Clive James

Speaker 10:00

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 10:08

The programme was originally broadcast in the year two thousand, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:32

My Castaway this week is a writer and broadcaster. He was born in Sydney, Australia, where, as the son of a widowed mother, he learned to joke his way out of trouble and into favour, ending up as a leading aesthete at the city's university. At the age of 21, he turned his back on his native country and left for London, and after a messy interval in Tufnell Park, he went to Cambridge, where he became president of Footlights. A successful decade as a critic and journalist followed before he moved into television as a studio host and documentary raconteur. Self-deprecation is his stock in trade. He uses it not just on screen but in the many books he's written too. It's a weapon to hide his fears. I spend a lot of time laughing and trying to make other people laugh, he says, but melancholy is at the basis of it. He is Clive James. So, Clive, life on a desert island would be melancholy at full throttle, would it?

Clive James1:25

I try to make it different, but uh that underlying sadness you've got to watch out for, it could be a boast, you know. Uh the clown is always saying that he's Hamlet underneath.

Presenter1:34

So is there an innate optimism in your one? I mean, would you believe rescue was at hand?

Clive James1:38

Yeah, I think basically I've always had an incredible amount of luck, but I don't like luck because when I was very, very young, uh wartime, I saw it operating uh at its most

Clive James1:50

Vicious. It al bad luck always happened to other people, but that doesn't uh that's no reason to to to to thank your lucky stars. And I never liked the lucky stars.

Presenter1:59

So you've resented your good luck?

Clive James2:00

Yes, rather. It sounds it sounds a bit ungrateful, but it's true. But I know damn well that I wouldn't be on that desert island long before a ship came on the horizon, or a helicopter landed, or

Presenter2:10

Because of your luck, not because of your

Clive James2:11

Not because of your optimism. Because of my luck. No, opt optimism is is pretty well useless, I think.

Presenter2:12

Yeah.

Presenter2:13

Optimism

Presenter2:15

There's no natural joy in you, though.

Clive James2:17

Um I think there is an awful lot uh which has to be there to o offset the the the natural lack of it. I am I don't want to make myself out as a man who at any moment may simultaneously scream with joy and burst into tears, but uh that has been my par personality, such as it is, has always oscillated between those two extremes.

Presenter2:38

But you would look on your desert island very joyful because as I understand it, you'd be dancing. This is your latest hobby.

Clive James2:41

A diagnostic

Clive James2:42

Yeah.

Clive James2:44

I've always danced one way or the other. I d I started dancing to rock and roll back in the sixties and nowadays I I dance an old man's tanger.

Presenter2:51

These are regular lessons you take. And singing lessons.

Clive James2:54

I have singing lessons, but I I started taking singing lessons more for my speaking voice.

Clive James2:58

Then in'cause I was running out of puff uh with a two day rehearsal in studio. I'd be hoarse by the time I got to the show.'Cause at my age you need to learn to breathe properly,'cause you never have. Uh especially men, they never h breathe properly. They breathe in far too shallow a man. No, you've got to breathe right down in the diaphragm.

Presenter3:11

Not down in the ribcage.

Presenter3:14

Mm. And you discovered you had a voice?

Clive James3:16

And I discovered that I had uh a few more notes than I thought. We all have, internetally. Uh nobody's tone deaf, really. The only reason they can't hold a tune is that they haven't got the notes. But they can get the notes if they breathe properly.

Presenter3:29

Tell me about your first record.

Clive James3:30

Rock and roll had a huge impact on me back in the the fifties and and I had a huge impact on my environment when I started dancing to it. And real Presley fans like the Presley films, and Jailhouse Rock was my favorite, and there's one number in it actually called Jailhouse Rock.

Clive James3:48

That is really choreographed by Ilvis. The choreographer had enough sense to watch Ilvis the way he danced and build the whole number around it.

Speaker 13:56

around it.

