SOUND AND VISION – BEING AN ARTIST
My idea of beauty has always been quite wide. Often, I’ll hear someone described as ugly and I won’t agree. For me, ugliness is in the character of a person. There is no point being a pretty arsehole. No one stays beautiful but a person’s true soul will shine through wrinkles. The jazz singer and cultural commentator George Melly once ribbed Mick Jagger, ‘That’s a lot of wrinkles.’
‘Not wrinkles, laughter lines,’ insisted Jagger.
‘Mick,’ came back Melly, ‘nothing’s that funny.’
I am the biggest Mick Jagger fan on the planet. I’ve only met him once, at Mandy Smith’s wedding to Bill Wyman in 1989. Fat Tony was DJ and I tagged along to keep him company. Mick Jagger walked up, shook my hand and said, ‘I like your shoes.’ Apparently, he’s a keen shoe freak because I’ve heard similar stories.
The first time I met any of the Stones I was in Paris with Marilyn on my way to a party. I saw Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood and said to Marilyn, ‘We are having a drink. I need to meet them.’ Marilyn rolled his eyes.
‘Hurry up then.’
Eventually, I got speaking to Keith, Ronnie and drummer Charlie Watts. Later, Marilyn and I spent a day with Keith and a lot of cocaine in Jamaica. I didn’t see Charlie for years after that until I bumped into him at WHSmith at Heathrow. I swear the first thing he said was, ‘How’s that miserable git, Marilyn?’
I laughed: ‘Still a miserable git but he’ll love that you remembered him.’
Being a star is a responsibility. There is no handbook except for what you see on TV or read about in the press. I think film stars and pop stars are quite different, but I used the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Liz Taylor, Carmen Miranda as well as David Bowie, Marc Bolan and Steve Harley to create myself. No one ever gave me a script but growing up in a heteronormative world you do go through a kind of conversion therapy. Because the world wilfully ignores who you are so as not to encourage you, you are forced to create a false self. I’m not suggesting straight kids don’t create a false self, but they have more reference points. Democracy is about majority rule and what’s best for everyone.
Seeing David Bowie in the seventies was the beginning of my re-education. I don’t think anybody can say for sure whether Bowie was straight, gay or bisexual. It might even be a nonsense to say it about yourself. Such labels limit an idea of who you are. Even if, for a young gay kid, it seems absolutely fabulous to swirl around in a beaded kimono, someone is always looking at you thinking, ‘Absolute poofter.’
Once you realise you’re ‘one of them’, you have to explain yourself through every situation you find yourself in. If you’re naturally camp, the work is done for you, but we are all more than our gesticulations. I think if I was straight I’d still wear mad hats and make-up. My friend Kenneth from Denmark is married with kids but he’s a fellow dandy who wears big hats, cravats and Vivienne Westwood tracksuits. Bowie’s ambiguous stance was powerful because he might have been straight. Who would choose to flounce around in the gay world if it was going to affect record sales? As big as Bowie seemed in the seventies, he sold fewer records than Elton John but his impact was colossal. Great artists pick up on the mood of the times, sometimes long before the moment has arrived. With Bowie, you have to factor in people like mime artist and dancer Lindsay Kemp, who pulled Bowie into a queerer world. Bowie wasn’t just turning up in a frilly blouse like some bands. He added mime and kabuki to the mix, and it was dark and sexually suggestive. Dick Emery’s comedy camp on seventies TV was one thing. David Bowie was another.
In her book, Man Enough to Be a Woman, trans punk Jayne County suggests that Bowie stole a lot from her. No question Bowie was enthralled by the likes of Jayne and the Warhol crowd, but Bowie was always going to be Bowie whoever he saw. Jobriath was an out gay American performer who was meant to be bigger than Bowie, but he never had the songs. Even if you hate the clothes Bowie wore, his songs are amazing. Bowie was a fan of Anthony Newley, Scott Walker, Kurt Weill and Jacques Brel. All consummate wordsmiths and melodicists. He sang about Bob Dylan and the mystic poet Khalil Gibran.
Culture Club’s struggles to get a record deal were partly about finding the right song but mostly about getting over people’s first impressions of me. I wasn’t turning up in a frilly blouse. The reality of me in person was powerful to witness, even for me. There was nothing apologetic about me in 1982. When people made comments about me in the street, I cussed them like a fishwife. No one who met me thought, ‘Now there’s a nice straight lad dressed up for rag week.’ I wasn’t in your face, I was in your mouth. I had to learn not to be so aggressive. A bit of success can help in that area.
