John Cale

Speaker 20:00

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 four, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My castaway this week is a musician. Born and brought up in the conservative and protective atmosphere of a South Wales mining valley, he spent his life on a journey of escape and experiment. In the sixties he formed a band with Lou Reed called Velvet Underground, which despite its brief existence has had a huge influence on the development of popular music. He trained at Goldsmiths College London, won a scholarship to the prestigious Summer School at Tanglewood in Boston, and then took himself to New York, where he worked with Andy Warhol. He went on through the 70s and early 80s, fuelled by drink and drugs, writing and producing music and performing the odd sensational act such as chopping off the head of a chicken during a concert.

Presenter1:10

The last twenty years have been rather quieter. He's written a ballet, recorded a classical album, set poetry to music, and continued to experiment with his distinctive brand of rock. At the same time, he struggled to come to terms with his Welsh roots. I've never felt my environment was Welsh, he says, but in my mind it still has an effect. He is John Cale. What effect does it have then, this Welshness, John? Because after all, you've lived in New York probably twice as long as you lived in Wales, haven't you?

John Cale1:41

Just about. I I can't really put my finger on it. I just recognize it every time I cross the border. As long as I I go across that Seven Bridge and I go down into Shandailo or Kamarthan and and

John Cale1:53

The countryside, and it it definitely has an effect, and I don't know what it is, but.

John Cale1:58

The the language also has has a lot of resonance.

Presenter2:01

But the the implication of what I quoted you saying is that you would like to feel it still wasn't part of you, but you've not been able to deny it, and as I said in the introduction, you've always wanted to escape from it, haven't you?

John Cale2:14

Yeah, I tried hard.

John Cale2:17

And well, it was English and Welsh and I I learned a fear of the language. A fear of it. Yeah, I I I sort of discovered music which made things a lot easier to communicate with people. Didn't have to say anything, no verbs, no nouns.

Presenter2:24

The fear of it.

Presenter2:31

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 22:32

Uh

John Cale2:35

And you could really convey a lot of different things and a lot of different emotions with it.

Presenter2:40

So so music in the end became your lifeline. But but i it's interesting, isn't it, that that you kind of catapulted yourself out of it to America, and that was always what you intended, wasn't it?

John Cale2:53

Well, I would lie awake at night and and realize that somewhere in the world somebody was having a great time, or somebody was getting up at that point, instead of me lying there in bed in a rainy

John Cale3:02

Where's the village?

John Cale3:04

And I realized that New York was really a twenty-four hour society, and that's where I wanted to go.

Presenter3:08

But that is that's really what I'm trying to get to, is that you did catapult yourself. You arrived there by the mid sixties, in your early twenties you were. There you were, you know, playing in Andy Warhol's factory studio, absolutely where it was at. I mean, that must have been exhilarating.

John Cale3:26

Yeah, it was it was out of control. There was a small cultural revolution going on in New York.

Presenter3:31

And you were there?

John Cale3:32

Yeah, based around the Cinematec and and Andy's Factory and

John Cale3:36

It was just it was really comforting to have a place where all these crazy people with with some really brilliant ideas and a little out of control of themselves, but s a place, a center that they could really exist in and

John Cale3:49

And work and

John Cale3:51

And work was the ethic. It wasn't hanging around taking drugs, it was work.

Presenter3:56

And what was it like? Just give me a description of the factory.

John Cale3:59

It was it was just this uh huge floor where people had uh tins of paint all around. They were they'd be making silk screens on the floor. By the time we got there, the silkscreens were tapering off, the brilliant boxes were there, everybody sat on them. Um

Presenter4:14

The what box is

John Cale4:14

The brillo boxes that Andy had made as artwork, they were sort of the furniture.

Presenter4:14

Yeah.

John Cale4:19

Um

Presenter4:21

But this vast space I mean, it was an old fire station, wasn't it?

John Cale4:24

Yeah.

Presenter4:25

Covered in tin foil.

