school that you made demos you'd had

an audition at rocket record and looking back at that it's very sensible because

was that a bit like those people who never tell you they're writing a novel in

case it doesn't come out yeah it was exactly like that because it's sort of

embarrassing and also there was a sort of a cliche sort of rock pop journalist

wants to be in the band kind of thing I don't know yeah I spoke with them

I was about it really because it was the reality is something I pursued

rigorously from really about the age of 12 when I taught myself to play the

guitar even before that you know I wrote a musical where I was nine with when

you know there's a lovely bit in the intro that the book has a terrific intro

by John Savage too actually but a wonderful one by you where you talk about at

the age of 12 you say learning other people's songs seemed like hard work

compared to making up your own which is really interesting so even at the age of

12 you've sort of felt with some kind of destiny in being a songwriter oh yeah

well you know you suck you kind of learn a minor sevens a nice easy call to

play but with very resonant harmonies in it and you start writing a song and

then you've got another call to go to and so yeah I did used to do that I used to

work on my through the song so at home we had the 50 Beatles compilation of

sheet music we had Mary Poppins Mary Poppins actually chim chim

chim chim chim chim chim chim chim chim chim chim chim chim is actually got a really

good chord change I mean actually it's been done by Miles Davis I think it's

it's got actually got really good chord change and you want us to say it smash

hits that the greatest bridge in pop music was feed the birds from Mary Poppins

remember that you did I think you're right all around the cathedral

amazing bit it's beautiful it is a very beautiful it resolves at the end

yeah that's probably because I used to play I used to play the chords and so I

taught myself you know the guitar chords on the piano and then I used to

follow the sheet music I used to follow I used to read the guitar chords along

the sheet music not I wasn't following the lines I was following the guitar

chords which I still do by the way and the first song you said you wrote a you

cut wrote a musical when you were nine it was called the girl called Tails and it

