A Conversation with Annie Lennox – HuffPost 10.20.14

Mike Ragogna: Annie, hi and thanks for the interview about your new album. It seems you take your time before releasing new projects.

Annie Lennox: Well, the thing is, when I was younger back in the eighties with Dave Stewart and the Eurythmics, we used to write and record an album every year, more or less. That was our outfit and that went on for a decade and then after that my life changed and I had a family and I tried to integrate being a singer-songwriter and performer, I tried to do those things because that’s very much part of me, so I stepped away from performance and I backed off on writing and recording. I think it just reflects my life for the last decade or so. I’ve been an activist and campaigner focusing on HIV and AIDS and girls, really. That’s been very much part of my activity, so it’s reflective of my entire life, in a sense.

MR: So you’ve integrated life into your life.

AL: That’s very good that you said it that way. I tried not to make the creative world drive me in a way that I didn’t have time for my life.

MR: Yeah, and I imagine with maturity, your creativity expresses itself in ways beyond just music and recording.

AL: I don’t know if it’s about maturity. I think everyone dances to their own tune, you know? But it’s possibly true that maturity and life experience, let’s say, has informed me and I have been–as we all do–evolved. It’s an evolving process, you have these different phases in your life and your activities reflect them. In your early days, you don’t have a life ahead of you and you’re trying to create something, and later on, you’re looking back at what’s happened and all the events that took place.

MR: Which brings us to Nostalgia. Annie, on your album Medusa, you covered a lot of great songs by songwriters who were popular at the time of its recording. With this new album, you’re doing something similar, except it’s material from the great American songbook of the twentieth century, and it’s clear that these songs resonated with you.

AL: Thank you, and I appreciate that kind of feedback from you. I really was interested to get ot the core of the songs, just strip away any of the extraneous productions that have gone on before. Usually synonymous with a lot of these songs are very grand productions, and they’re beautiful, they’re absolutely exquisite but I felt I wanted to go deeper with them and in doing so get to the nub and simplify and strip away this thing. I also didn’t know many of the songs, so I got down to the root. I feel with jazz that deeper down you have the blues core and that resonates very powerfully with me. There’s something raw about it and I felt like I wanted to draw that emotional content out.

MR: One of my favorite interpretations was of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put A Spell On You.” To me, it sounds pretty darn vengeful.

AL: Could be. Could be vengeful. But not vindictive. Maybe taking control. When you think about the original version with Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, he wants to take control. He’s a man and I was thinking, “I’m not a man, I’m a woman. What is that perspective about?” The approach to it was a universal message–well, I’m just talking in my own head–to all straying men. You know, they inherently have the capacity to stray, and so do women as well. I thought that was an interesting “I take my power” kind of take.

MR: Beautiful. And, I believe you looked at “Summertime” from the perspective of a black nanny.

AL: I haven’t really read a great deal about “Summertime.” It could be true, it may be a myth. But in my head, I was thinking that this song was sung by a nanny who was holding a baby from a wealthy, white family and in this particular circumstance at that time, this woman has no access to liberty or power or any resources. However, the baby that she cradles has the potential to fly and to go into life and have that heritage of power and success and what have you, but at the same time, the twist is that life has its own adventure and no matter whether you have money or success, it’s still a kind of risky journey. There were so many subtexts in the lyrics to me that I kind of place myself there and I think that’s what I’m trying to pull out. There’s the subliminal story in the whole thing.

MR: Did you have any similar revelations as you were embracing and recording these songs?

AL: When you’re trying to learn a song, it’s like a stranger that you have to make friends with, and it reveals itself to you slowly, slowly and you get deeper into it, into the subtleties of the phrasing and the nuance of all the aspects of it and the atmosphere so you’re capturing the magic of what you’re trying to convey. I’m putting these words into it because I can only talk in words during this interview but it’s actually more of an intuitive process than anything else.

MR: One thing we haven’t talked about it your activism. You have been associated with LGBT causes as well as many humanitarian efforts. Your work has empowered and helped a lot of people. That’s pretty admirable, how you’ve used your celebrity and energy.

AL: I don’t know that I can help everyone, but I feel as a human being with a particular sensibility that I’m born with, looking around at this dilemma, as it were, of being human and having this life, whatever this life is going to be for each one of us, this human condition, there are challenges in it and cruelty in it. It seems to be a theme that’s replayed over and over again for millennia. The cruelty of it, the injustice of it, the things that cannot be resolved, the issues that I cannot be blind to but I can’t resolve them personally. I don’t know, they would maybe call that empathy. But I think we all have empathy potential. Some people have it more than others and sometimes we get really shut down and become really hardened and protective and defensive and egoic. At the end of the day, I’m just being myself. I’ve just always been very curious about life and what it is to be alive, and for other people, too, that collective consciousness and collective experience.

MR: Musically, you’ve presented many different projects. You’ve written, you’ve covered, you’ve collaborated, you’re on duets. Where does your creativity come from? What is the spark that makes Annie Lennox go into motion?

AL: That’s a really good question and I don’t know if I have the immediate answer for you. Let me say it like this: We’re all wired in a certain way, every one of us. Some of us are right-brained, some of us are left-brained. At the moment, this is how we understand it. Some of us are creative, some of us are athletic, some of us are academic, mathematical, scientific. From my early memories, I was always drawn to music first. Music. Then the visual things around me always drew me, even as a child. Things like the colors of crayons that I might be handling in school, they really fascinated me. I’m not very good at counting and I’m really bad at retentive, academic, informative long wedges of information. I’m not very good at remembering those things. The way I seem to resonate is from a creative place. It’s really like the resonance that you’re coming from and it’s inherent in you.