John Cale4:26

Painted silver, yeah, and covered in tin fire with people wandering in and out.

Presenter4:28

Yeah.

John Cale4:32

Tennessee Williams w uh coming in and uh a lot of different people. Bob Dylan. Anybody who came by had to sit for a for a screen test, as it was called.

John Cale4:43

And he was the only one who got up and walked off. Everybody else sat there for six minutes, but after about two, he said, That's it.

Presenter4:52

We better have your first record,'cause it's him, isn't it? Why do you want to take this one?

John Cale4:56

Well, everybody sort of was looking sideways at Bob because they were astonished at all his power that that was coming out of his lyrics. And we knew that Nico had just come down to uh to be a member of the band, and she used to hang out with Bob at in in Woodstock.

John Cale5:13

So when this song came along, everybody looked at each other and said, Wait a minute, this is about somebody we know.

Speaker 45:20

She's got everything she needs She's an artist, she don't look bad

Speaker 45:28

She's got everything she needs She's an artist, she don't look bad

Speaker 45:37

She can take the dark out of the nighttime and paint the daytime black.

Speaker 45:45

You will start outstanding, proud to steal her anything she said.

Presenter5:51

Bob Dylan and she belongs to me. She's got everything she needs. She's an artist. She don't look back. And you believe this was about Nico, who was your

Presenter5:58

Well, I say female vocalists, chanteurs, I keep seeing written around the place.

John Cale6:02

That's what was up on up on the Marquis.

Presenter6:05

That's not how the Americans said it was.

John Cale6:06

As Mary will say Chantus.

Presenter6:08

Chantous. So she was your Chantous. What did she look like?

John Cale6:11

Oh, s um, stunning. She was six foot tall, blond hair, long blonde hair, in a white suit. Yeah, and totally imposing. Kind of an iceberg.

Speaker 46:19

Hmm.

John Cale6:20

And so immediately Lou falls in love and and writes these beautiful songs for her. And he realized at that point that Andy had this eye and an ear for publicity and exactly how what ingredient to add to

Presenter6:33

Yeah.

John Cale6:34

To the mix.

Presenter6:35

It's exactly. It's that pushing together, that bringing together of different talents and different disciplines and somehow

Presenter6:42

something completely different and unexpected is created.

Speaker 46:44

Yeah.

Presenter6:46

And indeed your sound itself was very distinctive. I mean, I don't know if you can describe a sound, but for people who'd

Presenter6:53

Wouldn't know instinctively what Velvet Underground sounded like. How would you put it into words?

John Cale6:57

Painful.

John Cale7:01

It was it was a I mean, an amplified viola will clear a room faster than than a stink bomb.

Presenter7:08

Wh which was the object of the exercise, wasn't it? Well, to alienate.

John Cale7:10

Yeah.

John Cale7:11

Yeah, definitely. It was to really throw people back on themselves, make them think.

Speaker 27:12

It was to

Presenter7:16

But but did you have people run screaming from the room?

John Cale7:19

No, we didn't. We had Walter Cronkert and Jackie Kennedy come and dance to the music.

John Cale7:25

It was very strange. I mean we turned our backs on everybody and turned up as loud as possible.

John Cale7:31

By today's standards, it's really.

John Cale7:34

Minute is really small.

Presenter7:34

Yeah.

Presenter7:35

But it was quite incredibly avant-garde at the time, which is where it had begun because you'd studied with Lamont Young and you you'd I think learned about this drone sound, which again is part of the it does characterize your sound, as is this ongoing

John Cale7:47

That's characteristic.

Presenter7:50

Can I say monotonous? Yeah.

John Cale7:52

Yeah.

Speaker 47:52

Uh

John Cale7:52

You can.

Presenter7:54

How did you do it? What did you do? I mean, you play the viola. What did you do to the viola to make it sound so monotonous?

John Cale8:00

Well, we amplified it, and people didn't use amplification of yours. They usually did it on guitars, and they were listed on guitars, and guitars.

John Cale8:08

Improved from amplification. Violas didn't necessarily improve, they just made a really ear-shattering noise. But we persuaded ourselves that we could do what Phil Spector was doing by putting this tapestry of sound, of landscape, behind a very ordinary chords, and then you'd have maybe something a little more symphonic that would be closer to what Phil was doing with the River Deep Mountain High and Just Once in Your Life.

Presenter8:37

So it wasn't just any old alienating sound, obviously. There was a lot of thought gone into this. And indeed, I mean, in that 18 months at Tanglewood, you'd taken lessons, hadn't you, from the lead viola player of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. I mean, a very conventional thing to do, and yet ultimately what was going to come out at the other end was so unconventional. How can I mean, can you explain that? Or is it just a fact?

John Cale9:01

What you're describing is somebody who's a little bit lost, trying to find their way in a maze of different musical opportunities that are around, and choosing the one most difficult to achieve, which is the avant-garde, which really finally just burnt itself out.

John Cale9:21

And I realized that.

John Cale9:24

I really wo had wanted to be in a rock and roll band since I was fourteen, since I had a jazz band in in Amundford and and Lou

Speaker 29:24

Really well

John Cale9:31

had this ability if I could improvise on the viola or any other instrument, Lou could improvise with words in really expert fashion. It was always interesting the way it came out, because he was a poet at heart.

Presenter9:43

And you could not go to your desert island without a bit of it, eh?

John Cale9:46

I th yeah, this I I chose this track because Sterling always talked to me about this song as being one of the better of Lour's lyrical efforts and and it was interesting to hear him talk, as he he was a PhD in Middle English and and his approach to lyrics was always a little skewed. But I I listened to him about this and it's there's a certain nondescript quality to these lyrics that's very affecting.

Speaker 410:15

Put on your big boot controls and find out

Speaker 410:19

La Talat

Presenter10:39

Velvet Underground and Some Kinder Love, and my Castway John Cale on the piano in the background. The piano to which you were put by your mother, aged seven, back in the Ammond Valley, John. She was quite a driving force, wasn't she?

John Cale10:54

Yeah, she was great. She's she's originally a a a teacher. She sort of brought me up on the piano uh first of all and then turned me over to another teacher. It was kind of a sheltered life. I mean, I wanted to be out there playing.

John Cale11:08

Playing soccer, but

Presenter11:09

But your mother wasn't having that. You've said that you were her project.

John Cale11:13

I think so. And I d I think she did all right. I mean, she always t I always learned from her about bringing things out of people and letting people lead you to where they want to go. And that

Presenter11:24

Hmm.

John Cale11:26

That's always been that that's why I I enjoy collaborations, I think, so much.

Presenter11:29

So there's a seed of the kind of experimentation that you went into that.

John Cale11:31

We should know that you

Presenter11:33

But it's not how she treated you, is it? I mean, you had to do exactly as you were told.

John Cale11:37

Well, she's a strict mother. I mean, yeah, I I I benefited from that.

Presenter11:40

Uh

Speaker 211:40

Yeah

Presenter11:42

Yeah, but you said you d you know, you weren't allowed out.

John Cale11:43

You know better.

John Cale11:44

I'll shout at life, yeah.

Presenter11:46

That's a nice way of putting it. I mean, it was a difficult set up, wasn't it? Because you you lived with your grandparents, her parents, um, uh and your father. Um

Presenter11:57

But in a w in a sense there seems to have been a suggestion that your mother had married beneath herself,'cause she married a minor.

John Cale12:03

It seemed that way. I didn't learn this until about a year and a half ago, when I met my my father's side of the family and

John Cale12:09

They sort of remarked how um

John Cale12:13

My mother had said to them at Dad's funeral that my grandmother made it very difficult for him when he first came to live there because she banned the use of English. She was English, she was uneducated. So it must I mean, I rationalized that it must have seen having driven my uncles into into education and they'd come out of the coal mines and and really pursued it, that there was a determined grandmother. This is b being this is all very human behaviour. You know, you drive your children to better life. So having done that with all the brothers and then for her only daughter to really marry into uh uh an uneducated coal mine who was not

Speaker 412:39

Hmm.