Clive James3:57

It sounds like a a rock and roll blues classic from nowhere. It was actually written in New York in the Bruill Building by Lieber Installer or Lieber Installer, however you pronounce them. And it was a commercial product. But it's a it's an immortal

Clive James4:11

Classic work and the lyrics are so great. Don't you be no square? If you can't find a partner, use a wooden chair. Well, when I was listening to this song, I didn't have a partner. I was dancing with a wooden chair.

Speaker 34:29

Sad Sag was sitting on a block of stone But over in the corner weeping all alone The warden said hey buddy don't you be no square You can't find a partner use a wooden chair

Speaker 34:42

Help you love

Speaker 34:46

Everybody in the whole self-love

Presenter4:51

Elvis Presley and Jailhouse Rock. Um you've said many times, Clive James, that the death of your father was uh the diff the defining moment of your life, I think made you what you are today. You were one when he left home, you were five when he died. What happened?

Clive James5:05

Well, strangely enough, I haven't said it all that often. It's been it's been said for me. It's a subject I've tried to avoid or bury uh and I think for understandable reasons. But it's undoubtedly true that it's m my first big memory is uh is

Clive James5:20

what struck me as an an ungovernable tragedy. In fact, death wi early death was common at the time. It was the end of World War Two, and people were dying all over the place. He just died in particularly unfortunate circumstances. And the effect on me was that I thought

Clive James5:37

I'd been tricked because he was coming home anyway. He had survived, but he got killed on the way back from the war.

Presenter5:43

So the war had ended.

Clive James5:43

The war had ended and he was on his way home and there was an accident and

Clive James5:48

And it was I mean the it

Clive James5:51

Things as bad. It happened to millions and millions of people all over the planet. But it was a little lesson on how chance affects life. It was about the way the dice roll.

Presenter6:00

But you were only five.

Clive James6:01

Yeah, but I think it's uh I think five-year-olds can reason.

Presenter6:05

It was because you saw your mother's grief.

Clive James6:06

Because you

Clive James6:07

Well, yeah, there's that. And I think it formed my character because there was nothing I could do. And that feeling of helplessness continued. And it's still there.

Presenter6:15

But why did it turn you into, in your own words, a gross over-worker and overachiever?

Clive James6:20

It's a very, very good question, because I think I think I just there are only two ways you can go. One is to just lie there and wait for the world to change or the other is to occupy yourself. And maybe compulsive the compulsive

Presenter6:25

There.

Clive James6:33

Busi busyness is a neurotic compensation.

Presenter6:36

Nevertheless, in 1961 you left her. You sailed away. You sailed away for this country and you were going to go back and you never did.

Clive James6:39

You sound away.

Clive James6:42

I think young men have either decide to do this sort of thing or don't.

Presenter6:47

I'm just trying to make you feel more guilty or anything.

Clive James6:49

Well, uh you you have a perfect right to and uh and I I I would if you didn't accuse me of that, I'd probably accuse myself and say that one has a chip of ice in the heart, and most people who go off to

Clive James7:02

to fulfil what they see as great ambitions do have a chip of ice in the heart, and they are capable of walking away from their connections and loyalties and even their country and going somewhere else. And yeah, I had that.

Presenter7:16

Second record

Clive James7:17

And one of the great things that happened to me when I was at Sydney University was that rock and roll was succeeded and complemented by another great musical movement of the twentieth century.

Clive James7:30

which was jazz. And I was introduced to jazz by some friends. And throughout my life people have introduced me to things and I've been very, very grateful to them. And there was an historic moment in my life when uh someone at Sydney University said you should listen to New Orleans jazz because I've been rubbishing it. I've been

Speaker 17:41

iLife

Clive James7:47

Sitting around pontificating and making the huge mistake of thinking because it was old it was over. And if it's old and you've heard of it, it's never over. And this guy said, there was a guy called Jelly Roll Morton, and he put a band together late in his career and recorded some of his classics. And one of them is called The Chant, and it's what New New Orleans jazz is all about. You should listen. And I listened, and he was right.

Presenter8:35

Jelly Row Morton and his red hot peppers with the chant. Before we leave your uh boyhood behind, Clive, tell me about your literary development. How early on did you start writing poetry?