was about a girl who got into trouble for pulling the tails of cats and it was

me and as a girl it's my primary school and I I mean this is probably been like

nine and we did it in her I say this in the book I think we didn't hear

about Gordon to learn to about five people are gradually lost they don't think

disintegrated actually but yeah no it was it was quite ambitious though it's

very ambitious for nine but also the title of that song as anybody seen my cat

is a great title it's got mystery it's got plot and drama I've seen I've seen

pantomimes at this point when we were children we occasionally used to go to the

first theatrical instruments ever had we went to a theatre new castle which was

demolished not long off it's actually to see the pantomime and and and I went

in we sat down with a box of chocolates and it was all this red velvet and gold

and the Empire Theatre new castle and I thought God I like this it's just great

I just loved it and and does anyone see my cats a sort of thing you know

pushing boots what would be in or something like that isn't so yeah that

was pantomimes a little influence as well and we had my mother at light

musicals opera we had all these old 78s says to play as well and you mentioned

Benjamin and Noel Coward it has been a big part really it was

Benchman's records I mean I never listened to you probably yeah yeah

but the Benchman's been on a blush and they're late flowering lust are really

really good albums and the guy who wrote the music Jim Parker did a brilliant

job actually fitting because Benjamin doesn't actually really wrap them but

he does they have a rhythm obviously and but I mean I'd never really read

Benjamin before that and I became actually even now I prefer those records

to reading Benjamin's poems there's something just fantastically evocative of

them and and also quite hard late flowering lust the second one which is about

being old because he's probably actually is probably only in his 50s at this

point and and feeling lust drain away a bit but still feeling lust for young

women or whatever and he's slightly horrified by and also to slightly

fascinated by I mean it's a quite a dark album that that's something to

on Benjamin's album so when you started writing songs what kind of songwriter

did you want to be did you have an idea of a backroom boy or whatever go on I

didn't know I wanted to be a pop stuff all right okay I mean like yourselves you

know we were Beatles obsessives and to grow up in this to be my age was a great

age to be because it means you saw the Beatles at the London palladium and you

saw David Bowie when he appeared on the old girl this was not doing five years

that which is actually only a nine year period yeah it's only nine years it

seems like about two millennia and and so that really was the musical journey

you know the Beatles and Associated Pop Music can tell a motown and stuff like

that and so I could deal here and then sort of and then I was hated when music

went heavy and but then T Rex came along and then of course David Bowie and

that was a whole big thing I sort of wants to be David Bowie but so through

this period I you know I used to play other people's songs which is very good

with learning songs and and I took it seriously though I took it seriously so

when I was 16 I had a folk group called Dust which I think is probably mentioned

in the book and that's when a friend of mine indoctrinated me into liking the

incredible string band and you were forced to quite rightly I say indoctrinated

because because as Mark knows the incredible string band was really had all

all the trappings of a cult and if you like the incredible string band you

were sort of sat cross-legged at the feet of Robin and Mike and but but now

even now you know I still I can still listen to your in craids record as we

school in the encreds and the first song you wrote was called can you hear the

dawn break and it was on the bit in creds it's a great a good title too a friend

of mine at school St. Coughbirds did a surrealist painting called can you hear

the dawn break he was one of the people who hang around the art room

and it's so successful and actually it's quite it's why regardless my first

proper song because I'm not embarrassed by it and but I thought that was that

was and the song goes to journey of can you hear the dawn break to can you hear

your heart break or something like that you know so it's quite a poor

McCartney-esque journey it goes on but the your introduction I'm not sure I

ever knew that you had an audition at Rocket Records I don't know if you'd ever

told us tell us tell us that story it's an extraordinary thing 175 was it

earlier 74 year earlier I moved to London 1972 to go north

under poly to history and then it began 73 I moved into flat and

talked to the two friends and I bought for like 20 pounds a piano because I

wanted to have a series I was quite serious about and I wanted to have a piano

and I wrote songs sing a songwritery songs on the piano and in those days you

may recall in the Melodymaker in particular there would be adverts at the

back for music publishers wanting to do auditions and so I would I guess

right to them in those days do you think I'm sure yeah I think they wrote

them letters and they on my mother's old typewriter and they walk back you

know and and I had or did I had an audition with a company called April Music

and and I went into their office I do you know I'd be embarrassed to do this now

really but and I started out of the piano and I played these two guys three

songs and actually they were quite impressed by them and they there was

sort of ballads you know and and they said we think you're too young but you've

definitely got something and then Rocket Records was launched by Elton John and

same thing and I went in and I had an audition I actually took my guitar as

well I played one song in the guitar and two songs on piano and they recorded

them somewhere it's probably been destroyed somewhere with the tape and also

there's other people April Music took me into a demo studio and recorded me as

well so this is what I was 19 years old so was the part of you hoping that

they might just like it like in a movie they go you hear this is it yeah

we're making records yeah basically yes and actually which is but they were I

was sort of how sensibly were because actually I didn't have a lot of songs for

an album and I had no sort of life experience and not that anyone seemed to

bring that up but they said you were too young did this just you should do

them differently in any way no I didn't have a lot of material and it'd be

interesting to see how it developed and then the Rocket Records one was actually

in 75 I think and then I did my final and then I went to work marble comics and

and then I still wrote always wrote songs at home on my guitar I didn't have a piano

then I moved out of top and I moved to Chelsea to fill out the Kings Road and so I

wrote all songs on the guitar until I met Chris right and how did he change

the your approach well Chris was completely different so I bought famously we

met over the famous synthesizer the more often the size Chris came around and

he started sort of playing something quite funky on this monophonic synthesizer

and I played the guitar strummed along it was evident immediately that Chris

was other was a stanza musician way above me and but also had I was always a

musical snob on my friends musical snob you were too probably musical snob

Chris wasn't a musical snob Chris liked body talk by imagination I was more or less

a ghast on his center and Chris did not like Elvis Costello yes apart from all

of his army and and and he liked soft sell but he liked disco music really and I

didn't mind of course I did like some disco music but when you when you like

new wave on punk sort of weren't meant to like disco music apart from that right

apart from maybe staying alive or something like that and that's interesting that

you didn't really change the way you wrote lyrics you just you just sort of

adapted those words to a different kind of but only that Chris said to me

slightly impatient with the sort of poetic thing can't you make them a bit

more sexy yeah see this is that it's really interesting reading your

introduction we told I was facetitating I got a really strong picture of of you

with a kind of head for the ideas and then why and then you you pair off with

this guy who's just really decisive yes to this note of that it comes

consequently you make progress really quickly it's a combination of the two

isn't it well also the other thing is I've been made redundant from I take

redundancy from I'm working in Publishers called McDonald's Educational and there

