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Bet you think this song is about you


Farin

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From Layla to Country House, from Walk On The Wild Side to Orinoco Flow, Dave Simpson meets people who inspired pop songs.

[smaller]Dave Simpson | The Guardian | Saturday 13 December 2008 | Link[/smaller]

Lou Reed: Walk On The Wild Side (1972)

"Holly came from Miami FLA.

Hitchhiked her way across the USA.

Plucked her eyebrows on the way

Shaved her leg and then he was a she

She says, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side"

Holly Woodlawn, (actor): My father got a job at a hotel, so we moved from New York to Miami Beach. I was going to school, getting stones thrown at me and being beaten up by homophobic rednecks. I felt I deserved better, and I hated football and baseball. So, aged 15, I decided to get the hell out of there and ran away from home. I had $27, so hitchhiked across the USA. I did pluck my eyebrows in Georgia. It hurt! My friend Georgette was plucking them and I was screaming, but all of a sudden I had these gorgeous eyebrows and she put mascara on my eyes. We ran into some marines in Lafayette in South Carolina. They tried to attack me. I was 15 and not used to this stuff. I was sitting in a car with this marine, terrified that he was going to rape me and kill me. I said, "I've never done this before." He said, "You don't wanna have sex with me?" I said it wasn't that I didn't find him attractive, I just didn't want to do it. But he was wonderful. He protected me. While Georgette was in a motel screaming and yelling with 18 marines but having a good time, he said, "When you're with me, nothing will happen to you." And they drove us all the way to New Jersey.

In New York I was living on the street. Then I met Jackie Curtis and Candy Darling, and they'd watch Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo movies at 1am. There was this club called Max's Kansas City. Jackie and Candy had just done this movie called Flesh, and they said, "You have to meet Andy [Warhol]. He's gonna make you a superstar."

I didn't want to be a superstar. My wig looked like yak hair. One day Jackie put on a show and I was in the chorus. I saw this bag of glitter and a jar of Vaseline, and smeared myself with it and got this boyfriend to throw the glitter on me. [Director] Paul Morrissey said, "I don't know who she is but she's a star." Next thing Paul's calling me up to star in a movie called Trash, and the rest is history.

One day a friend called me and said, "Turn on the radio!" They were playing Walk On The Wild Side. The funny thing is that, while I knew the Velvet Underground's music, I'd never met Lou Reed. I called him up and said, "How do you know this stuff about me?" He said, "Holly, you have the biggest mouth in town." We met and we've been friends ever since.

Blur: Country House (1995)

"City dweller, successful fella

Thought to himself, Oops I've got a lot of money

I'm caught in a rat race terminally

I'm a professional cynic but my heart's not in it

I'm paying the price of living life at the limit...

He lives in a house, a very big house in the country"

David Balfe (co-owner, Food Records, 1983-1994): I'd flogged the label and packed it all in as a "professional cynic whose heart's not in it". I was burned out. You've got to remember that the music business is full of great things and crap things. You can spend 18 months working on a record that doesn't even get released. And you spend your whole time arguing with people. When things aren't working, it's extremely painful. I felt it was all or nothing for me, so I moved to Bedfordshire.

One day I popped back into the office in London and saw a demo for "Blur - Country House". I jokingly said, "Oh, is that about me?" I don't think it's their greatest song but it's a good little pop song. The funny thing is Damon [Albarn] hadn't, and still hasn't, seen the house. I think he just had this idea. "Oh, Balfey lives in this great house in the country now." It was funny enough having it written about me in the first place, but then it became one of the biggest songs of the era because of the chart battle with Oasis's Roll With It. It's got a place in rock history. I'm quite proud of it, and flattered.

When it came out my kids were six and four, and the song would come and they'd say, "Oh, it's the song about Daddy." My mates used to put it on in the village pub. Blur filmed the video in an Austrian palace and I told everyone that was my house. In reality the house isn't a grand house. It's a farmhouse that has acquired pretensions over the years. We'll probably move eventually. I'm starting a label again and I've started fantasising about living in an ultra-modern apartment in London.

