ANNIE LENNOXLENNOX and Accompany It on Guitar Or Keyboard, You Know You’Ve Got a Song

ISSUE #37 MMUSICMAG.COM ISSUE #37 MMUSICMAG.COM Q&A getting so deep into the core of the song about covering it—or tackling it; that’s a the process of Nostalgia. This is what I’m that I try to re-create it as my own. better word. I felt like the song could be doing. Once I come out on the other end, turned around. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ probably sometime next year, I’ll have some Do you bring an outsider’s perspective? original is very much about ownership: a time to myself, and I’ll either walk away from I don’t think it’s a geographical thing—music man owning a woman. It’s a masculine take. music altogether, or I’ll do something else. is universal. There I was, as a young teenager And it’s hilarious, and fabulous and wild. It’s in northeast Scotland, dancing to music unique, but I love the feral madness of all Walk away? coming from Detroit—Motown. And I was that. But if a woman were to sing it, what I’ve said that after every album: “This is the listening to the Beach Boys and the Mamas is she saying? Is she saying she owns the last. I don’t think I’m ever going to do another and the Papas. So much American music has man? I think it’s a broader question. For so one.” And then I do another one. With Elton traveled around the world. In the opposite many years I’ve been an activist, particularly John, he had a few comeback tours. People way, music sourced in Britain traveled for the human rights of women and girls, and sometimes feel they’ve had enough and want across the Atlantic over to the U.S. We’ve I’m terribly aware of the violence women go to get away. And then maybe they want to always had this glorious cultural exchange. through, things you read about every day in come back to it when they’re ready. At the end of the day, maybe that’s what’s the newspapers. When I’m singing it, I’m not so beautiful about it, that it transcends the singing it for myself, because I don’t suffer How do you define nostalgia? geographical boundaries. these abuses. I’m singing it for the global I’m heading for 60 at the end of the year. My spirit of women. We are putting a boundary head is full of memories and experiences. Did any songs surprise you? down: Do not abuse women. At times, it comes through. I’m here right The first thing that struck me: I was drawn now, but I’m also thinking back to things to the poetry of the lyrical content, and how Is anyone writing classics these days? that happened decades ago, and it’s very evocative it could be. There’s humor, too. That There are classic songs that have been resonant for me. I’m finding that as I get process of hearing a song—you have to get written recently that will last the test of older, I’m still connected to things that it right. You really have to check that you’re time. You’ll know them when you hear them. happened in the past. I’m living with my singing correctly. For example, in “Memphis Adele’s 21 is a classic album. The hits on own sense of nostalgia. Another aspect in June,” there’s the line “making a blueberry that album will last forever. Amy Winehouse’s of nostalgia is that people come up to me pie.” I realized Nina Simone sang “making a Robert Sebree rhubarb pie.” Should it be blueberry? Should Robert Sebree it be rhubarb? At the end of the day, I sang “blueberry,” because I felt it rolled off the tongue better than “rhubarb.” You have to have a bit of leeway for artistic interpretation. Why are the arrangements so spare? There’s an old adage: If you can sing a song ANNIEANNIE LENNOXLENNOX and accompany it on guitar or keyboard, you know you’ve got a song. If I could play TheThe Scottish Scottish soul soul diva diva soars soars on on a a singular singular standards standards set set these my way—accompanying myself and singing them on a keyboard—I knew I had something. I wanted to delve into a deeper ANNIE LENNOX—THE WONDERFULLY another, she hopped on a tiny keyboard Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ bizarro R&B gem place. I felt like I could draw out this blues, Reuters/Mario Anzuoni/Landov eccentric, madly soulful former Eurythmics and began crafting gorgeously understated “I Put a Spell on You,” famously covered Reuters/Mario Anzuoni/Landov R&B influence that I feel so deeply. I didn’t singer—has released a decidedly arrangements of some of her favorites. “I by Nina Simone. “I want people to listen want to then apply a very lush, saccharine nonstandard standards album. Nostalgia, wanted to represent them in a really fresh, to this album sitting down, sipping a nice string or orchestral arrangement. the follow-up to 2010’s critically lauded truly authentic way and strip them down to liquor or whiskey slowly and becoming very A Christmas Cornucopia, came about totally what they really are,” Lennox says. “I hope I introspective,” Lennox says. How did you sequence the album? by accident after Lennox performed some don’t sound arrogant in saying that, because Onstage in L.A., 2014 I was drawn to the songs in a random jazz tunes with Herbie Hancock at the 2012 I’m very reverential about the songs. But I felt How’d you make the songs your own? fashion. Once I recorded them, the next thing International AIDS Conference. “It struck me that it had to be my approach.” First of all, you hear them, and they’re external was to create the journey of the listener. tracks on Back to Black that I had this aspect of my voice,” she says. Among Nostalgia’s dozen tracks are to you. And then you have to learn them. You ‘I’m not interested in Which is the first song I want people to hear? are classics. They have “I kept it in my brain and left it quietly, but three co-written by Hoagy Carmichael imbibe them. They become internalized. You Everything is carefully crafted. “Strange a spiritual quality about there was still that curiosity, that question (“Memphis in June,” “Georgia on My have to create your own version. I definitely Fruit” is the sixth track on the album, but them, a caliber that doing a copy. This is about mark: ‘I think I can do this.’” Mind,” and “The Nearness of You”), one did that. I sat at the keyboard and wrote the when you’re listening on vinyl, it’s the last ticks all the boxes. Months later, Lennox revisited the idea. by George Gershwin (“Summertime”), two chords I felt would work for my versions— song on the first side. It takes you to the interpretation.’ After going down a YouTube wormhole made famous by Billie Holiday (“Strange because I’m not interested in doing a copy. darkest point. After you’ve gone down so You’ve done three that led her from one vintage pop tune to Fruit” and “God Bless the Child”), and This is about interpretation. This is about deeply, I felt the next place you could come covers albums. Is there a new genre and they say things like, “The first time I did is restoration. This is where we get back on you’d still like to explore? XYZ”—broke up with my boyfriend or did my our feet. It’s almost like redemption. Not really. Every single album I’ve ever made, first this or that—“your music got me through.” ‘I was drawn to the poetry of the lyrical content, and with Eurythmics or as a solo artist, it’s been I realize Eurythmics music and my music are Bold move including “I Put a Spell on You.” a project. It’s been a chapter of my life. It’s part of the collective nostalgia. how evocative it could be.’ I guess I had to have guts to even think been a part of my day-to-day journey. I’m in –Kenneth Partridge 36 37 M mag 37.indd 36 3/16/15 12:29 AM M mag 37.indd 37 3/16/15 12:29 AM.

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