Interview by Gilbert Blecken

When you started your career, Tracy Ullman had a few hits with some of your songs, although her versions were not very different from your versions. Did you thought that this was a bit unfair, especially since Tracy once admitted she was never that much into music.

"It was a question of convenience, really. With They Don’t Know I had a lot of airplay success, but not a lot of sales. But at least it got me known as a writer. At the time, I was certainly very much influenced by girl groups like the Shangri-Las and the Phil Spector sound. So when they were looking for songs for Tracy, I just passed on some of my songs. It was basically a good way to make a living. She was very high-profile and media-conscious whereas I wasn’t. I was always a bit shy about being on tv and didn’t really enjoy it. Tracy made sure that people got to hear some of my stuff, even if it wasn’t sung by me. So I wasn’t disappointed, I felt more like being part of Tracy’s successful team behind the scenes."

Do you still have contact with her?

"As far as I know, she still lives in California. I paid her a visit about 4 years ago. But in general, we never really had much contact even when she was still in London. We became friends through work, but we didn’t see each other socially very much, ‘cause we never had a lot in common. I am a music-head and she is a film-head."

In the mid 80s, you recorded a version of Billy Bragg’s A New England. Can you tell me why you chose this song?

"I once went to see him live before he was very well-known. It was very simple and direct. When he sang that song, I knew it was a fantastic song, but his version was just the skeleton of the song, so I wanted to dress it up. What attracted me to the song was its Beatles quality. Even when I heard his version, I could already hear all the harmonies of my version. I just knew it was going to be a hit."

Apart from that, you took a break from music during these years. Was that mainly because of your children or because of your frustration with record companies?

"I didn’t really stop singing, I just didn’t do a lot of my own stuff. When I was pregnant, I found it very hard to write. Mentally, I felt quite strange during that period, I think when the hormones take over, you become another person. It was very hard to maintain any kind of work that I had to initiate. But if somebody like The Smiths phoned up and asked me to do vocals, I would do it immediately. So being pregnant didn’t interfere with singing, it interferes with the thought process that goes into writing."

The credits of The Rolling Stones album Dirty Work mention you on backing vocals. Do you remember which songs you did with them?

I think it was just One Hit (To The Body). The recording process was very loose, and when I visited Steve (Lillywhite, Kirsty’s husbant and producer of the album), it was like a big party with lots of people in the studio. So when they needed backing vocals, they just said: 'Everyone who could sing, come in here'."

Has the duet you did with The Pogues changed your way of looking at music?

"I think it did, ‘cause to a certain extend I had a terrible fear of folk music, because my father was a folk singer. I associated it with my childhood which I always hated. Anything that had to do with my childhood was just very miserable, so I couldn’t listen to folk music without the feeling like I had to tear my hair out and run out the room. Doing that kind of music with the Pogues gave me a different slance on it. It’s such a brilliant song, so it was great to be a part of it. I actually wish I had written that song myself. Even people who normally just like heavy metal like that song. That’s the mark of a great song, everybody understands it. And then going on tour with The Pogues also made me wanting to go on tour myself."

What are the songs you most enjoy doing live?

"Free world works well live, and Tread Lightly is also a particular favourite."

I think Free world was such a great comeback single in 1989. Did you immediately agreed with the record company that this should be the first release of Kite?

"I was very proud of that song and really glad that it became the first single. At first the record company wanted Days to be the first single, but I was quite adament that it shouldn’t be the first release, ‘cause it was the only song on the album that I hadn’t written. I think the Kite album marks a great departure, it was like climbing a latter after the stuff I did before that, ‘cause the level of my writing had gotten a lot more mature than my early songs."

You don’t seem to have a general approach of how you are doing cover versions. He Thinks I Still Care, for example, is very far away from the George Jones original while Days seem to be pretty close to The Kinks’ original.

"Yeah, it varies. You want to do whatever suits the song best. There are lots of songs that you love and that you might want to do, but you have to choose a song that you can make slightly your own. I think my version of Days is a bit slower, I wanted to give it the Abba treatment. I wanted people to think that it’s a Kirsty MacColl song when they hear it."

Is it true that you have a strong passion for country music?

"People tend to write that, because I have a knack for writing country songs. I find it incredible easy to write something in country style. I don’t know why that is, though, because I never listened to country music very much. The only country singer I have ever been into was Hank Williams and he died before I was born."

Would you agree that songs like Free world or 15 Minutes are quite social-critical?

"Yeah, I think they are to a certain extent, because I wanted to get away from writing teen ballads. I guess these songs just showed that I was getting a brighter picture. I got older and became a parent and so also some of my values changed. When you are young and alone, you only got yourself to worry about. You can be flippant and superficial. But you can’t be that selfish when you got the responsibilities of a parent, when reality is making its way into your life. You suddenly begin to see everything that’s wrong around you."

Another remarkable song on Kite is What Do Pretty Girls Do which is a song about a party girl and her problems of getting older. The general tone of the song doesn’t sound very understanding and sympathetic, though.

"I think women have it in their power now not to be doormats for men. They have the choice to a certain extend. They never gonna have as much choice as a man does as long as they have babies. But that’s just a physical thing that slows you down. Women have the choice of either not to have babies or when to have them. I just think everybody should take responsibility for themselves, wheather that’s men or women. You can’t say on the one hand “I want equality” and on the other “but he hasn’t let me do it”.

Who was the woman you sang about in that song?

"I’m not sure if I should say that, really."

Please do.

"Well, I was thinking about Anita Pallenberg or somebody like that."

Your 1991 album Electric Landlady had some very nice arrangements, but I think that some of the songs couldn’t really live up to that.

"I think it’s hard to say. There were probably a couple of songs on it that weren’t too good, but I think that the rest of them were at least as good as anything I had done before, especially songs like My Affair and He Never Mentioned Love. I think the problem that came for the listener was that there was so much diversity of musical style. Most people want to hear 5 tracks that sound similar to the single. But I don’t do that, and I never have, really."

Do you think it is important as a musician to be at least aware of trends?

" I certainly don’t live in a vacuum and I listen to what’s going on around me. I don’t want to make the same record over and over again for the rest of my life. So I did a couple of things that were dancy and quite enjoyed them. For me, lyrics are really important and I don’t think they are for most people, which is why I am not more successful. If most people would listen to the lyrics they certainly wouldn’t buy the records they buy. But I certainly wouldn’t simplify everything with my songs to become more successful. I am not that desperate, you know."

I think that most of the love songs you wrote, from See That Girl to Soho Square, have quite a negative feel.

"I suppose that is because I was brought up in a negative atmosphere. For me, it’s sometimes more interesting to write a ballad in that way. When I was a kid and listened to the radio, you usually had a female singer singing a song written by a man which always presented the woman as the victim. The woman was the one that couldn’t live without him. 'I can’t live without you, baby. Don’t leave me', that was the constant message. I was so sick of it and thought: 'Who are these fucking women? Why are they so pathetic?' So I realized they are singing men’s words. And the man hasn’t written it from a woman’s point of view, he has written it from how he would like to think a woman thinks."

"A lot of my female friends are very strong, independent people who manage to look after their children, have a job, just do everything with or without a man around. I mean, it’s great if there is a man around who can take responsiblity, so they can share it. But if there isn’t, they have to do it alone. And it’s very rarely the other way round. I really think there should be more songs by men singing 'Oh baby, I can’t live without you', because they are the ones that really can’t."

Do you think there are some female singers around at the moment who still feel comfortable in the victim role?

"It’s a different kind of victim, the Tori Amos victim. It’s dressed up in modern clothes, but it’s still a victim. Maybe it helps some people to hear someone singing about it, but I don’t see the point. I mean, everybody suffered."

