I remember when I used to see a bee and go, YIKES a bee! And now I'm all, Oh wow a bee, hi! You ok there? Need anything? Can I get you a drink? A cushion? Wanna borrow the car?
I think what's so hateful about that Guardian Sinead obit is the way it frames her whole life in negatives - "she lacked the obsessive drive needed…never had another hit…inability to edit her pronouncements...constitutionally unable to compromise…" Talk about removing agency😡
Literally the nightmare isn't it, having your song used as campaign music by your enemies. I will stick to my lifelong policy of never writing uplifting bangers, while extending nothing but solidarity to those who write uplifting bangers.
Walking back from the tube at night here there's one brief dark/creepy bit, past the churchyard. As I approached it just now I could see and hear a group of lads hanging out. Music playing. Got closer. It was "Yes Sir I Can Boogie" and reader, in that moment, I was not afraid 😍
Thanks for all the tattoo love. Those who joined in to tell me that tattoos are bad and I have done a silly thing, well you also made my day by reminding me what it would be like if my mother was still alive.
A 55 year old wife and mother. God the more I think about it the crosser I'm getting. 55 year old husband and father. I'm trying to imagine it as a description in an album review. Nope. Can't do it.
here, I've fixed it for you - "She was free of the obsessive desire to have hits at any cost...she saw no need to edit herself for public consumption...she stuck to her guns when powerful forces tried to make her compromise..."
Daughter moved into new flat in Finsbury Park. Went to visit her. Thought the street name rang a bell. Checked when I got home and it turns out my dear departed Dad was born in a flat in the same street, nearly 100 years ago. Tiny tiny little world.
I'm going to be a bore and post about social distancing, and just remind you that it's not about protecting yourself, it's about protecting others. Imagine you're infected and you're trying not to infect someone else. Someone vulnerable. Who you love.
The wonderful Tracey Thorn and Everything but the Girl on top of pops, what an album walking wounded was, still have the cassette album
@tracey_thorn
#totp
@philAllottPFCC
This isn't about sensitivity, or hurt feelings. Women are angry because we feel that people in power still do not understand how impossible it would be for a lone woman, at night, to refuse arrest by a genuine police officer.
I can hear
@ben_watt
in the other room playing the piano and it's a relief cos the last 10 days have been hard. A bad night in A&E and a delayed diagnosis & a few days in hospital to sort things out & he is finally home and on the mend. ❤️
The current tweets from
@RevRichardColes
are extraordinary and wonderful - honesty, flashes of wit, and searing insight into the sometimes banal realities of what he is going through. Huge love and respect to him.
People suggesting Ben and I might write some songs together during lockdown, but I worry about subject matter. Earlier we had a half hour conversation about whether or not to have a baked potato.
Finally it’s release day! My love and thanks as ever to
@ben_watt
for the music, the ideas, the programming, the lyrics - this was a true collaboration and I’m so grateful xx
We moved to Camden in 1984 as soon as we left university. And here we are - nearly 40 years later - outside Camden Road Overground yesterday celebrating the release of 'Fuse'. Loving the reaction from everyone. Got yours yet?
I have avoided Banshees of Inisherin because it sounded so BLEAK, but I just watched and maybe my sense of humour is v dark but I found a lot of it funny, and the rest of it moving. Tragedy played as comedy. Mad & extraordinary. (You all know this obvs having watched already).
Merry Christmas from my family in the mid-60s. The child at the front, who seems to be on the brink of tears, will one day write a Christmas song called Joy, but she isn’t quite there yet 😍🎄
I love these evenings out with my 20-something kids where we have a few drinks and they tell me all the stuff I didn't know from when they were teens and I tell them about how I kind of knew but didn't care, and then we laugh about how it all seemed important and now seems funny.
Ok, nearly there now! Really excited to tell you that the new Everything But The Girl single is out tomorrow - it's called "Nothing Left To Lose" and you can hear it for the first time on
@laurenlaverne
's show on
@BBC6Music
- listen in from 8.30am GMT 😍🔥🍾
Ben and I recorded the new album last summer in a little studio on the banks of the river Avon. Here we are on a break on a sunny June day. Not long now, album out next week! 💥
@philAllottPFCC
We are shocked and frightened. And in this awful moment we are being told stupid things like "run away", or "wave down a bus" or "refuse to submit". It is infuriating.