John Cale12:52

Not even a Welsh speaker.

John Cale12:54

And she banned the use of English. What my grandmother did was just

Speaker 212:54

And you

Speaker 212:55

Hmm.

John Cale12:58

Me my made me feel very uncomfortable about my position in the house and it just in the end I just thought somebody was trying to do my head and I g I I had to get out. So it really what it did for me was it gave me the determination to get out and do something.

Presenter13:10

Yeah.

John Cale13:11

Well, my mother was telling me you'd better be a doctor and a lawyer.

John Cale13:14

You know, no, no, I'm gonna be a composer.

Presenter13:16

So as w you said earlier, music was therefore your escape. But describe to me that room then that you escaped to at that point as a small boy. What was it like? Were you lying on the bed there?

John Cale13:27

I mean it was it was where the hot water boiler was. It was in my bedroom and it was it was cosy and it had floral wallpaper and it was somewhere that I could go at night and

John Cale13:38

And just lie there and stare at the walls.

Presenter13:41

Hence the next record, ma'am.

John Cale13:43

Yeah, this is Brian's version of of how protective he found his room in his upbringing.

Presenter13:50

Beach Boy Brown

John Cale13:52

Beachbond Brymosonia.

Speaker 413:55

Stark in light of

Speaker 414:00

But I won't be another friend.

Speaker 414:06

Be my

Presenter14:20

That was the Beach Boys in my room and memories. Well, it just conjures up that whole image, doesn't it, of lying in your room with listening to this radio endlessly through the night. What kind of radio w was it? What did it look like?

John Cale14:32

My uncle brought me the radio and put the turntable in the top.

Presenter14:36

Oh it was a radio rare.

John Cale14:36

The radiogram. Yeah. That's right, the radiogram.

John Cale14:41

Nice cabinet work.

Presenter14:44

And you were all over the dial, you said, from Voice of America to, I think, quite a lot on the third programme.

John Cale14:50

Quite a well, all the music that I could find a third program. Webern, Stockhausen.

John Cale14:56

And

John Cale14:57

Maybe some ligatti.

Presenter14:59

Schoenberg, perhaps.

John Cale15:00

Same value.

Presenter15:00

But you were composing then, weren't you? Even I mean, you're obviously quite a prodigious talent. As a small boy, didn't didn't you get something recorded by the B B C?

John Cale15:08

Yes, I did. Well, there was a a van that came around that visited all the local schools. And I gave them the score of this piece. It was a taccata in the in the style of Kachaturian. And then they came back and they said, Do we like the piece? Would you play it for us? And I said, Certainly, bring me bring me the score and I'll play it. They said, Whoops We've lost the score. Well, I had to improvise. I didn't remember the second half of it, but it you know, it it's one of those things that you have to when you're forced to express yourself and really finish something and make an elegant put a dot at the end, cuss you tease, then um

John Cale15:43

I just came out so

John Cale15:45

breathing heavily and saying it couldn't be that easy.

Presenter15:48

And you played the organ in in Ammonford Church. I mean you obviously into into the kind of liturgical music as well. So lots of influences, really, from all sides, and you were taking it all in, sucking it all in, it seems.

John Cale16:02

Well, it was there. I mean, the local library was was fantastic. I could get anything I wanted. I I'd g if I wanted a piece of new music, I'd just fill out a form at the local library and they'd send off to Malibu Public Library and they would get it. It was like having presents every week.

Presenter16:18

So you knew what turned you on. There was no doubt about that. Your mother was not going to win, was she, wanting you to be a doctor or a li lawyer. You were always going to be a musician of some kind.

Speaker 416:22

Dear Dr. Laura

Speaker 416:26

Yeah.

Presenter16:27

She, though, also I think quite early on in your life, I think were you about eleven when she was ill, she had breast cancer, didn't she? How how did that affect you?

John Cale16:34

And

John Cale16:36

Well the worst part of it was that there was no explanation. It's just one day your mother's gotta go away, um g and uh

John Cale16:47

And she'll be back in a little while or whatever. So it was it was really pulling the rug. Yeah, and um my grandmother did make it clear to me that she thought that it was because I was born that this had happened and that, you know, that, you know

Presenter16:59

So you felt it was your fault?

John Cale17:02

I didn't understand it.

John Cale17:05

I beat myself up about it for a while.

John Cale17:09

Yeah, my father took me up to see her in Swansea Hospital, in in an isolation hospital, which was the old workers' prison, I think it was, with the bars and the windows and like twenty foot walls with glass over the top. And and lifting you up and yet and your mother trying waving at you from the window. That was uh

Presenter17:29

Tough.

John Cale17:29

Well, I remember that.

Presenter17:31

Let's pause for record number four. What is it?

John Cale17:33

This is uh the Beatles song that I I remember when we were um putting the band together in in in New York that

John Cale17:41

This was one of the darker songs, um, I Know What It's Like to Be Dead, and it surprised me because it really I I think is more of a Lennon-esque than a than a McCartney um frame of mind.

Speaker 417:58

I know what it's like to be dead

Speaker 418:03

I know what it is to be sad.

Speaker 418:08

And she's making me feel like I'm never belonging.

Speaker 418:17

Can I say?

Speaker 418:20

And put all those things in your

Presenter18:24

The Beatles and She Said She Said from the Revolver LP. So um off you went, John Cale, in the end, to Goldsmiths' College, London, where you were going to study music. You were apparently labelled by the heads of department the most hateful student. Well, I mean, what did you do to earn that tag?

John Cale18:41

Well, I d I didn't do what I should have been doing. I mean, I should have been writing a a treatise on Anton Weber, Nielsen Symphonies, and um history of the Polyphonic Mass. I did the Polyphonic Mass, but I didn't do any of any of the others. And by that time, they'd really they'd really bent over backwards. It was just an amazing

Speaker 218:58

Really?

John Cale19:02

facility to have, to be in London, studying composition with Humphry Searle, studying viola with Gwyn Edwards at the Raw Academy, just pretty much anything I wanted to learn. It was just astounding.

Presenter19:15

But then why would they find you hateful? I mean, i i i i if they understood that you were wanting to pick up everything you could and to self express.

John Cale19:17

Yeah.

John Cale19:24

Yeah.

John Cale19:25

I'd wandered off the reservation. I'd gone into John Cage and

John Cale19:30

You know, avant-garde music, which which was like screaming at a potted plant until it dies, you know.

John Cale19:36

In academia there's got to be some kind of structure within which something falls. You cannot just like

John Cale19:43

You know, fry an egg on a sidewalk. You've gotta put it in the pan and do it properly.

Presenter19:49

So it was just a clash. You shocked them, didn't you, in your exam presentations? You did things that they'd never seen before.

John Cale19:55

Yeah, I I tried hard.

Presenter19:58

And as it turned out, it was a blessing for none other than Aaron Copeland and John Cage and all these people, because he actually came by you saw him in London and he got you the scholarship to Tanglewood, didn't he?

John Cale20:08

Yeah, Copeland was the uh uh Bernstein sort of backed the program and Copeland did the did the uh travel and and

John Cale20:17

went from country to country s uh visiting uh conservatoires and and music s colleges and so you drink

Presenter20:24

So you you'd you'd written to him and and and and he said, Come and see me, I'm coming to London, come and see me.

John Cale20:26

And

John Cale20:29

Yeah. Basically the I think what I said was that, you know, whether I get the scholarship or not, I'm coming to America.

Presenter20:37

And then when you got there you were to meet a twenty two year old songwriter called Lou Reed and your life was to change again even more dramatically. And we'll talk about it in a minute. But tell me about record number five.