MR: Nice. Annie, it’s seems the perfect time to ask you this question. What advice do you have for new artists?

AL: It’s funny, isn’t it? I would be coming from an experience that is now in a landscape that is completely and radically changed. So what I would have to add to the new landscape that new artists are facing, I’m not really sure if it would be in tune with what’s happening right here and now for someone at the starting blocks of becoming a creative artist. It concerns me because the industry of music–and let me make that very clear, I’m talking about the “industry” of music, not music–the industry of music is oversubscribed, in a way, because people have access to it at their fingertips. The industry, in a sense, is imploding. It doesn’t know what to do with music. At the moment, we’ve had this issue with U2 giving away an album and all the controversy that created. All of these are attempts to handle the changes in the industry of music, in a way, because we’re all looking for sustainability, we’re looking for the methodology, how you become a lasting artist in an environment where everything is so rapid and so changing. It’s all about next, next, next. I really don’t have the golden answer.

MR: So then how do you create and work within this environment?

AL: I’m selective about what my activities are. I’m very paticular about what I choose to represent and what I think is not appropriate for me. I have identified the things that I feel deeply passionate about and I try to put my life force and my energy and my creative processes into things that are very resonant for me. Of course, I fail. Sometimes I achieve something and then I fail again. That’s part of the deal. Nothing is all about success or sales. It’s a human experience at the end of the day. I think it’s very important to be grounded, whatever that means to anyone. Stay with good values in a sense and don’t let your drive and ambition and egoic aspect take you off on a flight of fancy. The funny thing as I say this is that’s my perspective. People all come form different places and different experiences and different perspectives.

MR: You’re so right on. Annie, you seem so in tune with yourself, able to express your ideas clearly and with integrity.

AL: Thank you, it’s been a process to get here because I started quite young. I started without any experience or any knowledge. I don’t have a handle on editing but as the time as evolved, I started to get an aspect of, “Who am I? What am I doing in all of this? Where do I stand in everything?” The process of giving interviews as well has taught me I have to really understand where I’m coming from and what it is I represent and what I want to express.

MR: I’d like to throw out an interesting connection here: I would put a question mark at the end of Nostalgia because in certain respects, this is a very “new” record and approach for you.

AL: Yes, thank you for that. Someone else had given me that feedback as well and I thought, “You know what? They’re right.” It’s funny, it is nostalgic, but we are all seasoned nostalgists if we’ve lived a little bit because we carry memory within us. It’s the dichotomy of being in the present moment and also bearing the past with us at the same time. We all have access to memory, and that’s where our nostalgia lies.

MR: For those who were fans of the Eurythmics, do you and Dave ever chat about getting together and perhaps doing another project or a performance in the future?

AL: Well, the last time we did that it was an usual thing, it was a beautiful thing because we were asked if we would perform at the special Beatles tribute that was held back in February and we both wanted to do that. That was really touching, it was a great experience, but people have been asking us if we’re going to get back together again and I don’t plan to do that at this point in time. Both of us are very individual, very separate and we have been for a very long time. I can’t imagine that we will get back together again, but thanks for asking! [laughs]

MR: [laughs] What about your own music? Is there anything in particular you want to tackle?

AL: I try to live very much in the moment so that if I’m tackling something I’m quite myopic about it. I don’t look too far into the future. When I had the notion of recording an album of these songs, the idea took a fire in me. I was very consumed with it and it was all I was thinking about and in terms of creativity. I’ve been very focused on Nostalgia the album for the last year, and I’m really immersed in it now because I’m talking about it and the album’s about to come out. It’ll have a life that I will accompany for some time and then once that’s settled down, my mind will be clear again to think about where I’m going next.

MR: All the best with whatever that might be. One last thing. How fulfilling was it to listen to Nostalgia top to bottom after it was mastered and finally finished?

AL: You see, it’s such a process because every day. You’re going into the studio and crafting and redefining and putting some finesse into what you’re doing and there comes a point where you go, “Okay, this is done now,” but you’ve been working on it and working on it like water on a stone, you know? Then there’s a certain point when you actually listen to it through from beginning to end, each song, and you’re comfortable with it and you say, “Okay, it’s done, it’s really, really done and I’m pleased with it.” That is when you say, “That’s it,” and that’s it. “We’ve done that bit now, it’s behind me.” You’re listening and listening and listening every day like that.

MR: Yeah. Hey, you are quite awesome, thanks so much for the interview. I just have to quickly share that I was on a flight in 1987 and saw you in the first class section. I thought it would be great to say hi to you, but then I considered you had a private life, so I left you alone.

AL: That’s right, it’s a phenomenon. Everybody puts a projection on you. There’s the Annie Lennox that you know and that’s that. But there’s the Annie Lennox that gets up in the morning and cooks breakfast and does ordinary things and that’s a part that I know and you don’t. [laughs] The Annie Lennox that flies on planes, for example. First class. [laughs] I’m just being really facetious! This is the funny situation that I find myself in. Obviously, because I’ve been making music for such a long time, people have grown up with it and they have the experience of the music and then they have the whole concept of who you are, understandably. They don’t really know you and they don’t know the human person. I’m just a regular person. I want to be that person, too. There are different aspects in my life and the one that you know musically is one aspect of it. Does that make sense?

MR: Absolutely, and Annie, I’m very happy to have waited until 2014 to finally meet you.

AL: [laughs] How lovely. Thank you!

MR: All the best, and of course, I’ll be waiting for Nostalgia 2.

AL: Thank you, it’s been a pleasure talking to you. Bye-bye, dear.

Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne