David Bailey

Speaker 10:01

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 10:09

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety one.

Speaker 10:13

And the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:32

My castaway this week is a photographer. Confident, cheeky, and perceptive, he took the fashion world by storm during the sixties with his pictures of Jean Shrimpton. Since then, he's been married to or associated with a string of beautiful women, including Catherine Deneuve and Marie Helvin, and taken hundreds of pictures of his many famous friends. Today he's directing commercials and confesses to hating nostalgia. He sees himself as one of the new old and hopes, like his hero Picasso, to do some of his best work in his nineties. He is David Bailey.

Presenter1:04

So what is this new old, David? I mean, how would you define yourself?

David Bailey1:08

There's never been what I call the new old before.

David Bailey1:12

There's a whole new generation, or an old, very old generation, like me or

David Bailey1:17

Jack Nicholson.

David Bailey1:18

That

David Bailey1:19

Are still doing things that at our age we should think about digging the garden.

David Bailey1:24

And

David Bailey1:25

There's a kind of new spirit. There's still a spirit that didn't seem to exist before with older people. Old people used to get old. Once they were twenty five they started to get old.

Presenter1:33

So it's not just you saying, look, I'm fifty-three, I know, but don't write me off yet. It's it's you saying I still have an enormous amount of creative energy, is it?

David Bailey1:42

Well, yeah, I hope so. I hope I hope until now it's just been a rehearsal.

Presenter1:47

But you must have around you lots of kind of budding bailies, as it were, just like you when you were twenty and you had a a contract with Vogue. Do you look around and see these ambitious young things?

Presenter1:58

Think, how can I help them, or do you find them a total pain?

David Bailey2:00

No, I think how can I stop

Presenter2:03

Does it worry you? I mean do they worry you?

David Bailey2:04

No, I'm an ambitious fifty-three year old that's more dangerous than they are because imagine my backlog of knowledge.

Presenter2:12

Anyway, to business. What what sort of figure is is Bailey gonna cut, do you think, on the desert island?

David Bailey2:18

Lonely, I should think.

David Bailey2:21

'Cause I like lots of aggravation and pr I probably won't get much aggravation on a desert island.

Presenter2:25

What you like aggro, do you?

David Bailey2:26

Yeah, because then you can

David Bailey2:28

you turn that energy into

David Bailey2:30

You can use it. You can use the

David Bailey2:33

That's why I like probably working with big film crews because all that aggravation you can put back into

David Bailey2:38

Whatever you're doing. Becomes creative. I think so, yeah.

Presenter2:41

So what's the first record you've chosen?

David Bailey2:43

Well, I think I'd like to take something of one of John Betchman's poems, especially with the Jim Parker music track. And I thought I'd take the arrest of Oscar Wilde.

David Bailey2:54

'Cause John Betchman seemed to be one of the most charming Englishmen.

David Bailey2:58

And Oscar Wilde is certainly the most wittiest.

David Bailey3:00

So I could have good memories of two very good Englishmen.

Speaker 23:04

One astracan coat is at Willis's, another one's at the Savoy. Do fetch my Morocco portmanteau and bring them on later, dear boy.

Speaker 23:14

Uh

Speaker 23:16

and a murmur of voices. Oh, why must they make such a din?

Speaker 23:20

As the door of the bedroom swung open and two plain-clothes policemen came in.

Speaker 23:30

Mr. Wilde, we have come for to take you, where felons and criminals dwell. We must ask you to leave with us quietly, for this is the Caduggan Hotel.

Speaker 23:43

He rose, and he put down the yellow book.

Speaker 23:46

He staggered, and terrible eyed, he brushed past the palms on the staircase, and was helped to a hansom outside.

Presenter4:02

SIR JOHN BETCHERMAN reading his poem The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Caduggan Hotel, accompanied by Jim Parker.

Presenter4:09

So, David Bailey, you had a contract with Vogue when you were twenty years old, back in nineteen fifty eight. How come, I mean, what had you done to deserve it?

David Bailey4:18

But no, I guess I was lucky. I worked for a very nice man called John French.

David Bailey4:22

who is the kind of people's photographer.

David Bailey4:27

Indeed, sent some of my pictures to a man at the I forget his name, he was a very nice picture editor of the Daily Express, Harold Keyboard.

David Bailey4:34

Keyboard, I know.

