Suggs

Speaker 30:00

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

Presenter0:29

My Castaway this week is a pop idol. Born just over forty years ago, he was brought up in fairly desperate circumstances by his mother, a jazz singer-turned barmaid. He spent some years of his childhood in the open spaces of Wales, looked after by an aunt. Back in North London at the end of the seventies, he formed a band with six other like-minded lads. They called themselves Madness and became one of the most successful groups of their time, with a string of hits, including House of Fun, Baggy Trousers, and Our House among them. With his pork pie hat, mod suit, and Doc Martin boots, he looked like someone having a lot of fun, which he was, and has continued to have since the group disbanded, as a solo singer and a television presenter. Pop music, he says, is one of the great arts. Three minutes of noise holds your whole life. The first person you met, the first girlfriend you had, the first garden shed you blew up. He was born Graham McPherson, but we know him as Suggs. Did you blow up any garden sheds?

Suggs1:28

No, but I know a man who did.

Presenter1:30

Tell me about Suggs, first of all. Where does this name come from? Why did you dump Graham McPherson?

Suggs1:35

There are a lot of people at my school who were who were writing uh their names on the walls of the toilet and uh uh similar surfaces. Not that I ever did, but people assume

Presenter1:43

Of course not, of course not.

Suggs1:46

Yeah.

Suggs1:47

And um I just felt like I needed a pseudonym of some sort and an anonymous one and there was an encyclopedia at Jazz Musicians at my friend's house and I literally stuck a pin in one of the pages and there was a guy called Peter Suggs something or other and I just took the pseudonym Suggs and it's a rather strange process, I can't remember exactly now, this is when I was about fourteen, but

Speaker 22:03

Yeah.

Speaker 32:03

And it's

Suggs2:07

How I managed to get other people to stop calling me Graham and calling me Suggs was a a feat.

Presenter2:12

But anyway, it looked good as a signature in pink on the lavatory wall.

Suggs2:17

Yeah, and on the front of exercise books and desks and uh places like that, yeah.

Presenter2:21

This was at school, as you say, North London, big comprehensive in the 70s, all boys. Was baggy trousers about that school?

Suggs2:29

Yes, it was, yes. And Baggy Trouser was probably one of the first finished works of a song that I did. Um, and I wrote the lyrics to that.

Presenter2:38

Naughty Boys in Nasty Schools

Suggs2:40

Headmasters breaking all the rules, having fun and playing fools. Yeah, it was a strange song because um

Presenter2:44

Breaking up the woodwork tool.

Suggs2:47

Indeed. All the teachers in the pub passing around the ready rub. Trying not to think of when the lunchtime bell will ring again.

Presenter2:53

But it wasn't just a sentimental ode about lost youth in school days, was it? It was a bit tougher than that. It was a little bit.

Suggs2:58

It was a little bit. And looking back on it, I had this kind of vision that it was just as difficult for the teachers as it was for us. It was a very chaotic place.

Suggs3:07

I suddenly understood that teachers were struggling just as much as we were to try and make sense of this strange process.

Presenter3:11

Hmm.

Presenter3:13

But writing about ordinary things, like everyday things like like school and so on, w was really an important ingredient in your success, wasn't it? Because that's what you were doing that was different from what everybody else was doing at the time.

Suggs3:26

Yes, um I certainly uh very early on thought it'd be nice to write songs about the small bits of life that maybe get ignored or or people don't think are interesting enough to write about. And I was very influenced by the Kinks, who I'd heard at a very early age. And apart from the way Ray Davis sang, I really loved the way that he could write about very small parts of English London life and make them into something very romantic.

Presenter3:49

This is your first spectral trip.

Suggs3:50

It is indeed, yes.

Presenter3:51

Yes, sir.

Suggs3:52

And my first record is uh the Kinks and Village Green Preservation Society.

Speaker 33:56

Yeah.

Speaker 23:56

Ah, the Village Green Reservation

Speaker 33:59

Ancient Society Uh

Speaker 34:00

Uh

Speaker 24:00

Yeah.

Speaker 34:01

God save Oh no, bought a bill and right

Speaker 24:04

We Yeah, that's With them, appreciation's deciding God saved strawberry jams, and all the different varieties.

Speaker 24:15

Preserving the old ways from being a beautiful

Speaker 24:20

Technical.

Suggs4:20

Uh

Speaker 24:20

Uh

Suggs4:20

In new ways for me and for you.