was a big industrial dispute and then the company is bought by Robert Maxwell I

am of course a Maxwell pensioner by the way of course he's a pension for three

and a half years it was all stolen actually got your pension I didn't I didn't

he got it and I was think that's really mean because

I probably paid 15 pounds a month into the pension fund well 15 pounds a

month in 1980 how many I bought anyway we digress and I forgot what the

question is well I talked about Chris was just really decisive and that helped

I had to do a lot of money from this company yeah yeah so I said you know I

think we should make a demo and again back to the Melodymaker we this place

studios and it was called Camdenate on Murray Street off Camden Road we went

and saw this guy and we and this is just before I start smash it's really really

really just before I start smash it's like the month beforehand even and and

I've already before I met Chris made a demo of my own you know in a reggae

studio in South London and the guy keeps putting funny dubbing effects

oh actually I actually looked at the studio still there and so we and that's

classic Chris we go into this studio which I'm paying for my redundancy money

we've rehearsed what we're going to do and Chris says actually I've just got

this new idea can we do that instead you would do that now as well and and so

we started doing this new song and the guy who runs the studio is quite

impressed by us and he lets us use this to do for nothing because you said

that you this must be the studio where the guy let you use it for quite a long

period of time for nothing if you could get some percentage of the publishing

we said well yeah actually what did that I mean did that ever happen did yeah

we had this guy still making money from your songs no no no no he died a long time ago actually

no we ruthlessly bought him out all right we started a publishing company my

brother who is sort of an accountant management accountant started a publishing

company for us and we gave this guy Ray Roberts he was called a share of the

stalker what you call it and and then when we were signing or a

M.I. before that I can't remember we bought him out for 6,000 pounds and he was

very very happy to have sure he's very delighted because actually to be honest

the reality is we're six as best we didn't really have to be giving it to him and

but he you know he gave us he gave us we've been lucky we've got chances I

suppose everyone is he gave us a chance he said he knew this we did for two

years went for studio and wrote songs I mean we're all the famous petrol boys

songs because here's the first one you mentioned there is jealousy is a kind of

key song isn't it yeah we when we make this demo with my redundancy money we

have this new song Chris which actually we recorded you a lockdown it's called

it's not a crime and it's sort of all right it's actually quite nice and but

we've got this big ballad which when we do the greatest hit show I would say this

