Annie Lennox :: Waxing Nostalgic

I don't think I will ever get the lilt of her lovely Scottish brogue out of my head; its tone and timbre carries with it a sense of timelessness and history that captivated me. Alluring, that's the word. Music, of another sort, to entice the ear.

"Nostalgia" is the title of her new album, and it certainly reflects the music within. The songs are, like her dear voice, laden with overtones and familiar echoes of things once experienced. The music she offers is multi-faceted, complex and intensely reflective, yet deeply comforting and conversant - rather like the woman herself.

Joel Martens: I always like to start by asking musicians what their earliest memories involving music are, what stood out for you as a kid?

Annie Lennox: Let me think... My mother told me that I used to sing when I was very, very little - probably about three, and that I used to sing myself to sleep. That's a memory I can't access, but definitely, music was always something very significant for me. When I was about 6 or 7 years old, I was singing in choirs and involved in music. At school, I started piano lessons as well, when I was 7. Those are my earliest memories, being involved with music from the start.

Was music a large part of your family?

Well, you know it's very different now-a-days, and those were different times. We didn't have things like record collections, or anything like that. We just didn't live a life like that. Though, on my father's side of the family, they were quite musical and they loved to sing. They would always be in choirs and stuff like that. My father passed away a long, long time ago, but he was a very musical person and loved music. He actually played the bagpipes, as we Scots sometimes do (laughs). He was a very good bagpipe player and could sight-read, so there was music all the time.

You've talked a bit about coming from a poorer background and how that affected you. When that is a reality, you find ways to entertain without money and music is such a big part of how to connect with each other.

Yes, it was huge, especially back in those days, obviously. The Scots celebrate New Year's Eve -- we call it Hogmanay -- and people would come to each other's houses and would end up singing. Always singing collectively, or somebody would stand up and sing a solo and do a turn.

That is such a sweet memory for me. Those are such fond memories for me, as well. It's kind of sad in some ways, because we really don't do things like that anymore.

No, not at all, not at all... I agree with you, something is lost. Something has been lost.

Was there something along the way that compelled you to decide that music was what you were going to do as a career?

I didn't even know what the word "career" meant back then. I sort of knew as a teenager that I had to take my life seriously and had to stick at it in school, otherwise I would end up in a factory. It was meant well, but that was constantly the backdrop behind me, always a feeling of threat. That sort of "if you don't apply yourself, then your life is going to be a dead end."

I had a very artistic sensibility that I didn't quite know what to do with. I ended up getting a place at the Royal Academy of Music to study flute and I kind of knew, sort of right from the very first day, that I was really not meant to be there. It just wasn't quite right for me, or I wasn't right for it. I spent three years kind of as a ghost in the place, showing up, but not really showing up. I kept thinking, "What am I going to do now?"

The notion of writing songs was really blueprinted by Joni Mitchell. Once I un- derstood that here was a woman, who wrote these incredibly poetic and powerful lyrics. They were so evocative, wistful, strong and visual - she created landscapes with her music. It really affected me very deeply, and I felt that I had something in me that might be able to do something like that.

I spent a great deal of time the last few days listening to your discography, you certainly managed to find your voice. There is such poetry in your music and lyrics, you tell stories. In some ways, it seems somewhat like it's a lost art.

Well, thank you, that is really such a huge compliment. It's kind of true and yet, when someone or something does come through, it really stands out. Though it might be a bit more rare, it is simple but exceptional and it goes straight to the heart. You kind of once again are shaken to the core by it.

That is reflected in the music you have chosen for this album. So much of it is based in pain and the catharsis that it can provide. That transformative process is one of my favorite things about music.

It's solace and a balm for the soul. Kind of like a crucible, when you try to transform a molten alloy into something else, the heat of the fire, as it were. It takes you to a different place and transforms into something else - it turns into something beautiful. It is alchemy, that's the word to best describe it.

What made you decide to do this album of standards at this point in your career?

The step into this genre was something very different and new for me. I also wanted to record my voice in that context; nobody had heard me sing this type of music before. I thought I could do it and just for the record, I wanted to explore that and put it down.