Clive James8:45

Very early on indeed, about the first day at Sydney University, I saw my first poets. They weren't going to lectures. They sat around in the coffee shop and talked to each other, read and wrote. And I thought that's the life for me, not going to lectures and sitting down and writing your own stuff. I want to do that. And I've been doing it ever since.

Presenter9:03

Because when you first arrived there at at the university, I mean you you were kind of intimidated by your own ignorance of literature and writers.

Clive James9:09

If I had been really intimidated by mi my ignorance, which was colossal, I would have been immobilized. I was a bit nervous about it, but I set about uh compensating for it, usually by talking a lot.

Presenter9:19

But what had you read? I mean'cause you hadn't read Evelyn War or Rambo or

Clive James9:24

No, but I had read Biggles and stuff like that. I had and I had read all kinds of stuff which I wouldn't call call junk, but I would call pulp and slush, and lots of it. It's a bit like running in sand.

Clive James9:35

Great runners often trained by running in sand, so that when they suddenly started running on a track, they were very, very quick.

Clive James9:42

And I had been reading sludge for so long that when I got to stuff that was really worth reading I flew through it.

Presenter9:46

Let's have a bit of poetry before we go on, because you wrote one about a boy you call in your autobiography or Gary, a neighbor whom you kinda id idolized.

Clive James9:52

It was automatic or graphic.

Clive James9:55

It was someone else's bad luck again. It was a a young man that I just adored, and he was uh he used to build his own motorcycles because he was broke, so he had to build them, he couldn't buy them.

Clive James10:05

But I was in the Army at the time doing national service.

Clive James10:08

and uh when he was racing his bike, and I described the accident as if I was imagining it. In other words, I wasn't there, but I know what must have happened.

Clive James10:17

The bike kicked up and paused, her throttle stuck wide open, as he sprawled with helpless hours to watch her pitch and toss like some slow motion diver on a screen before the chain came down across his throat.

Clive James10:31

I had leave the evening after. Half way down the street a neighbour told me at her gate, and then another neighbour. They were all ready and willing, full of homilies and clucking hindsight. And, I'll give them this, a grief too. He was noisy, but they liked him.

Clive James10:47

Phil killed himself at Druitt yesterday. Druitt was Mount Druitt, where he was racing. And uh the poem goes on It's not that I felt nothing.

Clive James10:58

I felt nothingness, pluck at the armpits of my loose K D's that's the military shirt, and I had one thought before I turned away. The trouble is with us, we overreach ourselves.

Clive James11:11

I'm still pleased with that last line, but I don't quite believe it. I think probably the good thing about us is we overreach ourselves. We do try things. And I'm very glad he did all that. He just got.

Clive James11:21

Unlucky, so you can see why luck obsesses me.

Presenter11:24

But is the uh is the old ice chip in the heart still there? Because you were worried that you didn't feel anything.

Clive James11:29

I'm worried about having written the poem, because the ice chip in the heart enables you to use other people's griefs for material.

Clive James11:36

And uh there is a terrible truth.

Clive James11:39

that everything is on the agenda. Pushkin said that once. It's all material, and I think any writer has a moment of self loathing when he something terrible happens in his life or the life of someone near him, and at the very moment it's happening he thinks he thinks I can use this.

Clive James11:53

You know, the old New Yorker jo joke, I j I'm just I'm getting divorced. There could be a novel in it.

Clive James11:58

Well, there's a terrible truth to that. And I don't think any writer or any artist of any kind is entirely comfortable with that feeling. Record number three. I always loved.

Clive James12:09

the human voice singing, and wanted to do it. The nice thing about women singing is that you don't die of envy because you can't sing like a woman. But when I first heard Billie Holliday

Clive James12:19

I wanted to anything I did to be as neat as that, especially in her early years. And she had a great love affair with the tenor saxophonist Lester Young, who was good for her and she for him, and together they were magic. And they did a great number called This Year's Kisses. And the first time I ever heard it, which is now getting on more than 40 years ago, I thought it was an apex of an art, and I still think it.

Speaker 312:44

Is she?

Speaker 312:47

Crop of kisses don't seem as sweet to me.