Presenter4:24

The Kinks and Village Green Preservation Society, extraordinary subject for a pop song with preservation of village green and strawberry jam, Donald Duck.

Suggs4:31

Fu Manchu, yeah, exactly. Um well the sentiments I was expressing earlier about um being able to write about very small things.

Presenter4:38

So you paint your picture, as you say, in this kind of three, three and a half minute song on a little plastic disc. Um by the time you hit the scene there were kind of videos around as well to illustrate them and and one of the abiding visions I have of images I have you is uh is your sax player Lee sort of floating through the air above you, you know, and your so-called nutty dancing, this kind of synchronized jerking. Where did that come from?

Suggs5:02

The flying thing with baggy trousers. We were just making a video in a school playground.

Suggs5:07

And uh there was a crane literally on a building site next door, and he went and asked one of the guys if he could borrow their crane. Then a harness was um was acquired from somewhere else, and then the next thing Lee was flying, and it was the talk of of everyone in the street the next day.

Suggs5:22

And on that premise, then we started to realize that we could maybe have our own imaginings and make them come true.

Presenter5:29

You could do anything. I mean, this is this sudden need to jump up and down. Do you have any

Suggs5:32

To fly. You know, so but then flying in our videos would mean being held by the legs as you were sticking off the front of a open top double deck of bars.

Presenter5:42

Indeed, the look was very distinctive, wasn't it? I mean, describe it to me, how you looked in well, this was late seventies, really.

Suggs5:44

Wasn't it?

Suggs5:48

Yeah, the late seventies, yeah, it's a strange time because just a couple of people at the school I was going to and and a few of their friends who were going to Hempster Comprehensive, which wasn't far away, were starting to wear suits and things. They had a fabulous shop in Camden Town actually called Alfred Kemp's and it said We Fit Anybody and it was rather like gentlemen's outfitters for poor people. They had this fabulous staff. And because you had a lot of Irish people working in Camden Town, they'd often buy a suit on a Friday, wear it over the weekend.

Suggs6:14

looking in at the at the finest, and then on Monday turn up for work in the same suit, wear it out, get the new one on Friday. So in this shop you really could get the most fabulous clothes, and that's where a lot of those suits and

Presenter6:24

So and they were quite smart, straight trousers.

Suggs6:26

Straight trousers, that's right. And and a strange amalgam of the sixties and the fifties.

Presenter6:30

And the hair was kind of close cut, but but not skin head.

Suggs6:32

But not skinhead. Not really, sort of crew cut, yeah. It was a bit like the sort of astronaut style, yeah.

Presenter6:38

Was there a moment when you said, I'm going to be the singer in this band of ours, or somebody said to you, You've got to be the singer? I mean.

Presenter6:46

Who said it when?

Suggs6:47

We were standing on the steps of this of a cinema in Hampstead and we'd just been to see a film called American Graffiti. I was very good friends with a drummer, John Hesler, and I was just standing on the steps singing a song and I can't even remember what song it was and John said, We've got this band which I'd heard was being started and um I'd I'd been interested in hearing but never for a moment thought about joining and he said why don't you come and have a go at being a singer and that really was the first and only time I'd ever thought about singing and the next thing I was in a rehearsal room singing.

Presenter7:15

Record number two.

Suggs7:16

Record number two is one of my favourite artists, unfortunately he's dead now, and probably the biggest influence on the band Madness, and certainly me as a singer and songwriter, is Mr. Ian Dury in Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll. And in fact, it's not the Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll in this song I'm so interested in. It's the first bridge which says, Keep your silly ways or throw them out the window. The wisdom of your ways, I've been there and I know lots of other ways. What a jolly bad show, if all you ever do is business you don't like.

Speaker 27:44

Sex and drugs and rock and roll

Suggs7:50

Uh Very good indeed, keep your silly ways Or throw them out the window The wisdom of your ways I've been there and I know

Speaker 28:01

Oh lots of other ways

Speaker 28:04

What a jolly fan show if all you ever do is business you don't like

Presenter8:14

Ian Jury and Sex Drugs and Rock and Roll. I said your childhood wasn't the greatest, Suggs. Where did it all begin?

Suggs8:21

My mother was a single parent, and I think those days weren't easy for single parents. I mean, there wasn't any there weren't any kind of benefits that that we get now. Your dad had just

Presenter8:29

Your dad had just disappeared, eh?