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds: Scum (1986)

"He was a miserable shitwringing turd

Like he reminded me of some evil gnome

Shakin' hands was like shakin' a hot, fat, oily bone

Holdin' on for far too long"

Mat Snow (journalist): In 1980 my old school buddy Barney Hoskyns was writing for NME and wanted someone to go to gigs with. I became his plus one. The Birthday Party (an early band of Cave's) were just fantastic, incredibly exciting, wild and feral, and we became part of their scene, which consisted of hanging out, playing records, doing drugs and drinking. I had a straight job and by night morphed into a nocturnal creature. It was an exciting scene to feel vicariously part of. It felt like you were living through a Velvet Underground song. I remember Nick [Cave] setting his hair on fire with a candle: everything was part-Baudelaire, part-Keith Richards. But by 1983 the Birthday Party had broken up and Nick was forming the Bad Seeds. He and his girlfriend Anita were asking for somewhere to crash for a while, and the pair moved in with me. He was still doing heroin but he was discreet. He was a good housemate. It was funny because he was always nagging Anita about her diet, yet he was shooting up! They moved down the road and we lost touch.

I raved about his From Here To Eternity album in NME but then, in a singles review, happened to drop in that the forthcoming - second - Nick Cave album "lacked the same dramatic tension". A year or so later I found myself interviewing Nick formally for the first time. He kept me and the photographer waiting for hours. The PR was very jumpy. I got a very unusual interview. I asked him what the problem was and he said, "I think you're an arsehole" and mentioned that he'd written a song developing this theme. Weeks later, I bought for £1 a green seven-inch flexidisc called Scum. I think it's one of his best songs, and very funny. Like Dylan's Mr Jones, I'd rather be memorialised as the spotlit object of a genius's scorn than a dusty discographical footnote. My wife to be was a big Nick Cave fan - Scum is "our song".

The Beatles: She's Leaving Home (1967)

"Wednesday morning at five o'clock as the day begins

Silently closing her bedroom door

Leaving the note that she hoped would say more

She goes downstairs to the kitchen clutching her handkerchief

Quietly turning the backdoor key,

Stepping outside she is free"

Melanie Coe (estate agency director): London was a very different place in the 60s. I went to a club called the Bag O' Nails [soho] and I met everybody. You sat on the next table to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Hollies, because there weren't many clubs in London. I got in coz I was a cute little girl and I dressed in the latest fashions. I'd go to Mary Quant and Biba, sketch the dress and get my aunt to make my clothes. Ready Steady Go! loved that. They held open auditions. I was 13. It went on what you were wearing and how you danced. I was asked to come every week. I met the Beatles at Ready Steady Go! George was great to meet - I looked a lot like Pattie Boyd, who later became his wife, of course.

I was always going out. I danced the night away and was a face in London. In those days, to be trendy everything had to be French. I bought the T-shirt of the moment, which was my star sign in French. I loved that T-shirt. One day I got home and my mother had cut it to ribbons. She wanted me to look like Princess Anne, not my idol, Marianne Faithfull. When my parents found out I had the pill they grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and made me flush them down the toilet.

I was 17 by then and ran away leaving a note, just like in the song. I went to a doctor and he said I was pregnant, but I didn't know that before I left home. My best friend at the time was married to Ritchie Blackmore, so she hid me at their house in Holloway Road. It was the first place my parents came to look, so I ran off with my boyfriend, who was a croupier, although he had been "in the motor trade" like it says in the song. I think my dad called up the newspapers - my picture was on the front pages. He made out that I must have been kidnapped, because why would I leave? They gave me everything - coats, cars. But not love. My parents found me after three weeks and I had an abortion.