Kirsty MacColl’s favourite albums:

1.THE BEACH BOYS–Pet Sounds

2. IGGY POP-Lust For Life

3.THE SMITHS- Strangeways, Here We Come

4.XTC-Black Sea

5.STEELY DAN-Pretzel Logic

6.THE COCTEAU TWINS-Heaven Or Las Vegas

7.KID CREOLE AND THE COCONUTS-Tropical Gangsters

8.BOB MARLEY-Live

9.DAVID BOWIE-Station To Station

10.FRANK BLACK-Teenager Of The Year

Are there any female singers at the moment that really impress you?

"I like what I’ve heard of Aimee Mann. Also I really like Neneh Cherry and Voice Of The Beehive. I also have a lot of respect for someone like Kate Bush, but I am more into popmusic and jangly guitars. I think that area is still dominated by men, so I feel that I relate more to Blur than to most female songwriters."

I think your new album Titanic Days is a very quiet, almost private album. Would you agree with that?

"I suppose it’s a bit subdued in a sense. It’s not exuberant like My Affair for example, it’s more personal and serious to a certain extend. Although there are still a couple of songs that are in character, but they are mixed up. I suppose I am a bit schizophrenic on most of the songs, really. I recorded most of them in the studio in our house, but it was nevertheless the hardest album I have ever done. I hope the next one is a lot easier and I hope I am not as depressed as I was when I did this album."

Some of your co-writers also seem to have a big impact on the style of your songs. Last Day Of Summer for example, which was co-written by Mark Nevin, sounds a bit like his former band Fairground Attraction.

" Whenever I write with somebody, it’s nearly always a guitarist. They usually send me a cassette with some chords, just a little demo. And if I get an idea straight away, then I’ll work on it. And if I don’t get an idea within 3 times playing it, then I’ll never do it. I think it’s just Mark’s way of guitar playing that makes you think of Fairground Attraction. The songs he writes alone are very sweet lyrically and the songs that I write are lyrically very sour. Last Day Of Summer is lyrically quite dark, but musically it’s very bright. I’ve tried to do that with a lot of songs I wrote. I think that’s how you get people to listen to something, if it sounds really poppy and shiny. And then you can hit them with the dirty stuff, when they are not expecting it."

Another co-writer of your songs is Johnny Marr. I must admit I thought the songs you wrote with him were never the highlights of your albums. Will you keep writing songs with him?

"Yeah, because the thing is, the rest of the public has proved you wrong. If sales are anything to go by, they’re always the ones that seem to do the best. But even apart from that, I don’t agree really, I think the songs I wrote with Johnny were amongst the highlights."

What does your husband Steve Lillywhite think of the song Bad? I mean, it’s clearly a song about breaking free.

"It’s ironic, but obviously, to make something really funny, there has to be an element of truth. It says more about my parents than it does about my marriage, really. And I also had this image of a woman who was working in an office block when everyone else has gone home. She’s the cleaner who has been working all day and after she’s fed her kids, she goes to work in an office at night. And she’s singing this song very quietly, because she doesn’t want the security guards to hear her. She’s going crazy while she is pushing the vacuum cleaner. It’s about what would happen if she did all the things that pop into her head."

You just mentioned your parents. What’s your relationship with them right now?

"My father is dead. My mother lives down the road but I’m becoming less burdened by it. As time goes by, I suppose."

Are there any songs you wrote that tell much more about you than others?

"A lot of them are on Titanic Days. But there always have been personal songs and how many excuses you make about your songs being about other things. They always seem to be personal even if they’re trying to express a different point of view. And often, songs you write end up coming true for yourself or someone really close to you. I think a lot of my songs were subconsciously personal before I knew it."

Style [ Standard ] [ Cool Blue ] [ Tropical ] [ Hangover ] [ Text ] [ BIG Text ]

Interview by Gilbert Blecken

Related Pages: