Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Rock star and cultural icon, best known as the frontman of The Smiths and for his lyrics and style that defined eighties pop.
On the island
Eight records
ShowdownFavourite
I've prattled on and rattled on for years and years and years about the New York Dolls, and here's one of their tracks from nineteen seventy four. I think they changed everything, and I'm very grateful.
I sang the disc that you're about to play now, which was quite perverted of me if you listen to the lyrics. But I was six, which is no excuse.
And listening to Lou Reed as a part of The Velvet Underground, we are really listening to the WH Orton of the Modern World. Once again not existing in print poetry, but in recorded noise, and this is the Black Angel's Death Song.
The next disc is by Klaus Nomi, and it's called a Nisbaum.
is Nico and it's her her very first single from I think 1965. called I'm Not Saint.
Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell
Do you know your pretty face is going to hell?
this is Mot the Hubble from nineteen seventy two, a track which um made me feel quite charged and quite emotional and quite sad, and still does in its own way. It's called Sea Diver.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:05Do you mean you don't exist anywhere else in life apart from the moment that you're on the stage performing?
No, I mean geographically. I don't exist anywhere else. I can be found in yellow pages, but but nowhere else.
Presenter asks
3:11What is it that moves you then? What are the things that you feel profoundly touched by?
I feel profoundly touched by people's uh sadness, really. Quite frankly, that's the thing I most see in other people.
Presenter asks
6:33What was your first moment of singing to an audience?
Perhaps I was ten. And fat. In a council house. Uh it's embarrassing and I would never really say this apart from the fact that we're on national radio and I don't have much choice, but I I would s I would stand on the table and sing. Yeah.
Presenter asks
9:45The keepsakes
The luxury
I would [take] the bed, I think, because the going to bed is the highlight of everybody's day. I like to be hidden and I like to sink. And I think we all love to go to bed and we love to go to sleep. It's the brother of death. It means we can just switch our brains off when we go to bed and forget about ourselves, hopefully.
What was it you saw [in normality] that so repelled you?
I think if it was fear above anything else, of uh normality. I just didn't want the norm. In any way. And I didn't get it. And I'm very glad. I'm very, very glad indeed.
Presenter asks
12:09Why didn't you go to university?
I was working class. We had no money. We lived in central Manchester in the late sixties, early seventies when I when I went to school and it was a it was a very barren time. Things didn't begin for me until I left school. Then I b began to become educated.
Presenter asks
22:00What sort of father was he when you were little?
He was quite happy and um very good looking and out there enjoying life and very athletic and uh so therefore when I hit my teens and I was very interested in things like the New York dolls, he thought I was uh a bit of a lunatic. So that was the great s separating point.
“I think I see see the poetry in everything. And I see that there's sadness in everything and I take that and I carry it with me and that's quite difficult.”
“Nothing comforts me at all. I think the world is a mesmerizing mess. I think human beings are mesmerizing messes.”
“I'm fascinated by the brevity of life and how people use their time. Because we all know the axe will fall.”
“I think self-destruction is honourable. I always thought it was. It's an act of great control.”