David Bailey4:36

And he used to give me a full page every Thursday of one of my photographs.

David Bailey4:40

In fact, in those days I he used to put on Monday watch for David Bailey's exciting picture on Thursday.

David Bailey4:46

And I used to be awake for the next two nights, worrying about what the exciting thing was gonna be,'cause I'd never even taste

David Bailey4:53

And then uh Vogue sent for me and they said, Would you like to join would you like to be a staff photographer?

David Bailey4:59

And I said, well, what does that mean? And it meant a weekly wage. I said, well, that doesn't sound very good. And I said, no.

David Bailey5:05

So I wasn't really that interested in uh

David Bailey5:09

Fashion photography particularly.

David Bailey5:11

And I think through ignorance and saying no, it made them like life always is.

David Bailey5:17

made them want me even more. And then John Parsons, who was then the art director, who was a al equally charming man.

David Bailey5:24

said we'll give you a a contract and uh

Presenter5:27

But it's a little bit of a message.

David Bailey5:27

Yeah.

David Bailey5:30

I couldn't believe my he said, Well, you got a photograph of women mostly

David Bailey5:34

And it seemed to be a

David Bailey5:35

Too good to be true that that one was gonna pay me for to photograph women all day.

Presenter5:39

But what was exciting and different about it? Because you say you were working for John French, and he he was a a a very traditional sort of fashion photographer, wasn't he? And he had those very

Presenter5:49

Debbie models with sucked in cheeks and the haughty look. I mean, that's where you'd done your apprenticeship, wasn't it?

David Bailey5:55

Yeah, John John I mean John yeah, I mean his images were like that I guess but

David Bailey6:00

He was very clever, John. He knew all about art and and things that I wasn't.

David Bailey6:05

that I didn't know e access to before really. And

Presenter6:08

But did you, you know, in seeing him at work, think, Well, yes, I understand, and I can take it all in technically, but when I get to do it myself, I'm not going to do it like that.

David Bailey6:17

Well, yeah, I didn't want to do it what he did was I didn't like what he was doing in fact because it was too uh

David Bailey6:22

Everything was like a

David Bailey6:24

A stage set looked like shop windows.

David Bailey6:27

And also cameras were changing at that time. Remember, it was the breakover from

David Bailey6:31

big wooden plate cameras to small thirty-five Japanese motor cameras.

David Bailey6:36

It really changed the way you could photograph things.

Presenter6:39

Everybody immediately when you say that of course thinks of the film which I know you hated, Blow Up with David Hemmings and this kind of bending over the model and click click clicking away and getting closer and closer to her and all of that sort of thing. I mean

Presenter6:52

Is that anything like the way you did it when you first began?

David Bailey6:55

Yeah, when I was lucky it was

Presenter7:00

Seriously, what Marie Helvin, who you had a very successful partnership with both professionally and personally, um said was that you were the first photographer who had said to her do you like the way you look and if you don't change it take no notice of all these people around who are here to do it professionally do you like do you want to unbutton the front of the dress or do you want to flick your hair back?

David Bailey7:16

It's a double

David Bailey7:17

Do you want to unbu

David Bailey7:21

No, but I always did that because most of the girls I work with like Marie or Penelope Tree or

David Bailey7:27

Catherine, they they um

David Bailey7:29

I never really liked working with models. I always used the girls as if they were people. So my photographs were more

David Bailey7:35

portraits of women rather than fashion pictures of women.

David Bailey7:39

'Cause I must confess that it never interested me too much the dresses. It was more what was in the dress that interested me.

Presenter7:46

Record number two.

David Bailey7:47

Uh record number two. Uh Bing Crosby I think singing

David Bailey7:51

sweet and lovely because it reminds me of

David Bailey7:56

my childhood'cause I used to go to the cinema eight times a week.

David Bailey8:00

And Bing Crosby and Bob Hope were two of my favourites.

David Bailey8:03

We love it.

David Bailey8:08

Heaven must have set her my way.

Speaker 28:13

God me.

Speaker 28:19

Never were as blue as her are

Speaker 28:24

She loves me.

Presenter8:29

Would want a sweeter surprise. Bing Crosby, singing Sweet and Lovely. Eight times a week you say you went to the cinema. How old were you then?

Presenter8:39

Uh Thank you.

David Bailey8:39

I was about six.