Suggs8:31

My dad had just disappeared when I was about three, and I was born in Hastings, and my dad.

Suggs8:36

Legged it almost immediately, and I don't really have any memory of him at all. I mean, I've got a sort of faded photograph of him somewhere.

Presenter8:42

Never heard from him since.

Suggs8:42

Never looked at it.

Suggs8:43

No. No. I mean, my mum suggested that I did a couple of times and I think when I was eighteen or nineteen it it did occur to me.

Presenter8:45

Dried?

Suggs8:54

But as time's gone on I presume that he must be dead. It's not horrible, I don't think, to say that he is dead in my mind anyway, because it doesn't really

Suggs9:03

It doesn't I don't really think about

Suggs9:05

Whether he is or not anymore.

Speaker 39:06

Mm.

Presenter9:07

Your mum, uh, as I said in the introduction, was a a singer, first of all. She brought you to London, didn't she? And you sort of lived in bedsits and things, and she

Suggs9:10

First of all, she brought you to

Suggs9:14

Yeah, not really bed sits, no, but we we we moved around a bit, yes.

Presenter9:18

And then when you were seven or eight, I think, she sent you to Wales to live with your aunt. What was that like?

Suggs9:23

That was difficult also because my aunt was having a difficult time as well.

Suggs9:27

But it can

Presenter9:27

But a completely different environment.

Suggs9:29

Oh, a completely different environment.

Presenter9:30

I mean, did you enjoy that? The open spaces?

Suggs9:32

I really did. Yeah, it was a very beautiful place, yeah, in uh Pembrokeshire. I went to a very nice school, a very small school, Houghton V C it was called, and uh I don't know, I think there were only about thirty kids there. And it was so small, it was one of those schools where different age groups were mixed up, so there'd be sort of little tiddlers and really tall kids all in the same classroom together.

Presenter9:51

And you did very well, there, didn't you?

Suggs9:52

Yeah, things went well, yeah, and um

Presenter9:54

Past eleven plus

Suggs9:54

Past my eleven plus. They were still doing eleven plus in those days. Yeah, and went to the grammar school.

Presenter9:58

And what were your best subjects?

Suggs10:00

Um I was very keen on English actually, very keen on English. Mathematics I was not very good at. And and English was a subject that I uh had a keen interest on throughout, but not necessarily um

Suggs10:11

I didn't manage to get the academic qualifications I might have.

Presenter10:14

So you were in fact, you know, quite a nice tidy boy, then?

Suggs10:17

I was quite a nice tidy boy and um And what's that?

Presenter10:20

BAP

Suggs10:22

I sort of come full circle. I'm quite a nice tiny man to a certain extent. To a certain extent.

Presenter10:26

Suddenly he left Wales.

Suggs10:30

Yeah, we left Wales. I I left Wales, yeah, I went back to stay. My mum had kind of got a more settled situation going. I came back to London and I ended up in a comprehensive called Quinton Kiniston and it was a pretty that was a pretty rough school.

Suggs10:42

And it was all boys, and it was about a thousand all boys. It was so big you kind of you got ten minutes to get between classes and and it was in that ten minutes that you

Suggs10:50

You were make you a maid or you were broken. That's cool. You could actually get on if you really applied yourself, but I didn't really. And I I started hanging around with the wrong crowd and um

Presenter10:59

Stopped going, didn't you?

Suggs11:00

I stopped going in the end, yeah, stopped going.

Presenter11:02

Record number three.

Suggs11:04

This is um The Clash and London's Burning, which reminds me of that period a great deal. And it was a very exciting time. I was living above a carpet shop called Maples in Tottenham Court Road, and literally in walking distance was this club called The Roxy, and and it was right at the beginning of Punk Rock. I was probably about fifteen or sixteen.

Suggs11:23

And um it wasn't long before this band were in my uh consciousness, and uh this is called London's Burning.

Speaker 211:32

Now I'm in the subway and I'm looking for the friend

Speaker 211:35

This one least of this block, this one least of that Going down to the empty bomb, looking for a home I'm afraid of this dope, cause I'm all alone That's what I'm allowed now That's what I'm

Speaker 211:50

Ah! Uh

Speaker 311:51

Yeah. I'm just running this for now

Presenter11:58

The clash and London's burning. So you saw them down the the the Roxy Club, down the Tottenham Court Road. When did you get the feeling? Did you get it then? And you'd have been, what, sixteen or seventeen? Did you get that feeling? I could do that.