John Cale20:49

This is a song by um one of my favorite bands, Albo, and this is kind of about Teenage Angst and switching off.

Speaker 421:00

Blast to the men in hats hopes of the corn

Speaker 421:09

And the final scene.

Speaker 421:13

Oh fall.

Speaker 421:16

Inside

Speaker 421:19

Deep in the rain of sparks behind

Presenter21:22

Miss Brown

Presenter21:26

was elbow and switching off. Why do you think, John Cale, that you and Lou Reed hit it off as a couple of twenty two year olds when you met? What did you have in common?

John Cale21:37

I think we had a lot to learn from each other.

John Cale21:40

Lou taught me a lot about New York street life, how to handle yourself in on the streets of New York.

John Cale21:48

And I think Lou was very surprised that, you know, when I first met him, he was in a fragile frame of mind. And.

John Cale21:58

At the same time you see that there's this poetic sensibility there.

John Cale22:02

with tremendous talent, but in terms of music it was awesome that somebody could just sit down and write a song about practically anything that you you talked to him about. It it seemed to me to be able to open doors to a lot of interesting material.

Presenter22:18

But there is a one terrible statement that you both made together. This is it. We thought doing evil was better than doing nothing.

Presenter22:26

Where did that come from? Was it simply you just wanted to shock?

John Cale22:30

Yeah, a lot of it. Yeah, I'm sure. But at the same time, I think it was also something to a proposal that, you know, uh doing it was better than doing nothing, discuss right cogently on the following.

Presenter22:42

But that's what you had in common, wasn't it? There was a kind of obsession with shocking, wasn't there?

John Cale22:44

It was a cup.

John Cale22:47

It it was really t

John Cale22:49

Showing people the dark corners, yes, definitely.

Presenter22:53

And then there were the drugs, because as he got into all kinds of drugs, and he he introduced you, didn't he, to a whole panoply of drugs that you didn't know existed.

John Cale23:02

No. I I I think I knew about them before I met him, but I

John Cale23:07

I didn't actively pursue them as much. I mean, working with Lamont was was.

John Cale23:12

was quite an experience, too.

Presenter23:14

But could you have done it without the drugs?

John Cale23:16

Absolutely.

Presenter23:17

Yeah.

Presenter23:18

How would you know?

John Cale23:20

Well, I mean, I'm I'm I'm just saying that I think you're looking at two determined people who really would have found one way or another of doing it.

Presenter23:27

And you really d I mean, you got on so well. He said, you know, as well as well, you both said pretty nasty things about each other over time, but you he's also said some very nice things about you, and I'm sure you have about him. He said, let me give you a quote, you know, music ran out of you like water down a mountain. I mean, he loved playing with you. Why was it then that the whole

Presenter23:48

relationship was so short lived. I mean, you've just been poisoned to each other, haven't you?

John Cale23:53

I d I don't there are certain things that Lou just can't help. And I mean, with I understand what is going on and I'm I'm I'm not going to hold it against him. So um I'm glad that a poet has survived.

Presenter24:12

Record number six.

John Cale24:14

This is uh a Leonard Cohn song, and when I heard it, I thought it was about a a

John Cale24:20

Maybe that Leonard had a daughter that he he'd lost. It was very sad. But then I read an interview with him where he he he described how he got to the subject matter, which is such a circuitous route, but also the the route of a poet.

John Cale24:35

of the of the song really being about Antony Trepatra and how when the musicians are in the street Antony must leave the city and not weep about it, just go to the window, stand there, realize what the city has done for him and say goodbye.

Speaker 424:49

Suddenly the night has grown colder.

Speaker 424:58

God don't know

Speaker 425:01

Preparing to depart.

Speaker 425:06

Alexandra hoisted on his shoulder.

Speaker 425:14

They slept between.

Speaker 425:17

The century is at the

Presenter25:19

Leonard Cohen and Alexandra leaving and a message there that um when the time comes to leave something you should just walk away and not make a big deal about it. You walked away from the Velvets.