There is something in the timbre of your voice that is matched perfectly to this style of music and yet is still uniquely you. It would be easy to get lost in the history of these tunes, but your personality comes through beautifully.

I thank you so much for saying that. I feel that it's very important when you interpret a song by someone else, that you do make it yours. Not just a version that you're simply singing - a cover version per se. That you inhabit a song and you personify it, you actually express it through your sensibility.

How did you approach this album and the music? There are so many titles, with hundreds of versions that have been recorded for many of them.

I really did it in a very quiet, sort of low-tech way. I didn't hire a team of archivists or musical experts. I really just did it by myself and kept it simple. I went on YouTube, which is such a great archive for music, it's so much fun to explore. There are such wonderful video clips of things from vaudeville, the music of Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. It's such a beautiful thing to be able to revisit those performances and really take the time to re-engage with them.

I had to be careful, though. I didn't want to over-familiarize myself with these incredibly historic renditions. Songs that have obviously gone down now for time immemorial. I essentially just wanted to learn the songs because they were mainly strangers to me. Once I got the hook, or the sense of the melody and what the chords were and the right lyrics, then I worked them out separately for myself.

I thought it was interesting that so many of the pieces that you did choose ended up having been recorded by Billie Holiday.

I didn't set out to do it, but as it turns out, I did. I wasn't trying to perform or record her songs, as it happens, she just came up time and time again. They were songs that I was drawn to; it wasn't for any other reason than that. It was just something about those particular songs, something magnetic in the music.

I adore Billie Holiday's music because of that. Every word, every note that came out of her mouth was a statement about the human condition.

Yes, and you know it was so tragic. So many artists, great artists who are revered in history, when people talk about them, they are often great touchstones for so many. Yet, they es have lived the most desperate lives. They weren't able to find peace, and yet they represent this incredible emotional space for others.

Women from that era in particular sang and expressed themselves so powerfully through music. Though, it was all framed in the context of not having power.

Oh yes, oh yes. What a beautiful thing to say, especially from your perspective, to have that sensibility with regard to women - the position of my gender, if you like - historically. I think that is a very insightful thing to say.

If you frame that issue in the context of the stir regarding your recent comments about feminism, and how passionate the responses have been, it's really representative of the underlying challenges still there.

Yes, it's so incredibly divisive and is really quite astounding to me. There's a website out there called "I'm Not a Feminist," and it's almost as if there is a hatred for the concept - it's very strange. It was quite a surprising backlash for something that I don't really understand. I'm not even sure what the issue was. Apparently, it's quite a trigger point for some of them.

As a member of the LGBT community, there has always been a part of that vitriol that I can relate to. I think that is where my understanding of discrimination and its unfairness came from.

Yes, unquestionably true when it comes to bigotry. When I think of the '70s, living in London, my memory of how closeted people were back then, I think it has changed significantly. No one would have ever thought that there could be such a radical transformation. There is something very hopeful in that.

It has absolutely changed. Especially for my generation and those before. As far as I'm concerned, it's miraculous. We're able to get married now!

In the western countries that is absolutely true, and yet if you go to some others, it's almost as if there is a reverse movement taking place. A sort of horrific homophobia that is so vitriolic. Places that have actually criminalized gay relationships. Again, it's interesting how polarizing it is and continues to be.

I try to live on the hopeful side of the street and have always believed that when the response is most fear-based, the closer we are to the actual change.

Beautiful. How very interesting this planet is. There are so many labels put upon people, so many boundaries and so much intolerance and divisiveness. Why could it not simply be that we all respect each other's differences and allow that to be true; to not look at it as something pitched against you. I don't believe in it, therefore no one else should, and if they are different from me they should go away or be killed. It's insane.

Yet, when you really get down to it, most people on a day-to-day basis aren't like that. People have access to so many different perspectives now, it really helps to offer awareness.

True, there is a lot of good in people. It's the shadow and the light, that's what life really is.

Perfectly said.