Suggs12:08

Well, certainly that's one thing that going to the Roxy showed me. Yeah, in fact I didn't actually see the Clash for all you people are gonna write in at the Roxy but I saw them around that time. But I used to go to the Roxy every week, yeah, and yeah, it was this idea that you didn't have to be a brilliant musician or singer to be able to get up on stage and have a go.

Presenter12:24

But you s you could create something, you could do something. I mean that that started to sort of rise.

Suggs12:28

Definitely, definitely. And certainly I think the seeds were sown then. And if not to be in a band, certainly that I could do something other than turn a lathe or um or go on the dole, which were the prospects at that particular moment in time.

Presenter12:43

Or clean second hand cars, which is what you did for the

Suggs12:46

Yeah.

Presenter12:47

That was an experience, wasn't it?

Suggs12:48

Yeah, I had a few odd jobs, yes. And in fact, right over the road from where I was living in Warren Street for years there were secondhand car dealers and I worked at one of them. And the particular job was that they put the cars out on the forecourt during the day and then they'd put them back in at night. But in the morning you'd have to teacut them, which was a a specific way of polishing in that you poured this very thick and very hard when it dried substance over the cars. You had to wait till it dried and then polish it off and it was rather like polishing off clay. And it would take you an hour and a half to do one car. And in fact the reason you did that was because it took a tiny layer of paint off so some of the scratches disappeared and made the coal even newer and newer. You can only do it to a certain point, obviously then it would become steel. But I'd have to do that every day, regardless of the weather.

Presenter13:31

What was it? I mean, obviously there were lots of guys like you around then forming bands, you know, playing sometimes here and then not playing and then going to the football or whatever. What marked out Madness as being different? What in the end made you successful?

Suggs13:47

I think that resonance of the fact that we were kind of real, whatever real means, in terms of what we were trying to portray, which was some kind of coming from the street thing, writing about everyday life.

Suggs13:56

But with some kind of theatrical imagination which I don't know, you know, came from well, I know it came from people like Ian Dury, but certainly we were part of some long line of London entertainment that was slightly b beyond our control. But I think also because we were funny and because we were quite good looking and because we were lively and we had a very nice naivety because we didn't really know what the music industry was. We were just doing it because we thought we were cool enough to be able to do it and we were better than other people, like most young bands do.

Presenter14:24

So you made a record. The Prince, it went to number sixteen in the charts. It was nineteen seventy nine. You were eighteen and you were on top of the pops.

Suggs14:31

Indeed, we're hey, yeah, yeah.

Suggs14:35

Yeah, it w it weighed very quickly, you know, from being from from having a a residency at a pub in in Camden Town to being on top of the pops came very, very quickly.

Presenter14:43

Tell me about record number four.

Suggs14:45

Well, record number four is Prince Buster, and that's who we wrote the song, The Prince About, our first hit. And this is a song called Al Capone, which is a very humorous song, and I think has a lot of why we were influenced by him. It's humorous, it's got a great rhythm, and it's up tempo. And in fact, rather ironically, the B side of this song was called One Step Beyond, which was actually our really big hit. And the A side, Al Capone, was covered by the Specials, who are our contemporaries, and they did a version of it called Gangsters, which was actually their first hit. So this 145 spawned the two great two-tone bands of all time.

Speaker 215:30

Alcohol guns don't argue.

Presenter15:50

Prince Usta and Al Capone. So you were launched, Suggs, Madness was launched, 1979, about the same time as Mrs. Thatcher, of course. She lasted a bit longer than you. Yes, yeah.

Suggs15:57

That's it.

Suggs15:59

How would you

Presenter16:01

How would you characterize those years, though? I mean, it was kind of 79 to 85, 86, wasn't it? Tell me what it was like.

Suggs16:06

Yeah.

Suggs16:08

Well, Philly, you should mention the Margaret Thatcher thing,'cause I've got an old handmade poster that I did. We we were doing a concert at the Hope and Anchor the night of the election actually, and it said, Cast your vote and come down to the Hope.

Suggs16:18

It was a sort of rhyme, I suppose. And the other funny thing about that Prince Buster song actually was the the A side was covered by the specials and they started all that two tone thing, which also was really part of that period of the of the wave that swept us along.