is the first song we ever pop up we ever wrote and that was when Chris went

to his home in Blackpool and he wrote this very dramatic piece of music

Chris had famous Quartet smash hits where he said I used to pretend

tricosky wrote through me and it worked I think and and and and it was this

very sort of either the piano thing and so I responded to this I was

think jealousy could be in French oh it's a very fantastic song it's a really

I mean it's a really confident song really and when we wrote it I thought

why we've written a proper song that's surely you must know and it's like

somebody else has written it yeah no it's like some it's like you know your

friends can ever believe you can really do something and someone said what

remember when we played Western girls Eric Watson the photographer he was

completely philomexpied utterly philomex that we could have come up with this

actually quite amazing record and that was to jealousy that gave you a lot of

confidence I was just interested in a review of the the the current tour

someone someone in the garden or somewhere remarked it's interesting that

the first song they wrote was a ballad not a dance track and it's true because

there's always been the two things to the pet shop boys and it seems it's all

fall on the floor but actually it's not really it's yeah right the way through

there's been this gonna be heartfelt sort of ballads there is a sad streak

isn't it a part of the pet shop boys DNA isn't it it's very attractive it's

met melancholy to some extent melancholy yeah I didn't say melancholy lazy or

not but it's just there it's actually there in that chord of A minor 7th to be

honest right all right it goes back to the A part of something so how did you

choose the lyrics you put in the book because you said at one point that the

sound of the words is sometimes more important than the sense which is

interesting so actually probably that eliminates quite a few things you didn't

it might work on the page just certainly yes it did it's I think all songwriters

was made the sound of the the sound of the words is more important in the

meaning I mean for instance hey mr tambourine man yeah I mean it's the sound

it's I mean there's nothing wrong with that it's you could argue it's impossible

to work on what it means at all it doesn't matter no but it sounds great oh it

does but also so to interrupt it also kind of implies the Bob Dylan when he

wrote mr tambourine man knew what he meant or any songwriter they just write

don't they no it's it's just the flow of it you know in in don't look back or

no don't look no don't look back the Bob Dylan film yeah yeah the in and this

avoid typing away is it just hammering away is not a red wine cigarette

he's not sweeping girl lying on the sofa behind it he's not stopping to think

is it and it's songwriting is often like like like that in that you get into

rhythm I was remember writing the words for western girls as a stream of

consciousness rap and there is it does sort of make sense but it was definitely

the sound of the words and the rhythm just being able to it was very exciting

writing to a rap rhythm which was quite a new thing in those days and I was

definitely going with the sound of it and the meaning was important but

secondary I still remember you playing us a a tape at that in the office and

saying in a rather embarrassed way for us it it does contain some rapping

gosh you're over what you know what you're rapping a scoffer David

Bostock so David Bostock is now known and David Lee yeah scoffer made

copies of the Bobby O demo the master's actually cassette and when I went to

came back from New York on that famous trip in New Hill I think just on your

podcast before the whole side American thing and I didn't play people western

girls in the office because I said barrister I was rapping well I paid let's

put up some money and there's a show song called Pechup Boys and there's

another one I'm on the I can only do the one with no shit and anyway I didn't

play western girls I'll not spend that and scoffer made and he said scoffer

kept saying go I don't like the rap one and then I think that's probably the

moment where it was put on the cassette player and everyone gathered around to

listen to this record the breakthrough the breakthrough yeah I was a bit

embarrassed by it did your time and especially did that make a difference of

things you're meeting all those interviewing all those musicians and and

checking the lyrics some of you mentioned that in the I think checking what I

see yeah and we all used to do it we used to have checked the song was for

they were published you know I think most I think generally it had very little

impact because it's quite a different job there is the the journalist and the

songwriter are doing completely different things really I suppose they're

writing words but checking the lyrics there was quite useful because you could

see the structure of songs and you remember in smash it's we used to add every

sound that was made yes so you had a scene had a very strong idea of how a pop

song was structured to be honest I already knew quite a lot of that is the

real I already knew quite a lot of that but that was sort of use the main

smash hits stroke petrope boys memory I have really is when one of my first

different my first interview which was for bits was everything but the girl

bought out their first single the beautiful cover of night and day by

kill quarter and Chris and I had made this demo tape at the student

camp in town we called ourselves west end and we took this demo tape and we put

it through the we put through the letterboxes of EMI records maybe CBS

I can't remember but one of which I saw an indie label called cherry red they

might actually listen to it and so I go into interview um everything but the

girl and and I'm in the A&R man's office with them and I'm looking at a pile of

cassettes on the desk this is like the week later I'm looking at them thinking

God is our cassette actually he wrote back to me well and he's said how much

he liked the soul jealousy but didn't want to pursue it anymore like in the

seventies I was back in the seventies music publisher saying he thought it wasn't

ready yet but he was sort of quite encouraging I was wrong but sitting there

into it now and I was how he distracted by the thought that our cassette was

probably on that desk there has the news been getting you down I'm Megan

McCartle and I'm here to help I'm the host of a new show from Washington

Post-opinion called reasonably optimistic and it's an antidote to the

pessimism that's riddling America right now every Wednesday I'm gonna talk to

people who see a path forward does seem to me that there is some awakening of a

desire to act together to solve problems where they are no I am a believer in

America that's worth fighting for join me Wednesdays on YouTube or wherever you

get your podcasts

you've obviously met loads of other songwriters what have you learned from them

do you sit around when you're sitting around with Elton or whoever there's

anybody who will talk about the difficulties of writing lyrics or songs or

whatever are there any rules that you've picked up not like screenwriters if

they all got together they would talk about the technicality I think the

songwriters going together would probably talk about producers studios and

gigging you know issues to do with concerts rather than the mechanics or we

must have talked about I mean when Chris and I met Johnny Martin some we weren't

went up to Manchester we wrote the songs on the iconic album called

patience of a saint Chris had prepared something beforehand sneak and

pretended he was spontaneously making it up no he said so I've got this

little chord change and so that's how that track started and we all added bits to

