Nick Laird-Clowes, singer, songwriter
I used to be a part-time presenter on the primary sequence of The Tube, with Jools Holland and Paula Yates. That was filmed in Newcastle, however they didn’t preserve me on, so I went again right down to London. It was so miserable. I’d been in a band known as the Act with Gilbert Gabriel, our keyboards participant – sooner or later we sat strumming guitars in his bedsit and determined to give you “an enormous, African-style chant refrain”.
My guitar was the one Nick Drake is holding on the duvet of Bryter Layter, which I’d purchased for £100 and nonetheless had his tuning. Once I acquired residence, I began strumming once more. I felt like I used to be in his harmonic area and simply went “A hey ah ma ma ma … ” I used to be so depressed about what had occurred in Newcastle I began writing concerning the empty shipyards I’d seen there. Strains like “In winter 1963 / It felt just like the world would freeze / With John F Kennedy and the Beatles” got here out as a stream of consciousness. As a toddler I keep in mind when the whole lot froze and we needed to go midway down the road to a water pipe earlier than faculty. I feel the Beatles and JFK represented optimism.
Once I was within the Act I’d met Paul Simon in New York, and when he was in London he got here to see me. I performed the tune to him and he mentioned: “Nobody’s gonna know find out how to ask for A Hey Ah Ma Ma Ma in a report retailer.” I appeared in my pocket book, noticed “life in a northern city”, and he mentioned: “That’s an awesome title.” I went again within the studio and sang it over the combo. After we recorded it, I advised the producer it sounded “just like the fucking New Seekers” and he walked out. Then I produced it similar to he had.
Clearly he’d been utterly proper. I performed the tough combine on a cassette within the automobile to Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, whose brother had been within the Act. He instructed numerous issues and all of a sudden we have been again within the studio once more, with David as a 3rd producer. That’s once I threw within the “make it simple on your self” line, a tribute to the Walker Brothers.
Each label turned us down, then Tough Commerce’s Geoff Travis took the tapes to the US and acquired us a take care of Warner. After Child Jensen began taking part in it on Radio 1, it went straight into the charts. Individuals say Life in a Northern City is about Nick Drake. It wasn’t, however I devoted it to him, and I nonetheless have that guitar.
Kate St John, cor anglais, backing vocals
I used to be classically skilled on oboe however beloved pop music and didn’t need to go the orchestral route. After I completed my music diploma I used to be working as a TV researcher when my buddy Virginia Astley requested me to hitch the Ravishing Beauties. Abruptly we have been supporting the Teardrop Explodes, Echo and the Bunnymen and the Wild Swans, taking part in to 2,000 younger males each night time. TV researching or the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra by no means stood an opportunity!
after publication promotion
Sadly, the Ravishing Beauties cut up up, however I met Nick at a celebration on the Royal Institute of British Architects, of all locations. He and Gilbert have been on the lookout for individuals who performed uncommon devices. They didn’t have a bass participant or drummer – only a drum machine – which left area within the sound for my cor anglais. I sang backing vocals with my flatmate June Lawrence, and getting Benedict Hoffnung in on timpani actually fermented our sound as a pop-classical combine. This wasn’t trendy within the 80s, however the tune captured individuals’s imaginations.
One video director had this horrible thought of me and Nick as a working-class couple, with Nick as a pigeon fancier. I imply, Nick’s fairly posh and is from Hampstead. It was absurd. After we made the primary video in Hebden Bridge, there was a Siberian gale and Gilbert and I needed to dance and punch the sky. They’d put lipstick on this poor little one for some cause and on the finish he went: “I’m going to wipe this muck off my face and go residence to my mum!”
I’m so glad we shot the second video in Newcastle: it’s nice. After we did High of the Pops they gave the viewers daffodils to wave. I’m so joyful that John Peel was the presenter and never Jimmy Savile. The tune crops up in movies and such. When the Byrds’ Roger McGuinn lined it, he modified the road “he took a cigarette out” to “he put his sun shades on”, which was extra “life in Los Angeles” than life in a northern city.