Speaker 425:28

Yeah.

Presenter25:29

Um you did so much else after that. I mean you produced an an album, didn't you? Uh for Nico and then you did Iggy Pop and Patty Smith and so on. You did solo albums of your own.

Presenter25:40

Established your onstage persona. During that time, I just have to ask you quickly, because I mentioned it in the introduction, there is this notorious chopping off of the chicken's head onstage and chucking the entrails into the audience. I mean

Presenter25:53

You'll never live that one down, will you?

John Cale25:55

In the in the period that that happened, it was the pun there's a punk period, with all the chains and all of that, I thought, well, let's see what they think of this. And then and um here's a different kind of pims or whatever.

Presenter26:09

It wasn't live, was it, the chicken?

John Cale26:12

It was when I brought it from Oxford.

Presenter26:15

At what point did it meet its death?

John Cale26:17

Shortly before I went onstage, I just snapped his neck. Okay.

John Cale26:23

Everybody was was sh was appalled. I mean, the people in the audience just were, you know, they ran away. I thought it was interesting.

Presenter26:23

Young birds.

Presenter26:31

Did your parents ever come and see you perform?

John Cale26:34

They they came to Paris actually. They saw me perform with uh Patty, uh Patty Smith and I did a a Fet de Rouge in a pavilion in Paris and they I I brought them over for the show. It was great.

Speaker 226:47

Uh

Presenter26:47

Shulp?

John Cale26:48

No, not at all. I I tried lots of ways to shock them, but it it didn't work. They they ju they knew pretty much what what the rock and roll show was about. I mean, I wasn't doing any shenanigans on stage and that had already passed and and they stood right off stage behind the amps, so they had they had an earforce back there.

Presenter27:07

You suggest you were trying to shock her.

John Cale27:09

What I mean is that everybody tries once in a while to nudge.

Presenter27:12

Yeah.

John Cale27:13

So, you know, write home and say, Hi, Mom, this is my first letter on LSD. You know, it's like.

John Cale27:19

He'll do that once, but you know your mother would scratch her head and say, What's LST?

Speaker 227:21

Mm

Presenter27:24

Was she unshockable?

John Cale27:26

I would think yeah, pretty much.

John Cale27:28

Pretty much.

Presenter27:29

The drink and the drugs got you in a pretty poor state for some time, didn't they? But, um, in the end, having got very out of hand

Presenter27:37

You stopped, you kicked it.

Presenter27:40

What made that happen? What was the catalyst?

John Cale27:43

No, I my my daughter was born and I realized that I was gonna miss out on really some great times if I didn't clear my head. And I was I was starting to lose my sense of humor as well. I just wasn't having fun.

Presenter27:55

So did you just stop overnight? Was that?

John Cale27:56

I just stopped overnight, yeah.

Presenter27:58

Took up squash?

John Cale28:00

Yeah, I mean, you know, you just say, Okay, I'm gonna do the most difficult sport I can find.

John Cale28:05

Them was taxing, and I did.

Presenter28:07

But that's incredible self discipline. You know, you suddenly one day say, That's it.

Presenter28:12

I'm done.

John Cale28:14

It's a determination to really

John Cale28:16

See some other part of life that that you've

John Cale28:19

Ignored.

Presenter28:21

And you've been seeing that for what about eighteen years? What's it like? How's it compare?

John Cale28:23

Yeah.

John Cale28:24

How's it compare? Well, I don't know. Most fathers, they're really energized by their daughter.

Presenter28:31

Let's have some more music. What's this one, number seven?

John Cale28:34

Uh this is John Taverner's Song of Athene.

John Cale28:37

But I just realized that when I listen to cathedral music, I'm really not so much listening to the music as I'm listening to the building.

John Cale28:44

And uh I love this piece.

Speaker 428:51

Holy God.

Presenter29:39

John Tavener's Song of Athene from the recording of the funeral of the Princess of Wales in Westminster Abbey in September, nineteen ninety seven.

Presenter29:47

So you've made that journey, John Cale, from your Welsh language and nationalism and genetics and all those things that give you the horrors, to this kind of roller coaster existence in the States. But the roller coaster's slowed down now and you can focus more, as we've been discussing. I mean, is this a journey that you would willingly take again?

John Cale30:09

Oh, I d I d I don't think I want to make the same mistakes I've done before. I you know I think I I try and work a little faster. I think I try and get to I mean, I'm interested in writing literature and and different things now. And I've writt doing of taking a lot of the techniques that I've learnt in music and whatever and applying it to literature and and I spent so much time reading books and getting getting captured by somebody else's imagination. It's just

John Cale30:40

It's really in in the language, and it's

Presenter30:43

But there's also part of you that's talked about um

Presenter30:47

Feeling like a bit of a traitor to Wales.

John Cale30:50

I don't feel good about it. I don't feel good that I have to do it.

Presenter30:50

I don't feel good about

Presenter30:52

So why not? I mean, an awful lot of people of your kind of generation, you know, moved on and up and out of, you know, th the small towns and villages that they were born of. Why why do you have such a sense of guilt? Because you did that.

John Cale31:04

No, I

Presenter31:06

Well, I

John Cale31:06

Well, I d I just I think it's a side of me that I've ignored. I mean I've no you I mean I think you're you're dead right. I mean I think I'm at the point where I where I'm saying

Presenter31:10

Bye.

John Cale31:16

Forget it You don't have to deal with it.

Presenter31:18

What about surviving on a desert island? Got the energy for lashes.

John Cale31:21

Can I use an expressing machine?

Presenter31:23

I was hoping.

Presenter31:24

I'll come to your luxury. I want to know how you're going to cope mentally on a desert island. I mean, I'm just worried that it might be a dangerous business for the likes of you. You know, you're going to get pretty introverted.

John Cale31:36

Nothing well, I I'm gonna have a tree, I assume, it's one of those sort of typical desert islands with walking in circles.

John Cale31:45

Making a cup of espresso and that's that's it.

Presenter31:48

You can do that.

John Cale31:49

No, but I don't think anybody can do that, but I

Presenter31:53

Tell me about your last record.

John Cale31:55

This is uh Peter Gabriel, Here Comes the Flood. It just got really interesting to me how to try and figure out how this song was written. I think maybe the piano was done first and then the vocal was done, but the l the link between the two is really tenuous. It's an amorphous sort of mood that you're in, but it but it's very beautiful and uh very calming.

Speaker 432:16

Night shows the signals grow.

Speaker 432:24

All the strange things they come among

Speaker 432:29

So

Speaker 432:31

Stranded starfish have no place to hide.

Speaker 432:38

Still waiting for the swollen Easter t

Presenter32:43

Uh

Presenter32:46

Peter Gabriel and Here Comes the Flood. Now, John, if you could only take one of those eight records, which one would you take?

John Cale32:53

I think I take the ball, Dylan.

Presenter32:56

She belongs to me.

John Cale32:58

Yeah, I think so.

Presenter32:59

Memory Nico too, hmm.

John Cale33:01

No, it it's it's more of of Bob and and Kai the but

John Cale33:06

Rusty voice of his, it's really there's a lot of character in it.

Presenter33:10

What about your book? We give you, I think you know this, the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare.

John Cale33:15

There's a n there's a new novel by uh Alan Rob Grie called Repetition. That is one of those books that you can just read a page over and over and over. And it's it's just endless. I mean, it's just you you read something else in it every time you hear.

Presenter33:33

And your luxury is this espresso machine, yeah.

John Cale33:35

It's an espresso machine, yeah. And beans. And a grinder. And a grinder.

Presenter33:38

And beans are good with a baby. And a grinder. And a grinder. And an everything.

Presenter33:44

John Cale, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

John Cale33:47

My pleasure.

Speaker 233:55

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