Speaker 312:58

This year

Speaker 313:00

Crop just miss it.

Speaker 313:03

What kisses used to be.

Presenter13:11

Billy Holiday singing This Year's Kisses with, among others, Benny Goodman, Teddy Wilson and Lester Young, and that was recorded in nineteen thirty seven. And memories of a relationship certainly between Billy Holiday and Lester Young, as you say. But but what about you and women, Clive Jones? It seems to me that, you know, women have been very kind to you along the way.

Clive James13:28

They've been extraordinarily kind. I've never really quite got over it, considering my drawbacks. Well, considering.

Presenter13:35

Well, considering how badly you've used them and borrowing their money and.

Clive James13:38

Yes, yes, I did all that. This was long ago.

Presenter13:41

But why did they fall for you? What did you look like? Look, it's 1961. You've just arrived in this country. You're twenty-one years old. What kind of figure did you cut?

Clive James13:49

Well, I was probably the only man in London wearing a Hawaiian shirt. I think I think a certain

Clive James13:55

Air of pathos may have helped.

Presenter13:57

Did we have the beard at this point?

Clive James13:57

Did we have

Clive James13:59

Yes, I d but that's only because I couldn't afford to shave.

Clive James14:03

I can barely afford the razor blaze. I think what we're deal what we're dealing with here is an object of uh to arouse intense pity.

Speaker 314:10

Hmm.

Clive James14:10

And it may that may have helped in the in what you're talking about.

Presenter14:11

Uh

Speaker 314:13

Uh

Presenter14:13

Does any

Clive James14:13

Is there any possible explanation that that I that I got anywhere at all with women?

Presenter14:17

And I mentioned Messy Time in Tufna Park. I mean, it does actually read, it was pretty miserable. It was chaotic.

Clive James14:22

Yeah, so

Presenter14:24

There was some squalor.

Clive James14:25

Yeah.

Presenter14:26

There was a lot of puffs.

Clive James14:26

I didn't have a really a

Clive James14:29

Much of a support system. I was flying by the seat of my pants.

Presenter14:34

Did you get suicidal at one point?

Clive James14:35

Yes, I did get suicidal at one point, but uh in fact

Clive James14:39

But it never got to the point where I thought if I would actually

Clive James14:42

jump. I never maybe I had never had anything high enough to jump off, if you give me. I was living in a basement, for one thing, and jumping out of a window in a basement is not the way to end it all. I could always have emigrated back to Australia.

Presenter14:54

Mm. And one wonders occasionally, I suppose, even later on, why you didn't. Yes. I I mean why were you never taking

Clive James14:55

I'm

Clive James14:57

Even later on.

Clive James15:01

Sydney is the is the Garden of Eden.

Clive James15:03

And like Adam and Eve, I probably wanted to see something else. If you've spent twenty one years of of your life growing up

Clive James15:12

in a place like Sydney. You really had more than your fair share of of the world's joys.

Presenter15:18

But it's changed so much in these years.

Clive James15:18

But if chin

Clive James15:19

No, it's got better.

Presenter15:21

Well, quite it's very sophisticated, very beautiful.

Clive James15:21

Why?

Clive James15:23

It's got better, yeah, because the immigration changed everything. The Europe first of all, the European immigration, then from all over the world.

Presenter15:30

But you never went back.

Clive James15:30

But you

Clive James15:31

Uh it was sixteen years before I went back to Sydney.

Clive James15:34

And uh it it scared me, it had changed so much. And since then I've gone back many, many, many times.

Presenter15:39

Yes, but I mean you you've always stayed here is what I mean effectively.

Clive James15:42

Well, mainly'cause the kind of work I do is effectively here. And also because I've had my share of that of that kind of

Clive James15:51

Bliss is the word I would I would use.

Presenter15:53

What happened to your mum in those sixteen years that you didn't go back? Did you see her?

Clive James15:58

She uh she got sent a lot of letters and got a lot of quite a lot of letters back, not quite as many as she sent.

Presenter16:03

Did you see it?

