[ May 1, 1994 ]
Vox: Espana in the Works
Vox
Espana in the Works
May 1994
Written by Mike Pattenden
Courtesy of G. Dipper
Famed as much for their boozing as for their bittersweet pop songs, The Beautiful South take VOX on an emotional rollercoaster, as they put the pain in Spain and retrace the creative steps that led to the new LP, Miaow...
Later, Paul Heaton will break down in tears, Dave Rotheray will begin photographing his drinks, and Morrissey will be threatened with a hot-water bottle. But for the moment, we are all going to die. Spirits should be high as the car transports The Beautiful South's songwriting partnership of Rotheray and Heaton across the scalded, dry Spanish plain on a sunlit winter day, but the holiday mood has been dashed by a prediction of imminent doom. On July 1, precisely. This sobering news (and news has to be pretty sobering to sober up The Beautiful South) is contained in a full-page advertisement in The Times, taken out by astronomer Sofia Richmond to publicise the imminent collision of Halley's comet with Jupiter - with devastating consequences for this planet.
Guitarist Rotheray scans the page in mock horror: WORLD NEWS FLASH!!! A WARNING ULTIMATUM FROM GOD; SOS TO THE POPE!!! It is addressed to a long list of dignitaries that includes John Major, Presidents Yeltsin and Clinton, the Queen and... Cliff Richard. The Beautiful South are not listed among the names.
Well, we have been out of circulation a bit, concludes Rotheray, by way of explanation. Helpfully, the apocalyptic ad offers some suggestions on how to avert disaster. These include leaving the car in the garage, wearing dark glasses, banning indecent pop songs and foregoing alcohol. Which offers little hope to Heaton and Rotheray, who are condemned on at least three counts today.
We are headed across the barren Castillan plain towards the Romanesque city of Zamora, about 60 miles east of the Portuguese border. It's an area frequented by eagle spotters, boasting the highest concentration of the birds in Europe, though when we arrive it's the sight of enormous storks nesting on the city's chimneys and church that most amazes amateur ornithologists in the group. Singer and lyricist Heaton likes his birds of prey. He discovered the area some 12 years ago when he was hitching around Spain and has returned on numerous occasions since. Most recently, he was there to write songs for the new album, Miaow - the mellower, more introspective follow-up to 1992's 0898 - The Beautiful South. Retracing the origin of the LP is part of the reason for the trip; another is that the duo are keen to demonstrate the other side of the South. Interviews for 0898 were conducted in their local in Hull and they're aware that the commonly held image of The Beautiful South has them spending most of their lives in that city's pubs, getting pissed and writing the songs. It's at least half true, though, since the interviews on this trip are conducted on a crawl round Zamora's many bars. Rotheray, the quietly spoken, dry-witted half of the team, puts it down to their desire to be seen not behaving like pampered pop stars. We've probably over-compensated, we can be a bit parochial, he reasons later, over the first of the night's many beers.
The view of The Beautiful South as a lagered-up lad's band was tempered by Briana Corrigan, the flame-haired female vocal foil to Heaton's barbed lyrics; but she is absent from Miaow, almost directly as a result of the latter's cruel wordplay. Corrigan refused to sing on the album after seeing the songs, in particular Mini Correct, a wickedly pointed analysis of sexual role play. The rot set in before then, though, with tracks like the Page Three girl diatribe 36D - a single taken from 0898 - which saw her exit stage left when the band played it live.
Heaton accepts that such songs are a grey area, but is unrepentant, particularly over Mini Correct. I was creating a situation where a bloke was a bad guy and the woman was a victim, he explains. Briana, possibly rightly, said she was sick of seeing the woman presented as a victim. She thought it was a negative image. However, her decision clearly wrankles with him. Heaton is not a man to take the charge of sexism lightly and prides himself on his ability to write for and to women in a realistic way.
Given the history of the songs and the band, it's a bit petty pointing out certain songs, he mutters into his glass. The bloke in Mini Correct is devil's advocate; he's saying: I'll do anything for a fuck, and she's saying: I thought I was a good fuck and you've treated me like shit. He's bragging about it, as men do, and she's accepting it, as some women do. Briana is a strong woman who wouldn't accept shit from anyone, and it's sad it's happened.
I don't like to say it, but there is an element of moralism, no puritanism, no errr... oh Paul, Paul come on, he groans, thumping a cigarette on his temple in a desperate search for the right word.
Does it end in 'ism? offers Rotheray helpfully. Yeah, jism! concludes Heaton, whose ability to puncture the mood and his own lapses into seriousness usually increase in proportion to the amount of alcohol he's consumed. The hope is that Corrigan - who is currently pursuing a solo project, but remains tight-lipped about the split - will return, but her place on this album is taken by 19 year old Jacqueline Abbott, whom Heaton met singing in the garden at an after gig party in St Helens two years previously. Having a female perspective in The Beautiful South's songs is important to them. The number of women who attend the band's gigs (often with boyfriends in tow) testifies to his success in writing from a female perspective.
Asked how he goes about the process, Heaton considers long and hard. I have to dress up in drag when I write those songs, he explains. I call myself RyPaul, because I'm being quite wry and I'm Paul. The first night has descended to the bottom of the beer glass and, amid gales of laughter, the duo take on the locals at table football in the last remaining hostelry open in Zamora.