it even then we really I don't recall is everybody afraid of kind of letting

daylight in on their own personal magic kind of thing no no it's not that either

it's as you're doing it you don't really talk about it's there's something

instinctive about it as well I think the place where it's most discussed I've

just remembered Xenomania so in 2008 they could arm with Xenomania with Brian

Higgins and we go to the house in I've gone the names of village now and the

house where Alison Wonderland the real Alison Wonderland grew up amazingly and

she's kind of spooky and he's got the woods out the back and and we were then

in songwriting boot camp yes which is a totally fascinating experience

solver you've got to not be embarrassed actually because you sit with a

little tape recorder solver I'm gonna try to get a little phrase in your head

praising your head oh that's quite good and and then and then you piece them

together but they couldn't go over because Chris was dispatched upstairs into a

bedroom with a keyboard and given Xenomania backing tracks and told to write

to write melodies well it's just another one they just they just get

production line but actually in some respects isn't it quite attractive to have

that kind of deadline we've got to write a song by this time you know well I

think I think it's the discipline of that hop is always a much more

disciplined form than anything else because there's commercial constraints

there's time constraints about how long the song is going to be it's got to be

paid on the radio it's got to communicate something direct people so you're

airy fairy poetry goes right out the window I remember when we wrote what

I've had to deserve this with Ali Willis this songwriter we are Tom Mocken's

new who are unbelievably impressed had written a co-written boogie nights and

I mean why wouldn't you be impressed and and then she wrote the sleeve song of

friends oh wow the middle bits so my bit was all a bit poetry literally poetry

I bought you drinks what you flowers ready both sort of and and she and then she

wrote since you've been away I've been hanging around I've been wondering why

I'm feeling down well that's okay I mean there's no poetry then see me but it

works but it works when you say the song but she was right that's the one isn't it

yeah actually gave my not that poetry but sort of poetic lyrics a direct

meaning you got what was happening and Ali Willis said no you've got to know

what's going on here so we discussed the scenario like in actually in

Delemania you would do that when you were putting something together you would you

would do that you would because at some point and then it's also Chris's

point about how to make it more sexy you know ultimately Western girls it's

about you know Western girls he said boys try to pick each other up and and so

so so although it's got a lot of fancy poetry and it's actually got a very

simple direct thing about about sex and also about the pressure of of living in

the city where you've got any money or something and and Ali Willis was very

with Ali Willis there was that was a good lesson from Ali Willis I get the

impression that having a title is an enormous huge huge start you look for

phrases you're often listening to words that been conversations and

thinking that make a good time permanently part of my brain is sift even as we

speak is sifting through and then I write them down on my phone just

someone's and then some of you look it afterwards sifting through my own thoughts

even in real time as I'm thinking that's quite good and then after you might

look at a week later and realize terrible and delete it you know but that's

really how you there's a lovely song a lot of time your early stuff which is

just phrases that mostly from taxi drivers isn't it all all said to me I had a

small victory with one of them because taxi drivers in 2007 said to me I

suppose you're more or less retired now Neil are you and and I said actually

you're driving me to top of the pops one deal get out of that oh okay and you

get a lot of that but I love the lyrics that you beat around but you don't look

too rough one said that to me yeah yeah I know I still quite like the early

stuff it's all been said the video thing about the videos think about getting

ripped off it's all been said I mean actually I quite I quite I quite enjoy

but it's also you know one of the points you make in the introduction is quite

often very English I wouldn't normally do this kind of thing it feels to me very

English no and that was a stylistic decision gone I mean I had to make decision

when we went into studio Bobby O in 1983 and and we started playing the track

western girls and then they said okay do the vocal and I had to make a

spontaneous decision about whether to do the rapping in an English or an American

accent because the natural thing would be go sometimes better up dead and I

thought no I I should do it in English so I did in English they loved it you

know how Americans even now still might say I love your accent you always

make a point of pronouncing things in a very English way of pronouncing

yeah I do yeah and so I so I sort of from then onwards thought

also it's what we are Chris and I had this sort of ethos that you shouldn't

pretend you should

you should it should be sort of authentic as we would now so in a slightly

but and that but that was that was a big thing and also then the English yeah I would

not be do this kind of thing and all those phrases are quite inspirational in writing a song

because if you're writing the phrase like that and also I you know I've always liked

we mentioned John Bettsman no cowards yeah they're very conversational aren't they

they're very conversational and the idea that they're also spoke at the site spoken word too

so well which is very pet shop boys well that you know and I realized years ago doing

desert island discs and I decided to do a the choice of records chronologically that the

that the soundtrack of my fair lady had a big impact on me Rex Harrison because we just was

always all in the background you see I know musicians all but that stuff is entirely inside my head

because it was all played when you were 10 years old you know it went in it a very it's like

children can learn languages really easily when they're seven years old this is it well try

playing them the the original cast recording of my fair lady yeah Oliver or whatever all those

things it just goes in and it's why Paul McCartney still writes sentimental songs because he grew up

that's what his dad was playing wasn't it it was dad was playing yeah and so everyone everyone

grew up with that weird mixed music but also there's that speak singing thing because because

the my fair lady thing is speak singing which also you know is in Brecht and vile you know and

and and and rap music has started through altitude becoming a speak singing thing so it's

anyway it's also it's a way of expressing wit which is which now pop modern pop is not the

natural home for wit and I even put jokes in songs sometimes and um and speak singing them

yet community keeps that better I think yeah it really hit me reading the book and the structure

of the book is to explain it to one of those things not seen is that um it anneals chose

