YouSaid · the spoken record

Annie Lennox

lines on the record: 50
first: 2008-05-11
most recent: 2008-05-11
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I've never even got my head round the Bible, that's never my Shakespeare. Let me think. Oh, I know. I'm going to take Eckhart Toll's power of now just to get me in the mood just so I don't stress while I'm on the island like get me on.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“O key well, this is just a classic, I mean, this is just this is perfect, this is autis reading Dock of the B, I mean, that's another one of my all time favourit songs and yes, you can't say a great deal more about it. You just have to put it on quick”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think we definitely would have shared some kind of sense of injustice in the world. We can distribute Coca Cola all round the world, but we can't seem to get medication to save a child from something as simple as diarrhea. And I think that that is wrong. You know, you have a choice. You either get involved with an issue or you walk away from it. I think it is a human rights issue, and I feel very passionately about human rights.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, first of all, I'm very often invited to do those things, and I think that music is a wonderful platform for the focus of issues that are over and beyond our immediate personal interest. One of my passions is the issue of the HIV AIDS pandemic. In South Africa, I've been working on this for several years now, and I've started my own campaign called Sing, and I'm trying to raise awareness about the issue that is very often sidelined.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah well I didn't want to do it when my kids were little because I just couldn't bear to be apart from them you want so much to be all things to all people and it's difficult because I feel obliged to give way over 100% every night. It's very important that I give everything I can to the audience and to the situation and you have to take care of your voice my voice and the songs that I've written over the years they're quite challenging technically to sing so you have to be in very good voice to sing these songs especially for one and a half hours you know”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I love the Valdi, I love all this kind of early music, I love Cooperan and Purcell and Mozart and Handel and we're going to listen to winter from the four seasons because it's exquisite yeah it's quite exquisite.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Your voice? Yeah, yeah, they're both musical and my elder daughter actually wants to. She wants to develop us a classical singer, so we'll see. She's only seventeen. She's got plenty of time.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I don't I'm not like that. I'm not lenient and I'm not strict I try to draw the balance between the two things I mean I've always brought my kids up in a way to be their own people they're not an extension of me and therefore I will listen to them and respect what they have to say and give them space to be themselves and”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But to me, when I write, you know, it's not so super specific, and I think to be frank, the issues that I write about are more about my own internalised contradictions and struggles and confusions and whatever, whatever yearnings, and they are part of all of us. I mean, anyone who writes books or makes music or songs, you know, they have to take the material from somewhere.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I did, yeah, I did that and there's innumerable ways of having kids and having families, and as I now divorced single mother, which I am really I appreciate the incredible sort of devotion that women in particular and dads as well, dads, it's hard for dads, you know, I think sometimes we forget that some dads very, very much want to be with their kids and sometimes they're prevented from getting access to the kids too.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it did. I mean I it's tricky, isn't it? Because if you're well known it's difficult to show up at the creche in Crouch End and people not to always recognise you”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ah, we're going to listen to the Blue Nile now. They are an extraordinary phenomenon, and the people that love the Blue Nile will relate to this because we are almost like a little cult. We wait for years for Blue Nile records to come, and occasionally they do. And now I'm going to play a walk across the rooftop.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, not at all it made me realise that we're all, you know, the human condition is immensely fragile and strong at the same time. You know, you always have the polarities that coexist. So at the same time that, you know, I lost my son, you know, hundreds of thousands of people died in a village somewhere in a remote part of Turkey after an earthquake. And curiously enough, I just felt so identified with those people because I saw, wow, losses all around me. You know, it's informed me that my, you know, real very painful, difficult personal experience and loss, it's hard to put it into words, but it made me realise that life truly is temporary, you know, and when I hear about other people's tragedies and losses, I so empathize. and saw identify with them.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Gosh I did say to you earlier on that having children was a huge learning curve for me kind of very transformational part of my world so getting older that's you know you start to value things like well do you have health I mean both my parents died of cancer so I saw that and I saw a lot of things that made me change my perspective you know youth beauty that's all fine but you know what really counts in the world is something that is not about just the presentation”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a lot of intensity. There's a lot of pain in there. I don't think that people live painfully lives. I don't know if it's chicken or egg. I don't know if the pain has to come first and then you have to be in pain before you write something of any value. I'm not sure about that, to be honest with you, but whatever, it's almost like you're a potter and that's the clay that you use. This is spiritual stuff, really”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I think the human condition is the same no matter what it doesn't matter the colour of your skin, you know, which school you went to. Human experience is pretty much boils down to the same thing, and the music cuts through all cultures and all boundaries.