I didn't realise for a long time that the song was about me. Years later Paul was on a programme talking about how he'd seen a newspaper article and been inspired by it. My mother pieced it all together and called me to say, "That song's about you!"

I can't listen to the song. It's just too sad for me. My parents died a long time ago and we were never resolved. That line, "She's leaving home after living alone for so many years" is so weird to me because that's why I left. I was so alone. How did Paul know that those were the feelings that drove me towards ... one-night stands with rock stars? I don't think he can have possibly realised that he'd met me when I was 13 on Ready Steady Go!, but when he saw the picture, something just clicked.

The Beatles: Something (1969)

"Something in the way she moves, attracts me like no other lover"

Derek And The Dominoes: Layla (1970)

"I tried to give you consolation

When your old man had let you down.

Like a fool, I fell in love with you,

Turned my whole world upside down.

Layla, you've got me on my knees"

Pattie Boyd (model/photographer): I met George [Harrison] on the set of A Hard Day's Night. My agent told me, "You've got a part in a Beatles film!" I was amazed and panicked slightly, because I never wanted to be an actress.

We were on the train from Paddington and when it stopped at a small station the Beatles got on. They were in my carriage with all the other girls in the film and introduced themselves. I thought George was really good-looking. We connected on the film set. There was that magical chemistry, but I was in denial. I was 19 and very naive, very shy, and he was this famous person. He asked me out and I said no because I had a boyfriend. But I saw him again, by which time I'd dumped the boyfriend. We got married and had the most glorious time. George, like most musicians, would sit at home and play guitar. I never knew what he was playing. One day he came back from the studio with a cassette tape and played me Something. He said, "I wrote that about you," in a rather shy way. I couldn't believe it. I was so flattered.

I was more aware of being a muse when I was with Eric [Clapton]. I wasn't so happy when Eric wrote Layla, while I was still married to George. I felt I was being exposed. I was amazed and thrilled at the song - it was so passionate and devastatingly dramatic - but I wanted to hang on to my marriage. Eric made this public declaration of love. I resisted his attentions for a long time - I didn't want to leave my husband. But obviously when things got so excruciatingly bad for George and me it was the end of our relationship. We both had to move on. Layla was based on a book by a 12th-century Persian poet called Nizami about a man who is in love with an unobtainable woman. The song was fantastically painful and beautiful. After I married Eric we were invited out for an evening and he was sitting round playing his guitar while I was trying on dresses upstairs. I was taking so long and I was panicking about my hair, my clothes, everything, and I came downstairs expecting him to really berate me but he said, "Listen to this!" In the time I had taken to get ready he had written Wonderful Tonight (1977).

I was a bit more hurt when Eric wrote Old Love (1989). The end of a relationship is a sad enough thing, but to then have Eric writing about it as well. It makes me more sad, I think, because I can't answer back."

Boy George: You Are So Wild (1988)

"The slime on your back leaves a pool at your feet

You smile like a Judas ... do quote

Ooh, Melody Maker ... nasty piss-taker

So cruelly you go for the throat"

Jon Wilde (journalist): In 1988, when I was writing for Melody Maker, there was almost a competition between us to make the singles reviews savage. Boy George was going through a period of releasing low-key dancey singles. I said, "I'd rather have my bollocks nailed to the wall in a nightclub than listen to this spunk drivel." He sent me a typed poem having a go back. I had a laugh about it. Six months later someone said they'd been at a gig where he'd said, "This is for that scumbag at Melody Maker": it had become a song. Eleven years later, I was interviewing George for GQ. I'd learned not to mention old spats, but I was getting along so well with George I brought it up. He said, "You're that Jon Wilde!" He got his guitar, bless him, and sang me the song. To be honest, I'd been miffed all those years because it was a Boy George B-side! But him singing to me was a sweet moment.

Leonard Cohen: Suzanne (1967)

"Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river

You can hear the boats go by

You can spend the night beside her

And you know that she's half crazy

But that's why you want to be there

And she feeds you tea and oranges ..."