There is still a currency now in being a bit queer, especially if you are mostly straight. Matt Healy from The 1975 often kisses guys on stage. I’m not sure if they use tongues, but recently I saw a clip of him kissing a male security guard. I think it was the Arctic Monkeys who started this trend and I think Matt definitely wants to be a queer Arctic Monkey. I wouldn’t mind myself. I enjoy a bit of ambiguous sexual behaviour in rock and roll, and I’ve always said it’s easier for a straight artist to be a bit queer. Rod Stewart was brilliantly convincing when he went through his camp phase. Singing ‘The Killing of Georgie’ on Top of the Pops, he was like the hot boy at school telling you it’s okay to be gay. Mum bought me that record and put it in my pants drawer in a brown paper bag. Up until that point I’d just been highly strung and theatrical. Now it was clearly out of the brown paper bag.
There is so much mythologising about music and songwriting, but it turns out it’s not that difficult. ‘Steal like an artist’ is a great template since every guitar twang is the cousin of another guitar twang. In fact, writing a song is not as difficult as getting it played. In popular music, they write you off at a certain age, even in a world that is screaming about diversity and inclusion. You don’t run out of ideas, you run out of options. The way we dismiss older artists is so wrong. The last couple of Alison Moyet albums have been some of her best work.
I think you make great music when you stay connected. I like being out in the world, whether it’s on the bus or the tube, because even if I had a wine cellar, it wouldn’t stimulate much. I look at posters on the walls and find lyrics, my iPhone always handy to record melody ideas or write down lyrics. I write things like ‘Hanging out with flowers is one of my secret powers.’ Once you add a bit of delay and a reggae bass line, you can sound unexpectedly profound. These days the sonics are equally important. Words or sentences don’t have to make sense if they are sitting inside an interesting chord structure. I used to sneer at musical theatre until I realised how much of it Bowie used in his work. The chorus of Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ is absolutely musical theatre.
In fact, since I’ve learnt to get out of my way creatively, I have been so much more prolific. I’m not hoodwinked like some people when I hear a song.
‘Isn’t it amazing?’ people say.
‘Maybe for you,’ I think.
Sometimes I hear pop songs and think, what possessed them to use those bland chords? The music industry wants you to believe that only a handful of people can do what you do successfully: Adele, Ed Sheeran, Harry Styles, Lewis Capaldi, with Dua Lipa holding up the Kylie pop/ disco side. In America they have Beyonce, Pink, Lizzo, Katy Perry, Lil Nas X. In some ways America seems more diverse because the black music industry is so strong and vibrant. Everyone is still making the same record, though, and pretty much saying the same thing.
As a writer, I’ve been developing lots of new ways to create lyrics and melodies. I use the Bowie model of cutting up words – which goes back to the surrealists – and very often I’ll have the words long before the melody. I never understand artists who start with a melody because I only care what someone has to say. When I’m advising people about songwriting, subject matter is everything. It doesn’t have to be about anything and you can change the subject matter any time you like. If you know what you want to say, you’ll find a way to say it.
So many of my favourite songs make no sense. I’ve always thought ‘Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini’ was a stroke of genius. Because of that title I wrote songs like ‘Is Your Mind Still Prepared To Be Blown?’ I grew up with songs like T. Rex’s ‘Salamanda Palaganda’ and ‘She Was Born To Be My Unicorn’. The more insane the song title, the less chance Gary Barlow is going to write it.
Some of the most brilliant and loved songs start with the simplest lines: ‘Tonight you’re mine completely. You give your love so sweetly.’ Being understated can be part of the magic in a great song. Look at Burt Bacharach. He knew how to keep it simple. Hooks are everything but learning not to follow the structure can result in magic. ‘The Crying Game’, my 1992 hit produced by the Pet Shop Boys, is not a structured song but it sticks in your head.
Often with Bowie, particularly later, he placed bridges or choruses slightly off centre. On the album Low he had incredibly long introductions, instrumental tracks and random chants. People say to me, ‘You turn everything into a song,’ but that’s what songwriting is, taking words that already exist and lining them up for dramatic purpose. I have my go-to references, like Bowie obviously, Bolan, Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Morrissey, Scott Walker, but also bands like Glasvegas, Nirvana, Cowboy Junkies, Rod Stewart and the Faces for sure, Paul Weller and Nina Simone.