Presenter16:30

But you were more popular than them in the end, weren't you? Well, in the end, I think that's the only thing that's been in the middle of the

Suggs16:32

Well, in the end we kept going. Yeah, we kept going longer for sure. Yeah. But but they would certainly be part of that picture you you're asking me to paint because it was it was a really wild time and we we hadn't really been out of London. We went on tour with them. I I remember some of the early days and

Suggs16:46

You know, it was literally trombones sticking out the window. There were seven people in three different bands and it was really building momentum. As we were going, we were having to try and find bigger venues. There were stages collapsing, lighting rigs falling into the audience. And that really is how it goes on.

Presenter17:00

But you were having hits at the same time. I mean there's like twenty or more consecutive hits practically in the top twenty anyway.

Suggs17:02

Yeah.

Suggs17:04

Yeah, and you know, it's very fortunate because we'd been to see a lot of different record companies. We'd made one record for Tuto and then we decided we didn't want to be under their umbrella. And we met this guy called Dave Robinson, who had this label called Stiff, which also had Ian Jury on it and Elvis Costello, and other contemporaries we actually felt some affinity with.

Suggs17:22

And he also was a very energetic and enthusiastic man who just said, Well, we should just start making records and you should start now and that's really how it continued. We were making three records a year.

Suggs17:30

Doing at least two or three tours, one album, and all the accompanying videos and promotional television and radio work. So, really, I think we were working non-stop for three or four years.

Suggs17:42

You know, I know from my experience of other bands who were all breaking up and sort of having nervous breakdowns. The great advantage we had was that we were friends before the band started and I think that really um was the s the strength that carried us through some darker moments. But having said that, you know, we were at a certain age where you could stay up all night and keep going and do four concerts a day and make twelve records a minute and you know, had boundless energy. But

Suggs18:05

My main memory of it all was that we really had a lot of fun, and it was a huge amount of laughter.

Suggs18:12

you know, as people say to me, you know, to be able to go around the world with your best friends and a few of our uh other closer friends as well, so probably ten, eleven of us going around the world together.

Suggs18:22

was a tremendous sum.

Suggs18:24

Uh memory.

Presenter18:24

And on the the personal level you said that, you know, the best thing for you, the biggest high, was that sense of belonging, you know.

Suggs18:31

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter18:32

Which you kinda hadn't had, really.

Suggs18:34

Yeah, there was certainly a feeling that I was part of a family that maybe, yeah, I hadn't had, no, no. I think, um, a lot of the band actually came from one parent families.

Presenter18:42

Did you ever kind of talk about that, or talk about the fact that possibly what you were doing was influencing a whole generation? I mean, you're having this sort of chaotic time, as you say, with kind of trombones sticking out of the windows and, you know, falling asleep when you felt like it, and working very hard as well. But you were influencing a whole generation, really, weren't you? There were kids who were really hanging on to absolutely everything you did. Were you aware of that?

Suggs18:57

Yeah.

Suggs18:58

Yeah.

Suggs19:05

You're not really. I mean, at a certain point, you became aware of it. And in fact, around baggy trousers, I remember we were doing concerts, and suddenly there were thousands of school kids, but they couldn't get in because of the licensing laws. So I remember we had to.

Suggs19:16

Do a tour we did a matinee tour where we just played we played in the afternoon.

Suggs19:22

We we thought it'd be great to have cartoons in a magician, but of course these were very old young kids, so they'd all immediately boo and start throwing bottles at this poor magician. They just wanted to watch the rock band, that's why they were there.

Presenter19:31

Yeah. I just wanted to h

Suggs19:35

But now the other great thing about yeah, my memory of all that time was that, yeah, we did grow as people as well. We would talk about this. You know, you start off just as lads, and you don't really know how to talk about your emotions or your past or why you are like you are. But the great thing the great side effect of having been stuck together for so long

Suggs19:52

That in those quieter moments, you know, you got so close, you could actually start.

Suggs19:57

Sharing some of your vulnerability of of why you were the person that you were with people who could actually understand what you were talking about.

Presenter20:04

Number five.

Suggs20:06

Yeah, I meant to say about the clash earlier actually that it reminded me of meeting Anne, my my wife, and um that was when we were in our courting days.

Suggs20:12

And she played me an album by John Bechamin called Banana Blush, which is a fabulous album. And there's one track on it, which is this one, which is called On a Portrait of a Deaf Man. It's a very, very dark track. I hope it doesn't put you off your sausages. But it's about the death of his dad. His dad was deaf, and it's just a... it's just a soliloquy to his demise.

Speaker 220:37

The kind old face, the egg shaped head, The tie discreetly loud, The loosely fitting shooting clothes, A closely fitting shroud, He liked old city dining rooms, Potatoes in their skin

Speaker 220:54

But now his mouth is wide to let the London clay come in.

Presenter20:59

John Betchman there, accompanied by Jim Parker, reading his poem On a Portrait of a Deaf Man.

Presenter21:04

And then one day, Suggs, it was over. You broken away from your manager, you disastrously tried to run it yourself, your own record label, your own recording studio, and it all went bust.

Presenter21:16

Why? What ha why did you why did madness run out of life?

Suggs21:21

There was a combination of factors, but the main one really was that we were really tired. You know, that that uh energy I was talking about earlier eventually burns itself out. And after five, six, seven years

Suggs21:33

And we kind of made a rod for our own back because in all that enthusiasm and fun we'd had, people were expecting that enthusiasm and fun everywhere we went. It was rather like the circus come into town, you know Madda's here, great, we're going to have a party twenty four hours a day.

Suggs21:47

So literally we're going to like Italian television programmes and they go, Right, we've got your camel costumes and we've got the um nuns outfit away we go.

Suggs21:56

And our music had started changing, it had become a little more um a little more reflective and uh as as these things do.

Presenter22:04

Isn't isn't the truth of it really perhaps that, you know, the reason, as we said, that you were successful was'cause you were ordinary guys and of course after six or seven years at the top you weren't ordinary anymore.

Suggs22:11

Yeah.

Suggs22:13

Yeah, it's hard to be ordinary when you haven't been at home for a long time. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we had a a studio in the Caledonian Road and I do remember coming back after eight or nine months and feeling a bit alien in my own environment, yeah, which wasn't a pleasant feeling.

Presenter22:25

And for you it was all particularly harrowing because it did mean, you know, we mentioned that, you know, your high was belonging and all of a sudden you had nothing to belong to anymore. I mean, of course you were married, I know that but but but nevertheless, this whole business of the group and the guys was suddenly taken from underneath you.

Suggs22:31

And all of a sudden

Suggs22:35

Yeah.

Suggs22:40

Yeah, I mean I think that process had been kind of evolving, you know, and and we had stopped touring as quite as as wildly as we were,'cause I did want to spend more time, I was just having kids and stuff. And my family was becoming my family as a real and that maybe that was something that has to happen. That again was compounded by the fact I'd never thought of myself as a singer, so I was just a member of this group of guys and we'd grown up and made music together.

Presenter23:01

And without them you didn't exist and you wouldn't professionally.

Suggs23:03

No well, certainly. Professionally, certainly. And and it was a big shock emotionally as well. And I do remember again walking down the Caledonian road when we had decided it was all over and and actually feeling quite scared, yeah, of what the future held.

Presenter23:16

How low did you sing?

Suggs23:17

I wouldn't say I sank too far, but

Suggs23:20

I did go and see a therapist actually briefly.

Suggs23:24

And he was a very nice guy and quite helpful, and he ended up saying, You know, Mr. McPherson, we don't need any fancy theories, you're just a bit scared.

Suggs23:31

Which is great. And you know that again you could maybe put into this whole thing of not having had a father figure and stuff is that I just needed someone at some point to pat me on the shoulder and say it's all right.

Suggs23:41

Because sometimes you, um you can't discover that for yourself.

Presenter23:46

For number six.

Suggs23:46

Yeah.

Suggs23:47

Record number six is a is a record I think will be very useful on a desert island.

Suggs23:51

This is Peggy Lee and it's called Is That All There Is?

Suggs23:54

It's a very stoical song and it is about accepting things as they are and um Peggy Lee accepts some pretty crazy things.

Presenter24:02

Is then all there is?

Presenter24:06

If that's all there is more

Speaker 324:08

My friend.

Presenter24:10

Uh

Speaker 324:10

Then let's keep dancing.

Speaker 324:15

Uh

Speaker 224:15

Let's break out a boom.

Suggs24:18

Who then have a ball?

Suggs24:24

If that's all

Presenter24:27

Yeah.

Suggs24:29

Uh

Presenter24:29

There is

Presenter24:32

Peggy Lee and the Libranstolla song, Is That All There Is? Um there was more for you, Suggs. There has been, there is more for you. You've enjoyed a solo career since Madness um broke up. You made an album actually not long ago when you made several, but the the one I was thinking about was the Three Pyramids Club. Where did the inspiration for that come from?

Suggs24:50

You know, I've always had a fascination with London and um I decided to write an album y that was sort of semi-autobiographical and also maybe about some of the darker aspects of of London life. You know, the period of Francis Bacon and all those people in Soho when my mum was working down there and I in fact used to work in a butcher's and in Chapel Street Market and I used to deliver meat, you know, literally on the bicycle to some of those clubs and you'd see all these kind of faded old sort of grandees of

Suggs25:18

Of Soho Bohemia. And that was the kind of theme for the album, yeah.

Presenter25:22

The the Three Pyramids,'cause they always those clubs were kind of conjuring up the mysterious Far East or something, or Middle East.

Suggs25:28

There was nothing more mysterious than a capstan full strength and a glass of whiskey. No, there was it was it get you know, they would get the dancing girls with the plumes still on and a few old gangsters. But that's exactly right, yeah, there was a club called the Kismet Club, that's right, and I remember it had stars and moons cut out of the hardboard ceiling.

Presenter25:28

There's a

Suggs25:42

A navy blew up on ceiling.

Suggs25:45

As about exotic as it got.

Presenter25:46

And and every couple of years also, of course, through the nineties, Madness Reunited, Madstock occurred, played to packed audiences. And when was the last one you did?

Suggs25:52

Okay.

Suggs25:54

And women

Suggs25:56

I think it was two years ago, yeah.

Presenter25:57

Mm. And are there gonna be more? I mean, do you just go rolling like the stones on and on?

Suggs26:02

It seems that way. Yeah, we did one in nineteen ninety two and it it was a huge success. And yeah, I think we're going to do another tour this Christmas.

Suggs26:09

I think, you know, the other great thing is I I think they found that as well. That i if you have a half decent live performance, that's really at a premium at the moment. If there's some notion that you might get entertained as well as be played music to visually, which, you know, we can still manage to a greater or less extent.

Presenter26:25

And do you still enjoy it as much?

Suggs26:27

Yeah, it gets nicer and nicer because

Presenter26:27

Yeah.

Presenter26:28

And this is the original seven of you.

Suggs26:30

Yeah.

Presenter26:30

But doesn't surely one or more of you say, hey guys, why don't we go back to doing this full time?

Suggs26:36

Um every now and then, and then you know, at the other end of the spectrum, one of the guys will say, Hey, why don't we just knock this on the head?

Suggs26:42

It's like somewhere in the middle.

Presenter26:44

Which one are you?

Suggs26:44

Um, I'm I'm sort of in the middle, yeah. I didn't really want to do it again in the first place, because it just seemed that you can't rake over old coals, but you know, these old coals just won't uh turn to ashes.

Presenter26:56

That was very good.

Suggs26:56

That was very good. Yeah.

Presenter26:59

Uh Recognize them.

Suggs27:00

Very number seven, I've chosen this because I bought a house in Italy last summer, and the door's wide open, and you know, a bit of pasta on the go, bowl of tomatoes out on the table, and my family is happy as I've ever seen them. And it's a song by Van Morrison, and it includes.

Suggs27:17

A lot of kind of mystical stuff, but all wrapped up in a song about cleaning windows.

Speaker 227:22

Take my time, I'll see you when my love grows.

Speaker 227:29

Yeah.

Suggs27:29

Payment!

Speaker 227:30

Uh

Suggs27:30

So let's lie. I'm a working man in my prime.

Speaker 327:36

Are you then we go?

Speaker 327:39

Number thirty-six

Presenter27:40

Yeah.

Presenter27:52

Van Morrison and Cleaning Windows. What about your mum, Suggs? Have you been able to improve her quality of life over the years since you made it?

Suggs28:00

Yeah, I have a I have a good relationship with her and uh yeah, you know, improving the quality of her life. Um, hopefully, socially and, you know Materially? And tiny bit materially, yes, a little bit here and there, yeah, for sure.

Presenter28:02

Yeah.

Presenter28:08

No.

Speaker 228:08

Really?

Speaker 228:10

Yeah.

Suggs28:12

I mean, she's improved hers though as well. I mean, she's been fostering and she did a degree in psychology and she's kind of done a lot for herself.