Suzanne Verdal (artist/dancer): Leonard was a friend of my husband, Armand. We were all hanging at the same places in Montreal - Le Bistro, Le Vieux Moulin, which was the place to dance to jazz. Black turtle-neck sweaters, smoke, beatniks and poets - it was that bohemian atmosphere in the 60s. Leonard spent hours at the Bistro. He was quite a bit older than me but he saw me emerging as a schoolgirl, working three jobs to subsidise my dance classes.

By 1965 I had separated from Armand and was living with our little girl. Leonard would come over and I would serve him jasmine tea with mandarin oranges, and light a candle. It sounds like a seance, but obviously Leonard retained those images, too. I was living in a crooked house, so old with mahogany and stained glass. I loved the smell of the river and the freight trains and boats. Out of my window was total romance. Leonard was a mentor to me. We would walk together and we didn't even have to talk. The sound of his boots and my heels was weird, like synchronicity in our footsteps. He felt it, I felt it and we got such a rush just grinning at each other.

We were never lovers of the flesh but on a very deep level we were. I had the opportunity more than once but I respected his work and what he stood for so much, I didn't want to spoil it. Also, Leonard is an incredibly sexual man! He's very attractive to women and I didn't want to be just one of the crowd.

I left Montreal for the States in '68 and when I came back people said, "Have you heard the song Leonard's written about you?" In my wildest dreams I didn't know it would be huge. I felt flattered, but I also felt there was an invasion of privacy. After that, things changed course. I stayed true to the 60s. He became this big pop icon and was not accessible any more. It hurt. The song is bittersweet for me. Sometimes I'll be in a restaurant and hear it and I'll be overcome.

Pete Townshend: Brilliant Blues (1985)

"The brilliant blues

Will never flow this way again

The colour of the river is grey"

Pete Wylie (singer-songwriter): Before punk rock, Townshend was my hero. I'd always liked Who songs, but discovering his politics and way of playing guitar gave me a way in. His protest songs weren't tirades, they made you feel emotional about them. He is fantastic at articulating rage. When I started having hits like Story Of The Blues, I started talking about Liverpool and the state of things under the Conservatives. Out of the blue in '85 Townshend did this interview with Janice Long saying he'd written a song originally called Turn The Mersey Blue. He said it was inspired by "this guy called Pete Wylie, who's a Liverpudlian songwriter, and who represents those guys who no matter how famous they get, they don't leave Liverpool and still fight back". I couldn't believe it. It was basically about how red Merseyside is and how the Tories - the blues - would never get in. Janice arranged for me to meet him, but I bottled out. It will happen, but I'm nervous because he's everything I've ever aspired to as a rock star. I love the song. I never expected to tell anyone the story.

The Clash: Stay Free (1978)

"We met when we were in school

Never took no ******* from no one, we weren't fools.

The teacher says we're dumb

We're only having fun

We piss on everyone ...

In the classroom"

Robin Banks (formerly Robin Crocker; voiceovers): Mick Jones and I sat together at Strand boys' grammar school [in south London]. We had a fight over who was better - I thought Chuck Berry and he thought Bo Diddley. It was a hugely disciplinarian school. The headmaster used to have a wooden leg, so he got the nickname Hobbler. We were marched down to Hobbler's office to explain ourselves and Mick said, "We were arguing about rock'n'roll, sir." Hobbler raged, "Rock'n'roll is not on the curriculum in this establishment!" and was so furious that all this gob landed on his lapel. Me and Mick fell about laughing and that was it - firm friends and the end of any respect for authority for ever. Mick had the longest hair and tightest trousers in school. I was a hooligan, basically, because I was bored.