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No I wasn't nervous to sing with her because we'd written a song and I thought it's fine Looking back at it I really should have been more nervous but curiously enough I wasn't”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What was that experience like? Amazing, actually. We went to Detroit because Aretha doesn't really like to travel and she was exceptionally shy and quiet, quite withdrawn.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ah, this is probably one of my favourite songs of all time ever and ever I adore Aretha Franklin's voice and the arrangements and songwriting skills of Bert Bacharach are just just phenomenal really hugely special and right from the beginning of this song it just takes you into the special place that it is.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think it's hard for anyone to handle, you know, a little bit concerned, I mean, on the one hand proud, you know, and on the other hand like what is this? When they came to see us perform in concert and they saw audiences really responding to the music, I know that they were hugely proud of it.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, we were just about broke up about that time, which is, you know, very difficult because we both, that's the funny thing. I think we knew that it wasn't going to work out as a partnership, but as a musical relationship, there was never any question that we would be a part of.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, in terms of what you wanted to do. Very much so, very much so, and at that point, synthesizers became affordable and available in stores, and there were these new things called drum machines, and the whole synth sound of the eighties came out.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I did, and that's a very rare occurrence, and when we formed the first band it was the Tourus and the Tourists made three albums, and it was that's why sometimes I refer to that part of my life as a rehearsal for what was to come, because I got a lot of experience we toured across America, we toured in Europe and Australia. I mean, we had a little bit of success, and I really learnt a lot.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's really sums up the time that kind of exotic thing that I think I thought London would be, but maybe never really was.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I always sang, I mean, I always sang to myself. It's weird. You know, looking back, it's really hard to think of a moment when I realised that my voice was actually really good, but I wish I could tell you that there was a moment when I thought that, but there must have been because I do remember going in for an addition for something once that was advertised in the melody maker, and they said to me, What does your voice sound like? And I said, I'm a cross between Stevie Wonder and Johnny Mitchell, and I was being serious how ridiculous, and they said, Oh, well, you must be good, then”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was quite shy and quite mousy, I think. I couldn't afford clothes very easily, and there were these fantastic thrift stores in Scotland, where you could buy old ladies kind of like old ladies that had died And they had fabulous kind of shoes and jackets and blouses and dresses and everything, and you know, you could pick up a fantastic jacket for about two shillings. Honestly, that's pre-decimalization, folks. God that's really telling.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I don't think you can really. I mean, you know, look right and left before you cross the road. I think that's the best advice ever can give you, really, in London.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it just appalled them really about what no, that's not true. I think if they'd known more about me they would have been appalled, you know, I think they were proud of me because it was an achievement certainly to go to the academy. They didn't really know what was going on with me, I didn't really know myself.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because It didn't interest me and I was avoiding every single history of music lecture and I mean I didn't go to one of them. I was the worst student ever”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well the reason why I went to London and my passport out of Aberdeen really in a way was that I got a place at the Royal Academy of Music to study flute and I loved flute I used to play in orchestras and little chamber ensembles and I thought I was a pretty good flute player and God help me and came down to London and realised I was, you know, completely average and there were lots of other kids that were phenomenal flute players and I was never going to reach that kind of peak of performance and that was a bit of a dilemma for me because that was the thing that I had achieved and then it wasn't going to happen and I didn't know what the alternatives were going to be and I actually can play the next piece it's Debussy's syringx and it's exquisitely played by James Galway.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, just you know, our father was, and I understandably, you know, very protective of me as his only daughter, and it was all about boundaries really about what I was allowed to do and what I wasn't allowed to do. And I kind of didn't really appreciate being told what I had to do. And I mean, you know, I wasn't like a bad kid or anything like that, but I was desperate just to have my own independence really, to be honest with you.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You did. My father was very rigorous about the work ethic. He was one of those men that was the very kind of righteous, you know.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sniff of something new in the air very much so and it's so funny isn't it how things travel like that that music kind of informs you that things are changing”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What have you chosen next? Well, you know, the Beatles absolutely are intrinsically part of my life, and I've chosen Penny Lane because I think it's got all the characteristics of everything that the Beatles had to offer, and still offer in the most incredible sort of classic way.