David Bailey8:41

Well, I mean, my first memory of the cinema was, um

David Bailey8:45

I thought that Bambi and Mickey Mouse had been killed because, um, of V two.

David Bailey8:50

Rocket hit the cinema at Upton Park and I thought they'd all got killed and I was very depressed about it.

Presenter8:55

But you escaped in you.

David Bailey8:57

Thanks, Gabriel.

Presenter8:58

So you were born just before the outbreak of war, weren't you? And uh I mean was it a was it a classic East End childhood, you know, sort of truancy from school and fun and games on the bomb site?

David Bailey9:08

I'm afraid so. It was pretty stereotyped, exactly the same as

David Bailey9:13

Stephen Birkhoff or lots of other people. It's almost spooky. The film, John Bowman's film, Hope and Glory.

David Bailey9:21

It's exactly my story, but a notch lower in the social scale.

Presenter9:26

He's a notch low.

David Bailey9:27

No, uh my my story would be.

David Bailey9:30

A bit more working class. Not really. It was a kind of pseudo private school.

Presenter9:34

Who were your heroes at school then?

David Bailey9:36

Um James Fisher, a c ornithologist.

David Bailey9:40

I guess. John Houston. I always mesmerized by John Houston.

David Bailey9:45

And Fred is there, I guess.

Presenter9:47

James Fisher, you what you you you were interested in ornithology, were you?

David Bailey9:51

Yeah, that's the reason I really got interested in photography, because I thought I could make movies like uh Walt Disney's Living Desert.

David Bailey9:58

About animals and birds. I never thought of the cameras being an artistic thing, it was more of a

David Bailey10:03

Practical thing of recording. So you had a camera? Why, my mother's brownie, and I could never understand why I could never get close to those pigeons.

David Bailey10:10

Always little specks in the middle of the frame. I didn't know that you could have telephoto lenses.

Presenter10:16

And did you develop them yourself? Yeah.

David Bailey10:18

Yeah, in the cellar. And it took me years to find out what the what all the lines were, all just kind of static lines. And I used to process with that hand movement and of course they u in the dark they used to scrape up against the brick wall when I have all these tram lines down the

David Bailey10:33

It took me years to realize what the tram lines were.

Presenter10:35

Yeah.

Presenter10:36

Yeah, and of course obviously you had and and and still have a an East End accent, which must have been was it a a a bit of a hindrance when you tried to move into proper professional in the early circles.

David Bailey10:46

I think in the early late fifties, early sixties it was.

David Bailey10:49

And I remember they used to tap me one woman in particular, one of the editors at Vaux used to tap me on the head and

David Bailey10:55

Say Disney speak cute. I thought I'll show you how cute

David Bailey10:59

I am, dear. And I used to deliberately park my Rolls-Royce in front of the Magin Director's humber so that he couldn't get out of an evening.

Presenter11:05

Darren Stamp has has said about you since that that you were a great pretender in those early days, that you would

Presenter11:12

you would uh you know exaggerate the accent and that you would pretend not to know what you were doing when actually behind it all you knew exactly what you were doing photographically and professionally. You got it all weighed up.

David Bailey11:23

Yeah, I don't think I pr I did the accent because it wasn't something I thought about. It was more

David Bailey11:29

The accent became popular more with Michael Kane.

David Bailey11:32

But um

David Bailey11:33

I guess I've always pretended I didn't know technically what was going on.

Presenter11:37

Why?

David Bailey11:38

Uh

David Bailey11:42

I don't know, just a piece of stupid jive, I guess.

Presenter11:46

Just because you like to get on with people makes it more appealing if you're not all wrapped up in your professionalism.

David Bailey11:51

I hate people that take themselves too serious and

David Bailey11:55

I really can't take myself that serious.

Presenter11:58

Next record.

David Bailey12:00

Next is um

David Bailey12:01

King

David Bailey12:03

Elvis Presley. I was gonna choose Heartbreak Hotel because it

David Bailey12:07

Mm-hmm.

David Bailey12:08

song that was playing all the time when I was doing

David Bailey12:11

My basic training in the National Service.

David Bailey12:14

That is everybody chooses.

David Bailey12:16

Heartbreaker too I thought. Steamroller blues.

Speaker 212:21

My steamroller baby

Speaker 212:25

I'm on the roll all over you.

David Bailey12:32

I'm a steamroller baby

Presenter12:33

Amen.

Speaker 112:35

Uh

David Bailey12:35

Uh

Speaker 112:36

Uh

Presenter12:36

I'm by no

Speaker 212:36

Roll all over you.

Speaker 212:43

I'm gonna inject your soul.

Speaker 212:46

Sweet Rodriguez

Presenter12:48

Elvis Bresley, singing Steamroller Blues and and Memories of Life in the RAF i in Malaya. Legend has it that you were the only chap in the barracks who didn't have a pin up over his bunk, David, but you had a Picasso instead.

David Bailey12:59

Yeah, it pic it used to get me into trouble, the Picasso pinned over my bit.

David Bailey13:04

People used to

David Bailey13:06

come and pick fights with me saying, I suppose you think

David Bailey13:09

You're better than us.

David Bailey13:11

Nothing to do with being better, I just preferred a Picasso woman to a page three woman, that was all.

Presenter13:16

But what did it mean that you had that picture there? I mean, did it it meant that you were already very interested in art, in

David Bailey13:23

He definitely wasn't sexual like the other boys.

David Bailey13:28

I think it was a statement. It was a kind of

David Bailey13:31

it was challenging them in a way because

David Bailey13:35

Really all they were interested most of the majority, not all, but lots of them were really all in interested in getting drunk on

David Bailey13:41

Friday night and Saturday night and then laying on their beds for the rest of the week till they could get drunk again the next Friday or Saturday. And I hated this existence. In fact, the

David Bailey13:52

the the services, the air force opened my eyes to lots of things I became rather angry about at that time.

David Bailey13:58

Yeah.

Presenter13:58

Like what?

David Bailey13:58

Like well the class system that really you didn't know about in the East End because

David Bailey14:03

You were you were at the bottom end of it.

David Bailey14:06

Uh

Presenter14:06

He didn't know there was a

David Bailey14:08

It was another end.

Presenter14:09

So when they were lying on their bunks dreaming about getting drunk again, what were you lying on your bunk dreaming about?

David Bailey14:15

Getting out.

Presenter14:17

And doing what? I mean, is that where you formed a a kind of a bit of a life plan?

David Bailey14:20

No, no, no.

David Bailey14:26

Ice affected much before.

David Bailey14:29

I mean, jazz was my lead into photography and all sorts of things really and

David Bailey14:33

And ch when I was sixteen I really wanted to be Chet Baker.

David Bailey14:37

And then

David Bailey14:38

I wouldn't have minded being James Dean for a bit.

David Bailey14:41

But uh no I already was aware of that there was other things out there.

David Bailey14:46

But I wasn't sure how.

David Bailey14:48

Where these other things were. And I used to find out by I read that James Dean read Chekhov, so I thought.

David Bailey14:54

I'll check this checkoff fella out, and then you find out that on the back of the book it gives you a reference to another book. So there's a whole.

David Bailey15:02

process of self

David Bailey15:03

learning that goes on through

David Bailey15:06

You're heroes really and

David Bailey15:08

Luckily I choose chose quite intelligent heroes.

Presenter15:10

And have you gone on doing that? I mean, I suppose it's

David Bailey15:13

Two. Self-education, people call it. Oh yeah, I read every night. I read every day of my life, at least an hour. I think I'm curious to know things.

David Bailey15:22

And the more the the the

David Bailey15:25

It's the conflict with death now, isn't it? That's always fascinating with me because I

David Bailey15:29

is that that you've got to find out just for yourself as much as you can before

David Bailey15:34

The old reaper comes through the door.

Presenter15:36

Do you kind of sense death lurking round the corner?

David Bailey15:38

All the time. All the time.

David Bailey15:41

Every day I so um I've never s gone a day without thinking about

David Bailey15:46

Death.

David Bailey15:47

That sounds morbid, but it's not so morbid. So you start to get used to the idea. So it probably helps you out in the long run.

Presenter15:53

But why?

David Bailey15:54

Uh I think it started with the war because the Hitler trying to kill me every night of my life when I was a kid. I sort of got accustomed to the idea of

David Bailey16:03

I used to have these nightmares when I was a kid of all the buildings, you know, when you're bombed not being killed by the bomb, but all the building falling down on top of you.

David Bailey16:11

And I think from an early age.

David Bailey16:14

Death's always been there. But I think it's given me that incentive to do things, to try and get as much in before

David Bailey16:21

Final curtain falls.