After school I was working as a journalist and got laid off. I fell in with a bunch of people and we decided to rob some banks. I ended up in the Old Bailey. It was like being back in Hobbler's office. I ended up in a maximum security jail on the Isle of Wight. By the time I got out Mick had formed the Clash. One evening he came over with an acoustic and played me Stay Free. Somebody once said to me it's the most outstanding heterosexual male-on-male love song, and there is a lot of truth in that. It's a memento of a glorious band, a glorious time and a glorious friendship. Unfortunately, I didn't Stay Free. I did a wages snatch in Stockholm and got banged up again.

The Beatles: Hey Jude (1968)

"Hey Jude, don't make it bad.

Take a sad song and make it better.

Remember to let her into your heart,

Then you can start to make it better"

Julian Lennon (singer-songwriter): Paul [McCartney] told me he'd been thinking about my circumstances, about what I was going through [as a five-year-old whose parents - John and Cynthia - were breaking up] and what I'd have to go through. Paul and I used to hang out quite a bit - more than Dad and I did ... There seem to be far more pictures of me and Paul playing at that age than me and Dad. I've never really wanted to know the truth of how Dad was and how he was with me. There was some very negative stuff - like when he said that I'd come out of a whisky bottle on a Saturday night. That's tough to deal with. You think, where's the love in that? It surprises me whenever I hear the song. It's strange to think someone has written a song about you. It still touches me.

[Reprinted with kind permission from The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song by Steve Turner (Carlton Books, 2009)]

Momus: The Most Important Man Alive (1998)

"At the Mount Parnassus Country Club and Rock Retirement Home

I was limbering up, swinging my clubs, trying to get back in the game

When I said to myself, 'Knock me down with a feather, can this be a dream?

It's my long-lost hero, Howard Devoto, the singer from Magazine' "

Howard Devoto (singer): I think it's great. We're playing golf near Mount Parnassus, aren't we? I haven't played a single game of golf in my life! It's a wonderful piece of fiction. I did know Nick [Currie, Momus] a little bit back then. It's wonderfully amusing.

Glasvegas: Geraldine (2008)

"I will, I will turn your tide

Do all that I can to heal you inside

I'll be the angel on your shoulder

My name is Geraldine, I'm your social worker"

Geraldine Lennon (merchandiser): I worked for Glasgow city council social work department, on the addiction side. It was a thankless job, but very rewarding at times, too. You learn very quickly that if you expect people to change their life overnight, you'll be let down. But you learn not to judge. [singer] James's sister Denise worked in the same office as me. I think a lot of the lyrics come from her going home and talking about difficulties in her relationships with clients. Usually the only time you hear about social workers is when something's fucked up and has been horrendous. I've spoken to social workers who've said, "That song gets me to work in the morning," and it was the same for me. Somebody has put value on what we do.

When James said he was writing a song called Geraldine, I thought he was taking the piss. When I heard it I was blown away. A lot of tears. It's probably one of the most special things anyone will ever do for me.

Enya: Orinoco Flow (1988)

"We can steer, we can near with Rob Dickins at the wheel

We can sigh, say goodbye

Ross and his dependencies

We can sail, we can sail

Sail away, sail away, sail"

Rob Dickins, CBE (chairman, Warner Music UK, 1983-99): When I signed Enya, her manager/producer Nicky Ryan said, "You're not going to push us for singles, are you?" It wasn't that kind of music. After we'd made the Watermark album, I said as a joke, "Nicky, where's the single?" A week later Nicky rang up and said, "We've got it!" Got what? "We've got the single!"

He sent over what became Orinoco Flow. There was no middle eight, and "Sail away" was after every line - it drove me crazy, but there was something there that could be worked on. Orinoco was the name of the studio and I think they saw me as the captain of the ship. The whole thing was a metaphor for a journey for all of us.

I was in charge of the record company for the UK and Ireland, but we never had any Irish music. Someone said, "You like Clannad, you'd like this soundtrack album this ex-Clannad member has done." She'd done the music for the BBC series The Celts. I loved it and played it every night. We met at an Irish awards ceremony and I said, "You must do a vocal record." The record company thought I was mad, but I said what became a famous quote - "Sometimes you sign acts to make money and sometimes you sign acts to make music." In the week of release, Tower Records phoned up to say that when they played the album in the shop they sold 45 copies - almost everyone in the shop had bought the record. It was unheard of. It went from 29 to five, then to number one and we sold bucketloads of albums. It was totally rags to riches.

