- I've said it before, I'll say it again.
A poem is never finished, merely abandoned.
I'm always tweaking 'em up.
(jazzy music)
- So John, thanks so much for coming
and joining us to chat about your brand new memoir,
I Wanna Be Yours.
- It's a pleasure, Holly. Thanks for asking me.
- What is the process
of writing longer form writing like that,
like for you, versus poetry?
- Well, the way I've done it is
with the aid of a tape recorder.
All my favorite memoir, books
and memoirs, they all seem to be
going through an intermediary,
and that intermediary is a recording machine,
so it's like, so it's kind of conversational
all the way through, you maintain this conversational tone.
It really is the most enjoyable way of doing things,
and it makes you realize how much you repeat yourself,
(both laughing)
in everyday life, if nothing else.
- You started writing when you were really young,
and you had that ambition to be a professional poet,
from when you were a teenager.
Why weren't you more discouraged
when people said, that's not a job?
- Yeah, I should have been,
but it gave me something to prove, I guess.
I was convinced it should, why not?
I thought why not?
So, other people have done it.
You know, there's a long tradition of it,
you know, the musical Stanley Holloway,
et cetera, just like, you know,
Harry Champion, (indistinct).
You know, they all did monologues,
which ain't a thousand miles away from what I do.
So I figured why not
in the world of entertainment, you know,
there is a place for poetry there
as there is in the world of advertising,
and anywhere else where language is important.
There's always a place for poetry,
you know, people like it
and the kind of poetry I write of course,
is really quite, it was never modern.
It was never, ever modern,
what I do, what people have been doing,
what I do, for 5,000 years.
- And do you remember what the first verse
or part of a poem that you knew off by heart was?
- Oh yeah, it was, it must've been,
amongst a lot of them,
because that's how I learned poetry at school,
Michael Gold style, learn it off by heart.
You're 13 years old, this poem was written
by a 35 year old guy, 140 years ago,
you're not gonna understand it,
just learn the words, learn the words,
and maybe in 40 years it will creep up on you.
But right now you're not gonna understand it,
the cultural reference points
in their end will be lost on you, wasted on you,
so forget about knowing, you know,
it's not a puzzle to be solved.
No, what it is,
it's a form of a phonetic enjoyment for me, poetry.
If it don't sound good, that's cause it ain't any good.
So we were always encouraged to read it aloud it in school.
So you learn a lot from that,
and you know it,
and then you get it.
It's, you know, it's music, it's a kind of music,
made out of language, instead of instruments.
- And over the years
you've had a lot of your poetry turned into lyrics
and things like that,
and as part of music as well.
- That's right, fantastic, you're talking about
the Arctic Monkeys there, I'm sure.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, wonderful job there.
I've said it before, I'll say it again.
A poem is not a song.
If I could write songs, I would write songs.
It's a great engine of wealth.
Everybody likes a song,
but poetry is perceived to be a more rarefied
and minority pursuit.
The way Alex Turner,
with his prodigious mezzo baritone has converted,
that deeply, sincere love ode,
written on the feast of Saint Valentine,
to my present wife back then,
in our courting days
directly from my heart to her,
he took this poem,
and by adding a few little middle eights here
and there, not doing very much by virtue,
as I say of his mezzo baritone,
he made it into a powerful love ballad.
And by not doing very much,
and that's the art of it.
I wish I had done it like that all along.
It's very very, fabulous,
one of the high points of my life, having him do that.
- And so you've, never been tempted then to try
and have more of your poetry set to music,
or things like that?
- Bring it on, bring it on.
You know, it's a poem.
You know, it's alive,
it's alive for the people now.
It's dead to me,
but now it's got a life of its own.
You know what I'm saying?
That's right, that's why it's deeply traumatic
getting a book of stuff together
and putting anything down.
It's like, don't put anything in writing.
And there's a lot of me like that,
said that, don't put anything in writing, you know.
Cause a poem, like,
like I said it before, I'll say it again.
A poem is never finished, merely abandoned.
I'm always tweaking 'em up.
You know, they live for me on the road, you know,
and to keep it fresh for me, you know,
I'm always tweaking 'em
and you know, not that, this, you know,
I mean I never leave, I can't leave 'em alone.
- Yeah.
(John laughing)
So it's quite traumatic
when you've got it in a book.
Dead now, it's too late now.
- Done and dusted.
And your style
and your look is also something that,
over the years has become particularly iconic.
Where did, where was that created?
How was that created?
- Really, I've always been,
I've always been a very careful dresser.
Ever since 1965,
really, my taste in clothes,
has not really altered since then.
1965 specifically, cause that was the time
when you started getting the clothes we liked
in Manchester, you know, American clothes,
Italian-American clothes.
- Yeah.
- So yeah, since then, and that's how I've stuck
at it since then, I'll tell you, an early,
nobody's gonna be surprised about this,
but I used to go to a club in Manchester
when I was a teenager, it was called the Oasis.
It was a cellar club
and they had all the bands,
everybody that was anybody played there,
at a certain level of their trajectory,
and so The Who, at the time, I Can't Explain, you know,
fabulous record.
The Birds, not The Byrds like Mr. Tambourine Man,
B-Y-R-D-S, the birds, the English Birds B-I-R-D-S,
and the most memorable member, Ron Wood.
So ever since then, I thought that hair, you know,
he's got quite a large nose, but he looks good.
(both laughing)
So I've gotta say Ron, big help in the image department,
but like Ron himself, you know,
I've always worn, you know, three button suits.
- Yeah.
And did you feel like it became important to the performance
and the lifestyle?
- If you're the only person happening on a stage,
you know, you have to present a sharp silhouette.
After that, you know, if you look at Jerry Lewis
and those sort of, mid 50s, Jerry Lewis
and Dean Martin movies, you know,
Jerry used to get into all sorts of shapes.
You know, he was a clutz, you know,
he could really fake that no coordination kind of way,
of moving about like a schlemiel, you know.
And for that you need to have a sharp silhouette
and you know, Jerry had that,
and I reckon, I thought that's good,
you know, you can't take your eyes off him.
You know, he's a great physical presence, you know
because he's very angular, you know,
he doesn't wear anything flowing.
He's always got a sweater
and a pair of Levi's
and some basketball sneakers or something like that,
you know, real kind of nerd, proto-nerd.
But you know, these shapes, these shapes were unforgettable,
you know, because of these tight clothes.
So I always figured, you know, that was always a plus.
You see, even, you know, all of them in fact,
from that great period of American comedy,
all of them, you know, Sid Caesar, you know,
all of them wore the tight ivy league suit.
It was the uniform of the solo performer.
- Yeah,
and with your poetry over the years,
is there a poem, a verse, a line,
that still makes you feel the most,
that you're the most satisfied with?
- There's loads of 'em, but one of my favorites is
I steal a kiss, she takes the piss.
We live the life of ignorant bliss.
All that
and now this.
I've fallen in love with my wife.
All that
and now this.
That's my favorite line,
all that
and now this.
Says it all, doesn't it?
(both laughing)
Yeah, yeah, that's a good one,
but there's loads of 'em,
I love my poetry.
(John laughing)
- That is a great way to be.
And I mean, so many of us love it too.
So thanks so much for us--
- Bless you.
- For letting us, you know enjoy it
and now find all about your life in this memoir.
What a privilege.
- Fantastic. Thank you very much, Holly.
- Thanks so much, John.
(jazzy music)