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Tracey Thorn is a musician and writer, best known as one half of Everything but the Girl. She writes the fortnightly “Off the Record” column for the New Statesman. Her books include Naked at the Albert Hall, Bedsit Disco Queen and, most recently, Another Planet: A Teenager in Suburbia
The end of school feels like an acknowledgement that from here on, they’re in the same part of the world as us, the adult world, for good and bad.
When I see a bee now my immediate reaction is not, “Oh no I might get stung!” but more, “What can I do to help?”
Aretha sings of God, and to God, her voice rising up to the heavens
The unique club night at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern has been running for 20 years, and remains the only place I’m allowed to play what I really want to dance to.
Her lyrics on identity could have been written today, and she stood out with her unique style, confrontational and playful at the same time.
It’s a bit like keeping a diary, only it’s a diary that provides an ongoing conversation with readers.
An upcoming 1970s record compilation doesn’t feature a single woman, in 28 tracks. Which is, in itself, very 1970s.
It is two weeks since my eardrum perforated on the train and I am still deaf.
Talking about the lows, and the fails, and how they are inevitable, and survivable, can be such a relief.
“Concert in San Francisco in the 1990s. Audience complained about sound levels, you replied, ‘You don’t think I’m mixing the sound up here while I’m singing, do you?’ We cheered.”