It's one of the things I'm most proud of. Funnily enough, I hadn't even noticed the lyric until they printed the album. It was embarrassing. But when it went to number one I thought, "I'm in the lyric of a number one song, how fabulous." All these years later, if I hear that line "Rob Dickins at the wheel" I can't help smiling."

A Tribe Of Toffs: John Kettley Is A Weatherman (1988)

"John Kettley is a weatherman...

and so is Michael Fish"

John Kettley (weatherman): I was a bit younger than most weathermen and had a twinkle in my eye. They said later they thought I was the kind of bloke they'd go to the pub with. They'd sent me this tape and I thought it was a joke. The next thing I know they sent it to the children's TV department who said, "We think this is a funny wheeze. We want to put a video together." They filmed the band jumping through a weather map to kidnap me. It was flattering, but because Michael Fish is in the chorus he thought it was about him, so I had to calm him down. It's 20 years ago this Christmas it made number 21. I made £250 out of appearing in the video, but you couldn't buy that publicity and the song has helped keep my name up there. It's flattering that a band can be inspired by someone just doing an ordinary job. We're still in touch. One of them got married this year and asked me for a quote to use in his wedding speech."

Rufus Wainwright: Nobody's Off The Hook (2007)

"Who would ever have thought, hanging with a homo and hairdresser

You would become the one desired in every woman's heart

But you never will lose, your heart with those little boys"

Teddy Thompson (singer): I'm tempted to think my parents [Richard and Linda Thompson] may have written me into a song before, but there's nothing that's direct like this. It's a huge honour. I'm friends with Rufus and a fan of his music. He played me the song in the studio. It was a lovely moment. Then he said, "And now I'm going to play you the song I wrote about Brandon Flowers from the Killers!" That's Rufus. There's a line that refers to when we first met - "Looking like a teenager." I was very sheltered and well-behaved, younger than my years, probably. Rufus was the man about town. But I was just getting into the never-ending-party party whereas he was right there and he went a bit too far. I was 19, I'd only just moved to America. We met as kids at the odd festival, but our parents didn't really run in the same circles because we were in England and his parents were in Canada.

I didn't know many people like that - bohemian, quite hippyish and dressed flamboyantly. I think he fell in love with me, maybe in a not so platonic way! It could have gone a different way if I'd been more receptive.

I think the lyrics are about the party never being quite over. I also took it to mean I'm not off the hook as far as dealing with the demons is concerned. Rufus has been through the bad drinking and drugs, been to rehab and so on, and maybe there's a little nudge to me saying, "You're not quite off the hook yet, so watch out!" Funnily enough, I wrote a song called You Made It ... about Rufus.

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Most excellent thread Farin :thumbsup: I hope it grows and grows. I love this kind of trivia.

It would be great to have something like this on the main site. There are a lot of people that want to know who a song was written for/about. I'm one of them.

I ran across a YT video interview of John Prine talking about how Angel from Montgomery was written but he just said it was based on a female friend. He didn't mention her name.

Great thread keep adding to it :D

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This is tremendous. I can really appreciate the research that went into the story. Not sure we'd see this kind of newspaper journalism in America anymore, but that's a different rant ;)

Someone I tried to track down unsuccessfully is Sharona Alpert, who I believe is a real estate agent somewhere. You can probably guess what song she inspired.

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I remember seeing Sharona Alpert on some talk show many years ago. If I recall it was a panel of women that had songs written about them.

It was a long time ago and I think she had said the song used her name more then an event. The songwriter liked her name. It was a long time ago when I saw the show so I can't be to sure about the facts.

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