Clive James16:03

Yes, I I know she came I she came to Europe, you know, I saw her a couple of times, uh not not often, but a couple of times and I've seen her ever since and uh

Presenter16:12

Did you break her heart?

Clive James16:13

Yes, probably. But it had already been broken several times. It was the fate of

Clive James16:18

the women in that generation to have a a hard time and it made them very, very strong. And I think my mother was an extremely intelligent woman and knew that me going away was going to be part of the agenda.

Clive James16:31

Because the alternative would have been to stay there.

Clive James16:33

with her, and she wouldn't have wanted that.

Presenter16:36

Record number four.

Clive James16:37

I can't help actually burst into tears now.

Clive James16:42

One of my favorite areas from opera, and I I did love opera from the beginning.

Clive James16:48

Of hearing it. And once again, I was introduced to it. In London, I was introduced by a flatmate who said, Listen to this. Listen to this has always been an important part of my life. And one of the things that caught me about opera was the sheer bravura aspect of a singer like Tito Schiper, one of the great tenors, the way he could sing in the upper register. And it's still today, now that I'm a bit of a singer myself, ha ha, this is the thing to aim for, but hardly anybody could do it. Tito had a few drawbacks. He was mainly, as a pre-war tenor in Italy, he had a tendency to show up at fascist rallies and sing for Mussolini, which has subsequently been a bit of an embarrassment to his fans. Mussolini was a big music fan, incidentally. I once interviewed Mussolini's son, who was playing piano in Rome. Mussolini's son.

Clive James17:35

Jazz piano player revealed to me a fact about Mussolini which is not commonly known, is that Mussolini was a Fat Swallow fan.

Clive James17:42

And the idea of Mussolini sitting there, tapping his foot, snapping his fingers, listening to your feet too big

Clive James17:48

It's one of the things that sustained me through life, as has indeed the voice of Tito's Keeper, singing Una futiva lagrima, a furtive tear, from Donizetti's Le Lisa de Mour, the Elixir of Love.

Speaker 318:04

See Paul Baby.

Speaker 318:28

Waterfall

Speaker 318:38

Deep wall be deep on the centre.

Speaker 318:46

Come from the Ravier, God's voice of

Presenter18:55

Tito Skeeper singing the aria Una Fortiva Lagrima from Donizetti's Les Lizire d'Amour.

Clive James19:01

Want to hear my version? Oh no, we mustn't.

Presenter19:05

So tell me about Cambridge. You were twenty five by the time you got there and practically thirty, I think, before you left. Yes. Um Cambridge was my playground, you've written. Um you were a late developer. What games did you play?

Clive James19:11

Yes.

Clive James19:16

It's largely true. What I did there was student journalism, student drama, student this, student that, and not enough study.

Presenter19:24

Hmm.

Clive James19:25

But uh the graphic.

Presenter19:25

Even though you had on one occasion the the the great example of Germaine Grier working away diligently in the next room.

Clive James19:30

Diligently.

Clive James19:32

Germaine really could study, yeah, yeah. And she was studying next door to me, in the next room, and we were living in a place called the Friar House, and she typically transformed her her room into some sort kind of paradise, and in it she studied very hard and wrote the female eunuch, I later found out.

Presenter19:47

And you lived in squalor next door.

Clive James19:48

But achieving nothing, yeah.

Presenter19:49

Interesting.

Presenter19:50

Well, not quite. You you learned how to perform anyway at the

Clive James19:53

Yeah, I learned I in footlights, I learned how not to perform. I learned that what I really should do is get up there on stage and just be myself, which is quite a trick when you're when you're doing it in public or in front of a microphone or on T V, as you know. It's quite hardly anyone can do it. It's uh actors hide.

Presenter20:07

He is your now.

Presenter20:08

I had

Clive James20:13

Even the best actors hide in the makeup, hide in a costume, hide in a character. To actually be yourself under that kind of artificial intensity of attention is quite a trick. It takes practice.

Presenter20:22

So, what were you doing before that? You were over-egging it, were you really trying to sell? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Clive James20:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was overselling my stuff. I learned to read in a flat voice that added no emotion beyond what the listener can dedu deduce from what I'd written. In other words, bring the listener in on it. Because if you over-project, you shut the listener out. And that's true in all media, and especially on stage.