Presenter16:22

Another record.

David Bailey16:24

I like Borodin's Prince E Igua,'cause I'm mad about

David Bailey16:28

Russian movies and Russian music and this sums both up really because it's so visual.

Presenter17:33

The end of Act Two of Borodin's Prince Igor, performed by the orchestra and chorus of the National Opera Theatre of Sophia, conducted by Yezy Semkoff.

Presenter17:42

I know you hate nostalgia, David Bailey, but we just need to indulge in a little bit more of the the sixties. Um because, you know, obviously you were at the centre of swinging London. Um was it as heady and glamorous as it looked from the outside?

David Bailey17:57

Well, I think it was for about two hundred people.

Presenter17:59

Give me some headlines from your your swinging sixties. I mean, uh you taught Nouriv to do the twist, is that right?

David Bailey18:07

I shame to survive.

David Bailey18:09

Go on, where, when have? It was at a club called the Ad Lib.

David Bailey18:14

Which was the kind of

David Bailey18:16

Snobby. I guess it was snobby. It was

David Bailey18:20

Uh but snobby in a different way. It was a kinda new I hate these kind of journalistic

David Bailey18:25

Phrases but the new aristocracy.

David Bailey18:28

And you had to be John Lennon or New Ref or

David Bailey18:31

from a Polanski to get in.

David Bailey18:33

Otherwise there's no way you're gonna get into that club.

David Bailey18:37

And I think it l didn't last that long, it got burned down.

Presenter18:39

And was Nouriaff any good at the twist?

David Bailey18:41

Not very, no. Those those belly danters are too muscle bound.

Presenter18:45

But what about that moment? What about that moment in in in the 1960, wasn't it, when that wafelite model, Gene Shrimpton, walked through the door?

David Bailey18:54

Oh, well I fell in love with her the moment I saw her. In fact, I'd been up at Vogue for about eighteen months, I guess.

David Bailey19:00

Um plodding along.

David Bailey19:03

And one day a a colleague of mine, a friend of mine, another

David Bailey19:06

Photography that appeared Duffy.

David Bailey19:08

He was doing a Kellogg's ad.

David Bailey19:10

of this girl.

David Bailey19:12

And I opened the studio door and there was Jean Shrimpton, as it turned out, but I didn't know who she was then.

David Bailey19:18

and he had her against the blue sky background, and she had these blue eyes.

David Bailey19:22

And it looked it looked like she was transparent.

David Bailey19:26

And I remember that moan, it took my breath away.

David Bailey19:29

And I said to Duff, Who's that? and he said, Oh, it's

David Bailey19:33

Keep keep away from her. She's much too posh for you. She's something called G Shrinton.

David Bailey19:39

And that's that was the

David Bailey19:41

Moment I fell in love with Jean, I guess.

Presenter19:43

Did you, together with Jean, have to work very hard at creating the look that you created, or did was it something that you both instinctively knew how to do?

David Bailey19:51

I think it was instinctive and I think

David Bailey19:55

The most important thing about doing anything is to stick to what you think is right and then hope other people like it. Unfortunately, if other people don't like it, you're out of business. Jean and I did have to work hard. We shot every day for at least two and a half years together.

Presenter20:08

And then at the end of that two and a half years or so, she she decided to do her own thing, didn't she?

David Bailey20:13

Oh, it's more than that. It's about three years, I think, three and a half years, yeah.

Presenter20:15

Three and a half.

Presenter20:16

And she she turned away and went off to do her

David Bailey20:18

Yeah, she'd dump me on the doorstep.

Presenter20:20

Were you very hurt?

David Bailey20:25

Yeah, I guess I was in a way because it wasn't just the emotional or or

David Bailey20:32

love thing. It was uh we were a team.

David Bailey20:35

And in a way it was like

David Bailey20:38

losing an arm or a extension of what I did because I worked so much with her.

David Bailey20:43

that suddenly I had to start all over again with other girls.

David Bailey20:46

Let's have some more music.

David Bailey20:49

I was Billie Holiday simply because she's the best.

David Bailey20:52

And she wrote this one.

Presenter20:53

Them that's got shall have

David Bailey20:55

Yeah.

Presenter20:55

Uh

Presenter20:57

Then let's not shall you

David Bailey21:00

So the Bible says

David Bailey21:04

And it still is news mama may have.