100 notes and then you write these little notes that give you some idea of the context and some

idea of the of the inspiration for the song and they're immensely revealing and and really

increase your enjoyment of of the songs you know finding out that um you know I made marks

uses in the left was inspired by Cynthia Lennon biography in the moment which comes back and finds

more to biography it's right sorry yeah with um you know it comes back and finds a husband with

Yoko Ono you know odd man out big inspired by took Bogart film the whole all the stuff you write

about kings cross and it struck me that you know you could put that kind of information

onto an album onto an album sleeve or would you would you think the sense of mystery is a good thing

because it's just so fascinating finding out where these songs come from I think the book is the

right place to have it because there is a thing that um you want someone listening to to bring

their own thoughts to it you don't want to say this is about this this this and this and nothing

else you want people to think their own thoughts about it and often they're quite interesting

um even if I don't agree with them uh but but then but some of it is actually quite nice to

to put in the sort of factual references and inspirations that have gone into so many of them

uh and I realized in choosing without saying the introduction choosing the songs for the book

which I just went through all of all of our all of our uh we're lyrics on our website you know

and I noticed I started by house in Durham and I I did them on the train games at Durham

and several journeys and um and um and just chose the ones that I thought would look the

red best because there's no point in having um stuff that doesn't really read very well on a page

I don't think so I chose them all it but I but I realized I was going to say I realized

how many ideas are taken from books I don't I'm going to say yeah really resilience of them

I mean absolutely resilience of them you read a lot of books Neil don't you

you always have done and most songwriters probably don't

yeah and I was writing a song with a bit like writing a short story because when you get an idea

you sort of think oh it would be like you know it was this kind of thing oh it's a guy going sort

of crazy and what sort of things wouldn't he normally do so you can have a sort of funny list um it

so it's a bit like it's a bit like writing a short story um also some stories get me in the

wand the song you mentioned odd man out which is taken from the film victim um the famous

film where I do it woke up as a lawyer who's just go to find a gay affair with some guy who's

killed himself boy barrett um and this is poignant thing where he goes to see a hairdresser off

trying cross road actually we sampled the bit and we had to get the mission of the actors family um

about what it was like being gay then and being black mailed and always the possibility of the police

coming round and and and this guy saying he just wanted out and he says you know and he says

he basically says he's he's not surprised boy barrett kills himself because it's because the pressure

they live under and I was watching that I thought god um this would make it great song

always make an opera actually to be honest and um and um and so that's and that's actually

goes the beta means to the song there's so much about London too in the book about London

it's really interesting because you see it from the outside because you're not from London or

else so many key events of your own life happy it's it's funny when you talk about people taking

different interpretations kings cross as always are resounded with me just because come I come

from the north like you and kings cross just mean something to northerners that it can never

mean to anybody it's where London starts it's portal to London it's it's all it's always melancholy

to me coming into kings cross well usually yes but that didn't it in the 80s well around kings

yes yeah we're around the back of the where the guardian is now or in all the hat that's

used to be no man's land oh absolutely it was um it was sort of terrifying but even there always

been lawy training around in kings cross station uh and there was that film Mona Lisa is it

Mona Lisa yes they'll show around there he's been a prostitute she's sort of working the streets

around there and then of course a big thing happened in the 80s people forget there was a time

before homeless people I remember and it made a big impact on me suddenly I used to meet