Presenter20:46

You learn to dead your pants.

Clive James20:47

Yeah, I did it did it in my pants.

Presenter20:49

And you've been doing it ever since.

Clive James20:49

Okay.

Speaker 120:49

Yeah.

Clive James20:51

Yeah, yeah. I'm accused of being looking extremely smug and glib on air and I'm that may be b simply the way that my face is shaped. It's not the way I feel uh at all.

Presenter21:02

How do you feel then?

Clive James21:03

And I feel as if I expected to be arrested at any moment. I've always felt that way. From a very, very early age I've expected the cops to show up, put the uh

Clive James21:13

Put the hand on my shoulder and say, It's all over, you've uh you've been rumbled because it always seemed as if other people

Clive James21:21

Had more to offer. And I've always been extremely grateful about being in show business at all, on any level.

Presenter21:26

Next piece of music.

Clive James21:27

It's not just that I'm a Frank Sinatra fan. There are many attributes of Frank Sinatra's character that I didn't approve of at all. But I just love the way he sang because it was so like speech. And one of the great lyric writers of his generation was Johnny Mercer.

Clive James21:42

Author of a wonderful lyric called The Summer Wind, this is the way a song should be written and should sound.

Speaker 321:51

Still the days, those lonely days, they go on and on.

Speaker 322:02

Guess who sighs his lullabies Through nights that never end

Speaker 322:14

My fickle friend

Speaker 322:18

The Summer Wind.

Presenter22:21

Frank Sinatra and Summer Wind.

Presenter22:24

After Cambridge, for ten years you were the television critic of The Observer, but starting gradually to your phrase succumb to the lure of television, which you'd always said you'd never do. You didn't you didn't like its mereness, you found it offensive.

Clive James22:34

I don't

Clive James22:37

Yeah, I was a bit of a snob. I was eventually T V critic of The Observer. I actually did a lot of freelance journalism all over the shop.

Presenter22:43

Sure.

Clive James22:43

And well I was radio critic for the listener at one stage and eventually did some T V criticism for them. And from there I went from the observer and I was I looking backwards it looks like working my way up, but actually as usual I was having a lot of luck.

Presenter22:58

Or working your way down exactly.

Clive James23:00

Working my way sideways. T V Critic wasn't regarded at the time as a especially brilliant or upfront sort of job.

Clive James23:07

And because T V was generally regarded quite snobbishly, I actually in my heart of hearts had always liked the whole idea of the mass media because I liked that kind of attention. There is undoubtedly some what the Americans would call some part of me, some part of me that craves attention and and has done since I was about four years old.

Presenter23:28

The line, and I mean, a lot of people don't approve of you doing it or haven't over the years. And you've had a lot of critics, and what they say on the whole, as you know, is that you've wasted your intellect.

Clive James23:32

You

Clive James23:38

Do you

Presenter23:38

Sold your intellectual soul for a lucrative mess of pottage and it gets nastier than that.

Clive James23:44

My answer is, I never used to hear much about this marvellous intellect of mine before I started wasting it, but that's a standard answer. There's undoubtedly.

Clive James23:52

something to it. But then on the other hand, most of what I admire in the arts throughout the ages has been done by people who were moonlighting or slumming or or taking a lot of flack for doing what the people thought they shouldn't have been doing. And they do it from an inner compulsion, and that's what really drives the stuff anyway.

Presenter24:10

But is it an inner compulsion you're ashamed of or

Clive James24:12

No, not no, not especially. Uh I can't think of anything more important than mass communications as we know from what happens when they go wrong.

Presenter24:20

I just spotted a sonnet of yours, and again I think it's quite an early one in there, which is called Neither One Thing Nor the Other, and it ends up saying Why am I not profound?

Clive James24:29

Yes, I didn't really mean that. I secretly, if you read between the lines, you think I think I am quite profound, otherwise why would I I be asking this question?

Presenter24:36

Exactly.