There is an incredible musical pantry where you can choose ingredients and flavours. There are so many things in there you sometimes can’t find what you’re looking for. That’s when you stumble across a new band or even someone older you’ve never heard of before, like Little Jimmy Scott. I like finding out about foreign bands as well, especially French, Italian and German artists. I never understood a word Edith Piaf was singing but every word struck a chord.
In the last two years I’ve released about 47 tracks. I started the pandemic by writing a song called ‘Isolation’. I was talking to writer and director Sacha Gervasi, who had been hired to write a movie about my life, and he introduced me to his friend who owns satellites. That was impressive in itself, but the line ‘I met a man who owns satellites’ felt very Bowie-esque.
The punk singer Yungblud was doing camera tests to play me. At first, I was horrified. My friend’s kids asked if I like Yungblud and I said that he’s a punk wannabe. Then I discovered we had the same publicist, Shoshanna. She has a rule: we don’t slag off Britney or anyone else that she works for. Why would I slag off Britney? During her recent dramas I wrote a song called ‘Free Britney’. I haven’t heard a better song about her. Unfortunately, Shoshanna wouldn’t tell her about my tribute. She’ll hear it one day and I hope one day she’ll truly be free.
Anyway, I decided to meet Yungblud and I loved him. I had to call my friend’s son and say, ‘Actually, I was wrong about Yungblud, he’s really sweet.’ I went to see him at Alexandra Palace and he ripped the roof off. I left thinking, ‘I want that audience.’
Unfortunately, Sacha Gervasi left the project but I wasn’t convinced about his script anyway. He’d wanted to pretend that Jon Moss had visited me in prison when he didn’t even write to me. They wanted a cast of inmates singing ‘Karma Chameleon’ as Jon and I skipped out of the prison. Trading the facts for theatrical fun. I hope any movie about me is truthful but I have my fears.
Leading an abbreviated existence is the stuff of fame. Those introductions on TV shows where they play snippets of five songs and mention your highlights are as aggravating as they are uninformative. Why are we all so frightened of being interesting and complex? Why does television fight so hard to under-explain you? With PK, the thing I argue most about is music. With my many years of experience I feel I am more than equipped to know what’s what. I write in a very classic way, heavy on surrealism, heavy on melody.
I started the project ‘60 for 60’ to celebrate my 60th birthday. I haven’t reached the number 60 yet but I have hundreds of songs. So many I can’t remember. Powerstudio, where I work with my main co-writer Benny D, is like a pyramid full of hidden musical treasures. I feel the more you write, the better you get. There is no formula, although listening to Ed Sheeran and Adele, I sometimes feel other-wise. I could get away with writing the same song over and over, but I’ve got no interest. If I can’t think of anything to write about, I’ll write a song about that. Such a dilemma created my song ‘Ride’:
What do I care about today/
What really matters to me/
Write down what comes into my head/
Hold your kids and say I love you/
Tell me what you’re feeling/
It ain’t rocket science/
What about if happiness was your greatest
act of defiance.
Lyrics can come from anywhere and they do actually come from anywhere. I try to explain this to young artists but it doesn’t make sense until you get it. It’s impossible for me to be in a writing situation and not end up with a song. I once wrote with Mark Ronson and left the studio with nothing. I think Mark is so hell bent on being cool nothing is good enough. I just write the song and regret it later.
There are songs I used to roll my eyes at that I now love, like ‘Ça Plane Pour Moi’ by Plastic Bertrand. When Kylie recently released ‘Padam Padam’ (which she didn‘t write), I thought, ‘She’s nailed it.’ There’s no logical reason why you would prefer one cheesy song over another. Sometimes it’s just the weather or the fact that you’re cruising along a beautiful coastline. I try not to hate things the way I used to but there are some artists who just never change the record. They find a formula and suck it dry. As a writer I can always tell when they’ve run out of ideas.
The music industry is full of self-appointed experts who have never written a song and never will write a song, but they are so ready to tell you how to do it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told, ‘You should do a song with X or Y because they’re younger.’ I don’t want to be down with the kids. I prefer them to look up at me.