The following morning finds Rotheray up, about and in the hotel bar, where he is discovered taking a picture of his first drink. He is 31 years old today and plans to chart his birthday on film, starting here with the first sneaky snorkel of the day. Heaton, resplendent in white mac and dark shades, is out shopping for a football shirt to give to a friend as a present, though he returns empty-handed. The day is spent taking pictures of the band in Muelas Del Pan, a one-burro town 20 miles away by a large lake dammed off at one end.
The interview reconvenes back at the hotel bar, and begins with Heaton musing on the art of great songwriting - when you start drawing people into your own emotions and your personality - but his mood takes an abrupt turn with the subject of Hidden Jukebox, the albums blunt, anti-racist song. The distorted Smiths refrain skinhead in a coma, let's hope it's serious, which originally closed the song, has had to be removed since permission could not be obtained. The refrain was intended as a barbed retort to the latter's questionable position on racial issues. Heaton is not in the mood for compromise, jabbing a finger at the air. That fucker Morrissey, if he fucks around with The Beautiful South, if he fucks around with us or Pakistanis, Asians, Jews or anyone; if he fucks around with those people, I'm going to give him one on the fuckin' chin. That bastard!
Rotheray looks concerned, but concurs. It's a disappointment. You expect more, but you get so much less, he agrees, a shade more tactfully. No, don't stop me, Dave! shouts Heaton, gaining steam. He'll get it! If I ever see him, I'll give him a clip round the ear, cos he's out of line. He's going to get one on'chin! People in the bar are watching anxiously, but Heaton is unconcerned and in full flow. If he ever fucks with Asians, I'll knock his fuckin' head off. There's no way those people deserve anything less than praise. I'll knock the fucker out - that's a threat you can print to him. Spleen well and truly vented, he slumps back in his seat.
I'll get some drinks, offers Rotheray helpfully. Later Heaton reconsiders his outburst. Maybe I was too strong. He should be whipped across the arse with a hot-water bottle full of boiling water.
Forced out of the hotel bar when it closes, we move on to the table-football bar, where the effects of the drink darken Heaton's mood further.
Hidden Jukebox is, in some ways atypical of the tone of the new album, which is a broodier, more introspective affair than usual. Heaton's vocals are present on every track bar one, while co-vocalist Dave Hemmingway is largely absent. Yet only a year ago, Heaton told VOX he was going to move into the background and leave the singing to the others.
Rotheray eyes Heaton when this point is raised and interjects: The feeling was, after we'd written the songs, that the lyrics were too personal, because of the way Paul felt when he wrote them, and that he should sing them. It was a result of the mood Paul was in.
Initially, explains Heaton, he had wanted to come back to the band with something more honest that diverged from the usual punchline-packed formula (the Richard Stillgoe element, as Rotheray later refers to it), but once he was separated from everyone in Spain, the writing became more intense and he went deeper into himself. The result is several poignant ballads allied to some decidedly melancholic lyrics.
There's a high misery quotient, agrees Rotheray, causing Heaton to raise an eyebrow.
Really? he asks.
It seems sad to me, replies Rotheray, avoiding Heaton's eye. Yeah, I suppose it is - but I feel sadder now than I did then, concedes Heaton enigmatically.
Pushed to explain what possessed him to write tracks such as Especially For You, the song for the day she leaves, or the despairing Hold On To What, Heaton clams up, and some painful silences ensue. Rotheray tries to help out, but Heaton suddenly interjects. You're right, you're right, he says. Hold on... is very desperate indeed. What I'm trying to say is that the escape rope isn't there for some people. I can't climb up them... He breaks off to bury his head in his hands.
I'm sorry. I've got a lot of problems at home and I've brought them with me. What I'm trying to say is ... he mumbles, staring into his glass, ... what people have to understand is that I'm - I don't know how to describe myself - I think I'm a very sad character and they're gonna take inspiration from a sad character when they ought to take it from someone else.
Heaton is choking on his words now. Rotheray stares at him pityingly. We're bastards, we juggle with popular opinion, but we're bastards. Dave, you know I'm a bastard. You know I'm a wanker.
You're not to me, replies Rotheray, tenderly touching his hand.
I am, I am, I am. When you write this..., he whispers into the tape player, say, this person.... this person is a bastard. And with that, he levers himself from his seat and hurries from the bar with a choked apology.
Left to pick up the pieces, Rotheray explains that Heaton split from his long-standing girlfriend only days previously, making the tone of the album seem remarkably prophetic. The birthday celebration having turned a little sour, we return to the hotel.
The following morning Heaton is back in good spirits, apologising profusely for his behaviour. The journey back to the airport has he an Rotheray telling sheep jokes for two solid hours and puncturing his previous night's self-loathing with crude sarcasm.
But Heaton, who once spoke of possessing two sides - the big Paul, the one whom most people see, and the little Paul, who is kept hidden away - has revealed even more than he expected, and now, with Miaow, the cat is out of the bag: Paul Heaton is a bastard. A vulnerable bastard.
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