Clive James24:36

One tries to have it always.

Presenter24:39

You do. You really, really do.

Clive James24:40

When I get accused of wanting to have my cake and eat it, my only answer is what else are you supposed to do with cake? Next record, number six. I I've loved the popular song.

Clive James24:52

All my life. I love popular entertainment. And one of the problems of the song as we got into the 60s was that the recording artists, usually young rock and rollers with very questionable hairstyles, started to write their own gear. And it was really the end of the line for the professional songwriter because the singer could get paid twice if he or she wrote her own stuff. So the song declined even as production standards went up and up and up and the voices got marvelous. But you've got the occasional voice.

Clive James25:19

with enough sense to sing great songs written by other people. And one of them was a wonderful British girl called Alison Moyet. I never know quite how to pronounce it. It should be Moyette when you think about it.

Speaker 325:32

And come.

Speaker 325:34

The cross is that day and I'm not the pride You could stand before it you could make

Presenter25:57

Alison Moyer with Where Hide Sleep. And now, Clive James, in at the beginning of the twenty first century, you seem to be changing course again. I mean, there have been stories that you're giving up television. You certainly haven't renewed your contract with IT V, have you?

Clive James26:09

I read that story and uh with with with some admiration and alarm, because I never said any of those things, and uh the journalist kept quoting a friend, and I think he meant his friend and not mine.

Presenter26:21

But you haven't renewed your contact.

Clive James26:21

Uh

Clive James26:22

I I have no intention of signing up with anybody at the moment.

Clive James26:26

Uh until I figured out a way of doing bigger and fewer.

Clive James26:31

things because what I what I want to do is get off the treadmill

Speaker 126:34

Bill

Clive James26:35

And do

Clive James26:37

larger programs that count instead of doing one every week in order to keep every o everything ticking over. And that's quite a hard treat to work and I'm working on it. But I'm sitting there right in at my desk and I'm writing books

Clive James26:51

And I am writing a stage show which is a secret that I can't reveal, except that it may have to do something with.

Clive James26:58

With the dance and with the voice with the tango. With a tango.

Presenter27:00

With a tango.

Presenter27:03

And and you're writing history too, or a novel?

Clive James27:05

I'm writing a a novel and I'm writing I've finished two books of essays for publication next year, one a book of recent essays and one a book of selected essays, and I'm working on songs and etcetera.

Presenter27:18

Well, let's talk about songs, because that's what's coming up next. One of yours, you've written hundreds.

Clive James27:23

I did ride hundreds back in uh the sixties and seventies with my with my friend Pete Atkin.

Presenter27:27

Pop songs.

Speaker 327:27

Three.

Presenter27:29

Yeah.

Speaker 327:29

Yeah.

Presenter27:29

Mm.

Speaker 327:29

Yeah.

Clive James27:29

And we were not a great commercial success at the time, although we had six albums released commercially. And eventually had to give up because of financial reasons. But I was very, very proud of the work and

Presenter27:40

But why weren't you successful?

Clive James27:41

I think because it was a minority taste, and we were trying to be a minority taste in a majority business, which is kind of fatal. But the strange thing was, our effort didn't disappear. It was remembered by the people who bought the records and has been remembered by the next generation. And now it's. And then it all started showing up on the internet. And now.

Speaker 327:58

And now it's

Speaker 127:58

Yeah.

Clive James28:01

I can look at Pete Akin's website on the Internet and find out everything that I ever wrote.

Speaker 328:07

They pressed the flowers from Sunday rambles and then forgot which book And I paid the rent thinking Anyway buddy at least you won't get wet And I tried the bed and lay there thinking They haven't got you yet I've got the only cure for life And the cure for life is joy I'm the crying man that everyone calls laughing boy

Presenter28:36

Pete Atkins singing Laughing Boy. Music by Pete Atkins. Lyrics by my castaway Clive James. A song that sums you up. He said, We're back to the melancholy again. But you seem to have saddled yourself with with regrets. Um if I could go back and start again, I'd be more scrupulous in every area of my life.

Clive James28:53

I think that's yeah, that's

Presenter28:55

It's just wishful thinking.