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, there was the radio, the wireless. At some point we had a little dance set record player, you know, with the little pink plastic covering and things. My father was musical and he loved to sing and his family loved singing. They were in choirs and things. And then when he was a young man he picked up the bagpipes.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A four pounds a term But you know at the time we didn't have much money to grow around and it was looked on us you know that's a little bit you're getting something extra you know these music lessons You see I think for a lot of that generation life was tough and there was poverty and you know hardship”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ah, well, in the summertime it was Panama Hats, and it was very formal. Yeah, we had those old fashioned navy tunics, you know, and”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What did you learning in courtesy was the motto and we had to curtsy to the teacher every morning and afternoon Ah those were the days yes indeed.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A two-roomed tenement house and the kitchen was my mother and father's bedroom which was the sitting room which was the dining room which was everything. You know a lot of things went on in that room and then the front room was where I used to sleep but that was the best room so that was kept for when they would have some visitors.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“She was a cook, but then she gave everything up and she just became a housewife. I mean, we lived in a tenement house and we had a little outside washing area where there was like these big tanks of boiling water and you just have to scrub everything. So that was communal water coast. Yeah,”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I wasn't unhappy, but there is a melancholy and there is a loneliness in it. I realised I felt lonely once I came down to London.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, there's lots of. I think because of the fact that I was an only child, there was so much time to kill. There was so much time to kill. So I just had to spend a lot of time alone.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Definitely I think I was intrigued with music and songs, and I would just learn them and learn them and learn them and hear the phrasing not because I was thinking I was going to be a singer. That wasn't the point. I was just intrigued and that is what it is to be a singer that you learn all this but then you have to imbibe it and it has to be something. It's got to be in your bone marrow because if you're thinking too much about your performance, it becomes mannered and stilted. It's just something that you do naturally.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When I hear this track, I go to a place in Aberdeen called the Beach Boulevard, and I remember walking down that street and singing that song over and over and over again. It's a classic, it's Very hard to put into words, but that kind of sadness, that melancholy, and it's a story about a person's life, and somehow I simply identify with the sky driving these long distances across a landscape. Does that do it?”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I will well, you know, one of the reasons why there's nothing really from now is because I mean I didn't know this consciously, but at a certain unconscious level one identifies with music the statements, the sounds, the whole identity of music was hugely important to me and now I've in my years of wisdom. Profound, solid wisdom, you know, now that I've been through so much in life and I'm extraordinarily evolved, I no longer need. But these songs that we're going to listen to the words are in my head, the arrangements are at my head, you know, from the beginning to the end, I know these songs, they're part of me. Music after all is so personal, and people hear music, they love it, they identify with it, they personalise and it becomes a part of them, and that is the great potentiality that music has.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is still in there somewhere. Who were you then? Well, it was before I had children's a long time before I had children and I think that having children was a huge turning point in my world, you know, in my whole life and the whole way that I see the planet. I was very focused on music making. I wanted to be part of making great music. That was always the main motivation that the main thing.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes of course I do remember that and yet it seems like a parallel existence now it's so funny that you know if you see a snapshot of yourself when you were a teenager or a child it's something so familiar to you and yet contrasted with who you are now it doesn't bear the faintest resemblance you know”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, no, I don't mind being honest. You know, I just have to be myself. It doesn't matter. Some people have said I'm incredibly private person. I don't think I'm so incredibly private, I just think I'm normal. I'm very happy to be honest, but there are certain boundaries that I need to protect.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, depression or the kind of things that I have been occasionally tagged with, which is fine because I do get depressed and people do get depressed, but I did feel that I might have to claw a little bit back of the labelling perhaps that's been put on me from time to time.”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Survivor. That's an interesting question to land me with, first of all, an elegant survivor. Yeah, I think perhaps sometimes, you know, it's very interesting when you are someone in the public eye, you have to accept that there will be a certain erosion of your own sort of private, what would normally people would consider to be private, and I don't know why I said the word elegant, but perhaps I was trying to get the balance back, and it would sort of pull that back for myself from because, you know, the press will inevitably, and I don't blame them for this, they will look for the most kind of, well, if they can get lurid hay, we'll have lurid. With me, it hasn't been lurid, but whenever it's been something to do with...”
2008-05-11 · Desert Island Discs · Annie Lennox · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source