David Bailey21:11

Papa may have.

David Bailey21:14

Uh

Speaker 121:14

But God bless the child that's got his own.

Speaker 121:20

That's got his zone.

Presenter21:24

Billie Holiday singing God Bless the Child

Presenter21:26

You make your money these days, David Bailey, out of commercials, and not just the ones you appear in, advertising cameras with George Cole, but ones that you actually make as a director. Well, which ones are you most proud of? Let me ask you that.

David Bailey21:41

Next week's. Next ones.

David Bailey21:45

I think I just wanna sing in America, an Emmy for

David Bailey21:50

commercial which seems rather ridiculous. Women earn me for 30 seconds, but I'm quite happy to have it.

Speaker 221:53

Yeah.

Presenter21:53

So

Speaker 221:53

Seconds website.

David Bailey21:57

That was for the American Cancer Society.

David Bailey22:02

Probably the the ones I like best are probably the ones I did for Greenpeace, the m anti-nuclear ones and the ones against fur coats, people wearing fur coats.

Presenter22:11

That's that's probably the most famous one, isn't it? Where where the models fur coats spurt blood eventually at the kind of expensive audience.

David Bailey22:16

Yeah.

Presenter22:19

Um I mean do you like

Presenter22:21

doing commercials like that that sort of tell a story, as it were, that begin, as you say, in one second with one image and end thirty seconds later with a totally different one.

David Bailey22:30

Yeah, it's I I like that it's it's um

David Bailey22:33

In a way it's a luxury.

David Bailey22:35

I mean, I've done commercials since about sixty six.

Speaker 122:35

Uh

David Bailey22:38

But uh

David Bailey22:40

Most of my life's been spent in trying to

David Bailey22:42

Tell a story in a hundred and twenty fifths of a second.

David Bailey22:46

So thirty seconds is quite a luxury and sixty seconds seems like war and peace to me. But uh I suppose the difference is I've said this before but being a still photographer is a bit like being a sniper up a tree, all alone, very lonely.

David Bailey23:00

And being a director is a bit like being a general with all the

David Bailey23:04

people around you and

David Bailey23:06

catalyst trying to bring things together.

Speaker 223:08

Yeah.

Presenter23:08

Hmm.

David Bailey23:09

But it's much more of a team thing, uh

David Bailey23:11

Filming.

Presenter23:11

But but are you are you the general really?'Cause I mean there's always, you know, that

Presenter23:16

thing that's greater than you, which is the pressure of of the budget, isn't there, the money.

David Bailey23:21

I think everything you do you you're within boun you have some discipline. That's why I like

David Bailey23:27

I don't like it when you have too much freedom because there's no

David Bailey23:29

nothing to fight against. I mean

David Bailey23:32

You need that.

David Bailey23:34

Fight for freedom and it gives you some kind of dignity if you have something to fight against.

Presenter23:39

And what about the people y you work with? Are they, as it were, impressed to be working with the David Bailey?

David Bailey23:45

In America they say to me sometimes that'cause they never associate the commercial director with the photographer.

David Bailey23:51

And they've said to me in New York, or more more in LA'cause in LA they don't really remember anything over three years ago.

David Bailey23:57

They say uh

David Bailey23:59

There used to be a stills photographer called David P.

David Bailey24:03

Yes, I know him quite well because they never connect the David Bailey the director, the commercial director with David Bailey, the photographer. So it's quite funny. So I was saying yeah, it was very good, wasn't it?

Presenter24:11

Designer.

Presenter24:15

Record number six.

David Bailey24:17

Next record is John Adams, who works in in California. And he's one of the few people now that

David Bailey24:24

I suppose they post John Cage.

David Bailey24:26

But they're doing kind of really interesting things like finding sound in the same way Duchamp or Mam Rais found an object like a coat stand and hung it on the wall and said this was art.

David Bailey24:38

He does the similar things with sound where you find a speech by a politician or a sermon.

David Bailey24:44

by a preacher and put it into a piece of music.

David Bailey24:47

And it's almost existential because it's not something you can

David Bailey24:51

You can create, you have to find it, and he does that and puts it into his music, which I find very interesting.

Speaker 225:04

And I believe that Satan Jesus is present through the power of the Holy Spirit right here in this room right now, right now. I believe that. And I believe that Saint Jesus is present through the power of the Holy Spirit right here in this room, right now, right now.