Clive James28:55

That in a big way is true. It can't be done, of course. But uh yeah, I wouldn't change anything that happened to me. I'd certainly change the way I behave.

Clive James29:02

And what I said and try and speak more directly and not leave people to deduce things. I've got a bad tendency to dodge an awkward scene, and sometimes an awkward scene is exactly the scene you should have.

Presenter29:12

Hmm.

Clive James29:13

But I've not saw how I could change that without being an entirely different entirely different person.

Presenter29:17

And you've enjoyed the fame despite the fact that at the same time you seem to want to duck it against the market.

Clive James29:21

I love it. I love almost every aspect of it except the intrusive one, and you can't have it both ways. And that that's certainly one way where you can't have your cake and eat it. But I certainly like the cake, so if I could do it all again, I'd do it all under an another name and wearing a mask.

Clive James29:36

Maybe a Mel Gibson mask would be right.

Presenter29:38

But you have. I mean, people have used the word polymath of you. If you could choose, if you could go back and start again, what would you would you be Clive James the television wit, Clive James the poet, Clive James the novelist, Clive James the songwriter, Clive James the ballroom dancer?

Clive James29:52

The writer generally, I think. I think everything I do is writing, except except ballroom dancing. And I've got a feeling in in a way even that is. It's a great holiday the tango is a great holiday from language for me.

Clive James30:06

But when you think about it, most of the great tangos I dance to are songs. And it's a great body of literature. The tango song is even better than jazz in that some masterly poets have worked in it. I've actually picked one out called Cambalace, which is a Buenos Aires word for swap shop, really. And it really means life is an absolute hellhole, a porcaria, a pigsty, in which virtue is for sale and malevolence is king. And it was written by a wonderful man called DeChabolo back in the 30s, who I think was some kind of genius.

Speaker 330:44

Quer mundo joy sera una por quería zalo sé en el qui nientos, en el dos mil también. Que siemprabido chor ros máquí ave los estás faus. Con tentos ya marcas, valo residuble. Pero que el siglo veente su problema de maldá insolente. Jano y qui lo nigue. Bibi morrebolca se el un merengue y el un mi morodo.

Presenter31:14

Cambalace sung by Tonya with the orchestra of Donato Raciati. Is that right?

Clive James31:19

Well done. Very, very good.

Presenter31:20

Mm-hmm.

Presenter31:21

Now, if you could only take one of those eight records, which one would you take?

Clive James31:25

Yeah, it would be so hard to choose which is the music that would sustain you on the island.

Clive James31:29

You'd think well of the serious music, Tito Schipa singing, an Italian aria.

Clive James31:34

Billy Holiday

Clive James31:36

Eating her heart out with a great song, but the terrible truth is it would probably be Elvis Presley.

Clive James31:41

Because I see myself there on the island waiting for a very, very short time, of course, for the ship to arrive.

Clive James31:47

Dancing there on a sand dune, and that's the kind of dance I would do.

Presenter31:51

And what one book is going to sustain you, as well as the Bible and Shakespeare, of course?

Clive James31:56

I think I would take a marvellous book by Caruso. It's called My Method of Singing.

Clive James32:03

And it turns out that his method of singing is just to breathe deeply and be born with a voice like his.

Speaker 332:08

Uh Yeah.

Clive James32:08

But I think

Speaker 332:08

Yeah.

Clive James32:09

In the the short time I'd be spending there, I could profit by a bit of voice training from the man himself, and then I could have as my luxury item

Clive James32:16

a sort of karaoke caruso piano, a a pianola with nothing but caruso piano rolls, with his voice missing so that I could supply it, and there I would be doing what I would love best to do, but really can't.

Clive James32:30

which is to sing. It would be wonderful to be able to perform, to communicate in so direct a manner as singing and dancing. And I suppose one of the privileges of living a long time is that you can fulfil these dreams at least in part.

Clive James32:45

But it would be it would have been rather marvelous to have been born like that.

Presenter32:49

Clive James, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Clive James32:53

My pleasure.

Speaker 133:02

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