Presenter28:20

I came across a great quote of yours about fathers. You said, Not having any kind of father figure makes you a lopsided person. But you say I've tried to prop up the lopsided leg with a folded beer mat.

Presenter28:32

Woo!

Presenter28:34

But it's true, I mean and you have, haven't you? And you've obviously you've come through from everything you said.

Suggs28:37

Trying to stop the wobbling, yeah. Trying to stop the wobbling.

Presenter28:40

Have you stopped the wumbling?

Suggs28:41

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I I really think I have, yeah. I mean, I've been very fortunate with Anne. My wife has been a very stable part of my life and the love of my life, you know, and still a very uh important p part of uh my everyday existence, you know. And my kids too, yeah.

Presenter28:53

I'm a

Presenter28:54

But there are and you've got two teenage girls, haven't you? But there are thousands and thousands of kids out there, many more than when you were young. You say y a lot of your mates didn't have a father figure. But we hear them these days mentioned time and again in connection with street crimes and so on. Have you any idea?

Presenter29:11

How they could be helped, or how they could help themselves, or is it just down to luck like you? And you know, if you're a lucky one, you come through and you come out of it.

Suggs29:18

I don't know, you know, because I I can only look at my own life. I mean

Suggs29:22

There's a kind of golden period, isn't there, just after the war when we all pull together. But does it require a Second World War for us all to pull together, or is it just a sort of a reasonably.

Suggs29:32

balanced situation that that it has always been is a question I ask myself.

Presenter29:36

You don't answer it, though.

Suggs29:37

Yeah.

Suggs29:40

Well, it depends. You know, if someone scratched the side of my car, then it's getting worse. If someone smiles at me in the street, then it's getting better.

Suggs29:48

Task record.

Suggs29:49

My last record is um it's Julie London, Crimea River, and um I've chosen this record because when we bought our first house, which was a little house in Camden Mews, it only had one piece of furniture. Anne very kindly bought me a dupe box, and on this dupe box I only had one record.

Suggs30:04

and the record was Crimea River. And I remember we had a party and um a friend of mine was supposed to be in charge of the bar, which consisted of a lot of cheap German white wine, which was in the bath, covered in ice. And he had the key to the bathroom door. Anyway, I I know what happened to him. He got drunk. He he says he doesn't. And he disappeared.

Suggs30:21

Uh with the key to the bathroom. So we had no drink and just one record on the jukebox.

Presenter30:25

And this was it.

Suggs30:26

This was it.

Presenter30:27

No.

Speaker 330:29

Oh yeah.

Speaker 330:30

Who say you're sorry?

Speaker 330:34

For being so untrue Well, you can cry me a river

Speaker 230:42

Uh

Speaker 230:44

Ever

Speaker 330:46

Crammy River.

Speaker 330:50

I cry the river.

Presenter30:53

Over

Speaker 330:53

For you.

Presenter30:57

Julie London and Crimea River. Now if you could only take one of those eight records, which one would you take, Suggs?

Suggs31:03

I would think it would have to be Is That All There Is? Yeah, by Peggy Lee, because

Suggs31:07

It's a perfect record for a desert island.

Presenter31:09

What about your book? You've got the complete works of Shakespeare, you've got the Bible. What would you like to take?

Suggs31:14

The book I'd like to take is it's a book of Italian verbs because I've been trying to learn Italian now for a year. It started off with a four-week intensive course at the Institute of Culture and it was it was really like being back at Quinton Kinnison. I was slowly going further and further to the back of the class with palpitations and cold sweats every time I was asked to come to the front and and and so I'd like to be able to leave this island speaking fluent Italian.

Presenter31:38

A new luxury.

Suggs31:39

Well actually I decided to take a nucleus of bees because I think it would be very nice to have honey.

Suggs31:44

Once I'd sneak them through the customs, in terms of them being a luxury, on the other side I'd be able to announce that in fact I'd be able to make candles obviously from the wax.

Suggs31:54

Royal jelly from the um the stuff they make for the Queen, which is actually very good for your skin. So when I was rescued.

Suggs32:00

My skin wouldn't have turned to parchment. And also Propolis they make, which is a um cure for colds and coughs. So if I could sneak them through the first bit.

Presenter32:09

I think you just did.

Suggs32:10

Yeah.

Presenter32:11

Graham McPherson, Suggs, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Suggs32:15

Thank you very much.

Speaker 332:31

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

Suggs33:12

Yeah.