Barbish Rome for dinner and also and I'd walk up the strand from getting the tube to

embankment or something and suddenly there were all these cases and I used to stop and talk to them

um and there was there were living in the windows in the in the doorways of those sort of south

australia south east australia and um and they suddenly arrived they used to be trams but

suddenly there were people living on the streets and it's and it seemed at the time to be sort of

factual thing um and so that's really that that's why kings cross was written because you were

suddenly aware and we were making quite a lot of money as well at this point and you were aware of

this wealth gap that I wasn't probably said I didn't have wealth before but I wasn't really aware

of it so much in the 70 do you have categories for the songs that you write do you think of

them that way I remember interviewing Elvis Costello I once he was talking about revenge songs and guilt

songs and songs were about I want someone or I lost someone or I believe in something or all I

want for Christmas is a duke the Prague away you know just there were little categories do you

do you think of it like that or you just get an idea and pursue it and don't think it's no I think

you could categorize them afterwards but not but not during I don't like Nick Cave would also

maybe hey I'm writing a revenge song and he knows the sort of lineage of that I don't think

like that at all and also I don't sit down and think if that says that Nick Cave goes from

office every morning 10 o'clock wearing a suit and all the rest of it and and writes types away

I do write words by themselves but to me they're tied to music normally and I don't do it like a

job I don't sit down in the morning think what can I write something about because I would then be

writing poetry and occasionally I have a case you're in poetry that's where's the

book um I was going to say did you ever because most people are you know we're inclined to

in literary inclinations in a teenager they write poetry did you do that when you were a teenager

yes but not not not so much because I was writing songs so I've got exercise books with songs in

right so that used that muscle I used that muscle really for writing songs but I did write

some poems and they're in the same exercise books and I'm probably frustrated that they can't

be turned into a song yes Chris and I actually have a song it's rather a rather not skill one called

cricket wife during Covid Chris wrote a class in quotes classical piece of music and um

and he sent it to me and I had this poem I'd written it actually by my mother dying

but my parents met and it's called cricket wife and so I was able to use that and turn it into a

song over Chris's music right because it was a very unusual piece of music it was an unusual poem

but that's an unusual way for us to work do you feel poems and songs are very different I mean

do you think Bob Dylan should have got the Nobel Prize for literature for instance I don't think

he thinks that does he well I certainly well he took the money well I think it's sort of but

it may probably it's very chill it's not too um if you were offered it would you take it

well I wouldn't be offered it but if I was an artist of the right stature as a songwriter

the only one I could think of is Bob Dylan um I would have taken it yeah because I think

I think it's quite good to see even when you're writing song lyrics the reality is you are

putting messages and words and arrangements of words out into a mass culture unlike 99.9% of

poets yes and you put into a mass culture these beautiful words also may mean something profoundly

simple but still profound you're putting it out there and I think that deserves the

I think that's an interesting way of looking actually and it also deserves the prize for popularising

poetry but also stay that those words stay with people for 40 years don't they well as we

just go by a song it's astonishing how many song lyrics you have stored in your brain my sister

you could play my sister any my name is Jack and I live at the back of a dude yeah Susan would

know all the words for it yeah yeah probably I said listen to it in 40 years we were talking about

mr. tambourine man earlier and the three of us could probably do the entire song and you couldn't

say that about large amounts of coming we were doing only the other day monk and I stung

it on like I feel like I'm fixing to die in the in the wake of the death of country Joe worked on

and did the entire nothing having not really thought about for about what nearly 60 years

dementia it's a fascinating thing that that is why they do music therapy with people's

dementia I've got a friend whose mother is now 98 years old and this is quite actually and

this is her mother is the woman that introduced me to Noel Coward because they had at her house in

Newcastle two Noel Coward albums Noel Coward in Las Vegas and another album she's not so well

now but to studio album Noel Coward in New York and she had both of them and I you know in those days

you always played any records around because there were so few records around and anyway my friend

can take her mother out for a run in the countryside she's not dementia by which I mean a drive

in the car well this is it yeah I don't know she knows the words that's brilliant happily

sig along with my dogs in Englishman there you go so I always think with dementia

this is some fascinating thing it suggests what remains what is the essence of someone

when the personality and the memory fall away there's still an essence well Roseby's mother's

essence is she can still sing my dog's Englishman well there are a lot of people who could do it

with your lyrics in in many years to come now well that's a nice thought isn't it

we should mention also you've got the volume book is out too isn't it

we I know you're always voluminous it's Dave isn't a thing of beauty but this is a fetish item

for anybody who's ever worked in the print this is you just hold it against your cheek it's beautiful

and then it's nail it and then it's it's a visual archive I tell you the other thing it's like

that line gold finger has and James Bond film is that I love its divine heaviness

that's this has got a divine heaviness to it there's a really not someone out with it

yes no this I mean we did this book almost 20 years 20 years ago called catalog which was a

coffee table book and it was all the visual stuff we'd done up to 206 anyway 10 says it came