Went out, had some drinks, lying in bed now listening to an owl. Am very tired. Fucking hell though, what a day, you're all lovely. Had some drinks did I mention it. ❤️
What a day - have tested Covid negative, and then THIS in The Guardian - thanks to Alexis Petridis for a great interview, in which we talk about the new album, how it came to be made, and what it means to us - it means A LOT ❤️
Today 'Fuse' entered the UK Album Chart at No 3. We are thrilled. Our highest EVER chart position. We didn't know what to expect when we made it. A leap of faith after all this time. Thanks to EVERYONE who has supported it. It's been quite the ride. Here's to the future 🥂🎉❤️
Christmas Eve discovery: the young people all currently love Careless Whisper, so we sang it passionately at full volume like some kind of beautiful carol, and oh George ❤️
What a day it's been. I can't tell you how terrifying and exciting it has been to release this music after such a long break. Incredibly grateful for all your enthusiasm, and for a review like this, which really GETS the track, and us ❤️
I hate lording it over you as some kind of hipster early adopter, but tonight Ben and I are going to start watching The Wire, you won't have heard of it
It's lovely having all the kids home again. *walks into kitchen to discover they have eaten all the packets and tins in the cupboards, and drunk all the milk and orange juice and all Daddy's beer and all the water in the tap*
Bad day. Grumpy, distracted, stressed, short tempered. Maybe amid all the positivity we should acknowledge there will be days like these. Roll on tomorrow.
Anyway, to celebrate he's having a beer and I'm having some prosecco, and then we're having different dinners cos we didn't fancy the same thing, and that, people, is my only relationship advice, you're welcome.
I'm always bewildered by blokes who follow me on here, and so presumably like my work, but then get arsey when I say something a bit feminist. Makes me wonder if I've been annoying them since about 1982.
Sitting outside as the heat finally starts to die. A car rolls by, and through the open window, loud, Running Up That Hill. Of course. What a wonderful thing in every sense.
Cor blimey, what an amazing day of protest. Have marched till feet sore and sunburned, met up with all sorts of fabulous people, in unlikely scenarios, and returned home once again feeling not alone, not mad. Bravo London.
Halfway there! Been shielding since March. Loved the quiet concentrated buzz in the hall. The politeness of volunteers. The ex-army veteran organising the queue outside. The carers with the vulnerable. The wiping down of the chairs. We go on.
#COVID19
Went to lunch with one daughter, the other daughter coincidentally walked into the same restaurant. Train home had some kind of problem and turfed us out a couple of stops too early so I headed to the nearest pub I knew, and son was on a shift behind the bar.
#London
#family
Went for my walk quite early this morning. Passed a few people. We are all now saying "Morning!" to each other, like we live in a little village or something.
I realise on my early walk this morning that as there is no one around there is no reason not to sing along with whatever is in my headphones. Dance too. Why not?
A man wanted to argue with me on the internet but instead of joining in I went to the gym and did a fierce workout to Donna Summer, and Los Hermanos, and Mary Jane Girls, and Freeez, so who's the winner now eh. This will be the opening chapter of my self-help book.
My daughter, who as a child wouldn't eat ANYTHING, has just schooled me in how to do oven chips. You add olive oil, salt, and rosemary and honestly who is this person and what did they do with my daughter
Starting to feel gloomy now about the idea that future generations might have *ironic* Stay Alert posters on their kitchen walls. And then mugs, and tea towels, etc.
I was happy to go out a bang a saucepan earlier on in lockdown, but I'm not sure carers need our applause any more. Instead, I've donated to my local hospital, the Royal Free, and I send my gratitude and respect to everyone working in the NHS right now
A kiss to wish you all a Happy New Year. Been a big year for us, bringing us back together to record for the first time in 23 yrs. Never imagined in Jan that this would happen. Yet here we are.
New music very soon.
Pic: Juergen Teller, 1999
The other night I dreamed an entire song - lyrics, melody, arrangement, the whole lot. Woke up excited thinking I'd written something amazing in my sleep. Had a coffee and realised it was Prefab Sprout's Couldn't Bear To Be Special.