Speaker 225:22

Wants to meet every need. Now what's wrong with a withered hand? Why would Jesus been drawn to a withered hand healing all Yeah.

David Bailey25:30

I believe that.

Speaker 225:34

Uh

David Bailey25:34

And I believe that same Jesus is present through the power of the Holy Spirit. Why would Jesus is present through the power of the Holy Spirit right here in this room, right now? And He wants to meet every need. Now, what's wrong with a withered hand? Why would Jesus be wrong to a withered hand? And I believe that same Jesus is present through the power of the Holy Spirit. I believe that.

Presenter25:57

JOHN ADDAMS Christian Zeal and Activity played by the San Francisco Symphony conducted by Edo DeWart.

Presenter26:04

Uh patiently you're a survivor, David. You're you're not going to kinda die a hopeless wreck on this island, are you?

David Bailey26:10

No.

David Bailey26:12

Mm-hmm.

David Bailey26:13

I'm pretty practical actually.

Presenter26:15

Are you?

David Bailey26:15

Full of common sense.

David Bailey26:17

I used to think

David Bailey26:18

When I was about nineteen I remember

David Bailey26:20

thinking how boringly normal I was.

David Bailey26:24

And

David Bailey26:25

Wishing that I was more artistic.

David Bailey26:27

But

David Bailey26:29

Over the years I think my success is common sense.

David Bailey26:33

My aunt Dolly had lots of common sense, and I think I get it from her.

David Bailey26:38

And you're a parrot man?

David Bailey26:40

A bird, ma'am. No, mainly parrots. It's uh I've always had this thing about parrots.

David Bailey26:46

And when I was a kid from the age of

David Bailey26:49

ten really, I used to breed crocodiles and love birds and things.

David Bailey26:54

And I used to spend

David Bailey26:55

I used to sell things to get it. I remember once I sold my father's binoculars.

David Bailey26:59

The bottom bus.

Presenter27:01

And have you still got a parrot?

David Bailey27:04

Uh I still got the scars from my father.

Presenter27:09

But no birds.

David Bailey27:11

No, I've I've still got my my I bought a parrot for my wife, for Catherine.

David Bailey27:16

Uh but it bites and loves me, so.

Presenter27:21

And what about your your daughter? I mean, she's and a son you have as well. Yeah.

David Bailey27:24

Yeah, I've got uh Valoma's my daughter, she's six and Fenton's four years old.

Presenter27:30

Paloma as in the daughter of Picasso.

David Bailey27:33

Well no, I just thought Paloma's such a wonderful name anyway. It means dove, you know that, of course.

David Bailey27:38

And uh

Presenter27:39

I didn't actually button.

David Bailey27:40

Because of my

David Bailey27:42

Because Pa Picasso really changed my life in a way.

David Bailey27:46

It's a kind of my way of paying my respects, I guess. And Fenton is my favourite photographer. There was someone called Roger Fenton.

David Bailey27:53

who was Queen Victoria's photographer.

David Bailey27:56

And so Fenton's called

David Bailey27:58

Fenton Fox Bailey.

David Bailey28:00

uh Fox being Fox Talbot was quite a

David Bailey28:03

Good photographer.

David Bailey28:05

And Bailey wasn't bad as well.

Presenter28:07

And and does Picasso remain a a a creative influence?

David Bailey28:11

Yeah.

David Bailey28:12

Yeah, more and more and more in a way.

David Bailey28:14

It's the spirit of the man as much as and Matisse said I'm the greatest painter of this century and Picasso's the greatest artist.

David Bailey28:21

In a way that says a law.

David Bailey28:23

I mean, Picasso could take himself seriously, but didn't. I mean, he's one of the few people that could take himself seriously.

David Bailey28:30

In this century maybe here, Miss Travinsky, it's very thin on the ground the people that could take themselves seriously.

David Bailey28:36

Uh but when I saw the the the paintings when I was about sixteen it it changed everything for me because

David Bailey28:42

I looked at these paintings and realized that things needn't be what they seem.

David Bailey28:46

And things can be anything you want to make.

David Bailey28:49

So he changed everything for me.

David Bailey28:51

Next record. Oh, it's Stravinsky. I mean, if I'm gonna be on a desert island, I'd like to

David Bailey28:56

where where there'd be no seasons. I'd quite like to think of spring and uh

David Bailey29:02

Apart from Stravinsky.