back to us the original editor came back and said they won't do volume two and I wasn't personally

very keen on that also I realized I don't like coffee table books the coffee table book is a book

because I know people who write texts or other books that aren't that aren't read

they're not even a mark intended to be read they're not only coffee table books they are in effect

coffee tables it always bugs me people try my eyes and put and put coffee and your glasses on top of

them you know and I said no if we're going to do this we're going to we're going to put the next

subsequent 19 years in and we're going to put it in I said to Thames and Hudson the same size as

eagod sheelers collected drawings which I happen to have and it's the same size as volume

because that is a book you can read although no one does it to take it on the tube and read it

but you could certainly sit in an armchair and read it with a coffee table you've got to have it on

a table it's and it's it's in anywhere and the editor the Thames and Hudson freelance editor

Andrew Brown sold us on this because you said I've got the title volume well as soon as it

that's a bit like you know you know you know it's having a song title exactly and soon as he'd

said volume Chris now we're going to do it yeah fine and also they gave us this this is actually

the special edition I've got because I haven't got the real one but they gave us the dummy of course

I come from world of book dummies yeah I was a real person and we were we like the idea of this

chunky thing and it's got so much in it and the fact the pages are smaller makes seem much more

concentrated and it's it's so it goes from 1984 to 2024 and also the look of the patch up was so

important so there's so many details a lovely bit in one of the songs where you talk about

the designer had seen you talking about school I think it's in Kenny Forgive and decides that he's

going to invent the the dance is the pointy pointy hats based on that you know there's little details

of fascinating I think people of course and people are still wearing you know we just came back

from chili there are people standing in audience in Santiago and chili wearing pointy hats

protest that's because David Fielding was a design um thought of these dunce's caps which is

such an ancient Victorian idea yeah yeah absolutely um but it was a very very strong visual idea

and it's it's white even to this day people will pick up a traffic cone and put on the on their head

drunk strokes on their way I mean even now who's the odd years later we kind of own traffic

cones well there you go so there's there's a heavy book there's the heavy book and the light book

the slim it's a slim volume isn't it it is a slim volume which which makes it feel like poetry I

think it does it looks like I read it I read it as a book I mean I read it I read it from start to

finish each lyric and each little piece you read about the content is the paperback is more

readable than the hardback it is it's beautiful no why that is but it's the gorgeous thing they've

done a very very nice job and they said they were very proud of it and and of course I go back

with Faber and Faber to a long a long way because when I went to my diolidication publishers

in the late 1719 from 1977 to 1980 um 81 or something um I used to do freelance copy editing

for Faber and Faber because I'd met someone who had a publisher's thing and um and I

so so I have this long relationship with Faber and Faber right part of this is almost like

a substitute for a memoir will you have a writer memoir I when I finished this I said to me that

might just be my autobiography because it's there's a lot in there's actually quite a lot in it

really um I've been I started during covid I probably said this the last time we did this 30

minutes um because I haven't got any further but I I started transcribing my diaries onto my computer

which I've kept very brief diary I still do to this day um so it would say um zoom call with

Mark and Dave forward it was that's what that's what this will be recorded as but I've been doing

that since 1977 so I know the kind of geology of my life but I haven't finished doing that yet

I've still got 2003 to do and when I and the idea was that then I might think about writing

this biography I was then wondering would it be too boring to publish

the diary as it is which actually hasn't only has has information and no personal information

details whatsoever it would be so to scramble eggs two pieces of toast Mark

radio for you know detail that would be breakfast well I'd read it I don't know there's

something about it let's see the rhythm of a life it's actually surprisingly fascinating

I've got a title for it fill in the gaps you can just you can just imagine you can just imagine

what might have happened I think what I think what might do is run bits of it and then suddenly

flesh out a bit yeah um and then run bits then flesh out another bit I might do like that or I

might never do it because as you will remember that's a good idea that's a good idea you what you

just said oh well that's what I mean and then when you don't feel like doing the rest next bit it

just it's breakfast it's you know it's got more pages he was writing sleeve notes wasn't

it for three of his albums and they just decided to expand them and they put them out as part of his

memoir is that was that was meant to part one was it yeah yeah yes we're still waiting we're still

waiting and we're waiting for yours let's have a listen right precious volume to

you've got a space on your shelf you're loving to talk to you oh great lovely to talk

really good fun thanks very much thanks so much take the rest of the day off this podcast was brought to

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