David Bailey29:05

Bean situ.

David Bailey29:07

innovator and influence on this century.

David Bailey29:10

I think he's right of spring I take along with me.

Presenter30:14

Dance of the Earth from Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, played by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Simon Rattle.

Presenter30:20

So what's your order of priorities these days, David? And you're not allowed to say money,'cause you must have enough of that to last you a lifetime.

David Bailey30:29

Power it is uh still adulation.

David Bailey30:32

Sakes.

David Bailey30:33

And first I guess is my wife and kids.

David Bailey30:38

'Cause I never really understood what a family meant before,'cause I didn't have much of a

David Bailey30:44

I didn't have much of that when I was a kid. So it's funny now at this age to find I've got a family and it's a strange feeling.

Presenter30:52

And what about the work? I mean, do you work for work's sake? Um do you still enjoy it as much? Or is it just the means to the end? Or?

David Bailey31:01

Yeah.

Presenter31:01

Yeah.

David Bailey31:01

I love it. I wake up every morning excited.

David Bailey31:04

I re I really work a lot. I mean, I'm not complaining'cause it's it's my choice and I enjoy it, but

David Bailey31:10

I don't know many people who work as hard as I do, or as much as I do.

Presenter31:14

And sitting on your desert island, if you could turn the clock back to the good times, where would you turn it back to?

David Bailey31:23

What to go back?

Presenter31:24

Hmm.

David Bailey31:25

No, because it's no adventure in going back. The adventure is in going forward. I mean, that's why all those fashion people love nostalgia, because it's safe.

David Bailey31:33

And that's why television makes all those boring films about the thirties and the forties and the fifties. It's all

David Bailey31:39

that nostalgia because people feel safe in the past. It's the future that's exciting. It's the unknown that's exciting. I mean

David Bailey31:46

We all know about the past, that it's too cosy and I hate it. I don't want a cosy life like that.

Presenter31:51

So you're you're fifty three, energetic and dangerous.

David Bailey31:57

And still on the run.

Presenter31:59

Last record.

David Bailey32:00

Hmm.

David Bailey32:02

The last one is the Gershwin.

David Bailey32:04

Yeah.

David Bailey32:05

I think is almost as important as Travinsky and it's uh Porgy and Bess. This sums up lots of things. I mean, I just love this uh

David Bailey32:14

This musical, especially this particular recording of it.

Speaker 132:28

Yeah.

Speaker 132:31

You

Speaker 232:32

And you must laugh and see a dance but

Presenter32:46

Willard White singing Bess You Is My Woman Now from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess with the Gleinborn Chorus and the London Philharmonic conducted by Simon Rattle.

Presenter32:54

So which one of those records, David, would you have to have more than any of the others?

David Bailey32:59

I think I'd have to take the one with the most substance, and that would be Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.

Presenter33:04

And a book you've got the Bible and Shakespeare waiting for you.

David Bailey33:07

I wouldn't take those.

Presenter33:07

I wouldn't have

Presenter33:08

Oh, well, you got them.

David Bailey33:09

Okay.

Presenter33:10

Yeah, they're on the beach.

David Bailey33:11

Can I swap them for something else?

Presenter33:13

You can merely add another one to the top of the package.

David Bailey33:15

Okay, I take uh

David Bailey33:17

Malrose Voices of Silence.

Presenter33:19

Why?

David Bailey33:21

Because it

David Bailey33:22

says something about civilization.

David Bailey33:25

and that we nearly made it.

David Bailey33:28

And a luxury.

David Bailey33:30

Well actually I'd take Nelson's column because I think it would look such a surrealistic object sitting on a beach.

David Bailey33:36

in on a desert island in the middle of the ocean.

Presenter33:39

And you might like

David Bailey33:39

And you might like to climb.

Presenter33:40

Uh

David Bailey33:42

No, I just wanted to look at it. It's just a it would just be a a statement, a ridiculous statement about of what life's about.

Presenter33:48

I think you have to promise not to climb it, because it might enable you to see a ship coming to rescue, you see, in which case it would be of practical use.

David Bailey33:55

Nelson wouldn't like it.

Presenter33:58

David Bailey, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

David Bailey34:01

Thank you very much for asking me.

Speaker 134:10

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.