20,000 Days on Earth Page #3

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# Come on

# And give us

# A kiss

# Want me to burn

# I will

# Want me to burn

# I will

# Yes, I will. #

NICK:
If you can enter into the song

and enter into the heart of the song,

into the present moment,

forget everything else,

you can be kind of taken away...

and then you're sort of godlike

for a moment,

and sometimes it doesn't, by the way.

It's not that the moment

you walk on,

you turn into an angel or something like that.

Sometimes it doesn't happen.

- An angel?

- OK. Let's... Yeah, yeah, whatever.

Is this a...a theme in your songs -

of responsibility and accountability?

Um...I have a kind of weird relationship

with the idea of God,

because within my songwriting world,

some kind of being like that exists.

- Someone watching?

- Yeah.

Someone taking score, let's say.

In the real world,

I don't believe in such a thing.

You know, when I had a...

a real interest in religion

was when I was taking a lot of drugs.

- Mm.

- You know, I was a junkie.

I would wake up and need to score

and the first thing I would do

is go to church...

Mm.

...and I would sit

through the entire service,

listening to the priest rant on up there

and shake his hand on the way out,

and then head up, er...

Portobello Road to Golborne Road.

The dealers were just coming out

you know, at that time,

and I could score

and then go back to my...

- Mm.

- ...flat, take the drugs and sort of go,

- "There," you know?

- Mm.

I'd do a little...little bit of good

and a little...

and, "What's the problem" type of thing,

and I really felt on some level

that I had a kind

of workable balance in my life.

- Mm. Mm.

- I mean, it was mad.

You know, I mean, when...when

I met Susie,

Susie was like, you know,

"You're, er...you know, doing

something really dangerous here

"and...and...and life-threatening

"and, um...you know,

I want you to vow to me

"that you'll never go to church again"...

- (THEY CHUCKLE)

- ...kind of thing.

And when you're performing,

do you ever have that sense

of being an outsider or not?

No, I don't.

I find performing to be something

much more, um...kind of communal

and a much more sort of

gathering together of people and...

I mean you get...carried away, right?

- You get taken away, anyway.

- Mm.

Something happens on stage.

- Once you're on the stage?

- Yeah. Not even before

I get near the stage.

In fact, before I'm on the stage,

before, in the band room, it's horrendous,

because you can't really understand

how you can do the show.

But something happens on stage, um...

that takes you away from that

and it's those kind of concerts,

it's the concerts that we're trying to do

that are so important,

and they're so important

for, um...the audience.

To go beyond something?

Well, not every gig you're gonna go to

is gonna make you feel that way,

but when...when they do...

I mean, I put on a concert at the

London Meltdown with Nina Simone,

and before she went on,

she called me to her room,

and she was sitting there in this chair,

and she was like the nastiest woman.

She had this big, white, blousy thing on

and this kind of Cleopatra make-up,

and she said...

(MIMICS NINA) ''I want you

to introduce me!" like that,

and I'm like "OK, how do you want me

to introduce you?"

(MIMICS NINA) ''I am Dr Nina Simone!"

like this, and I'm like, "OK, OK."

and, er...I went out and I introduced her,

and she walked up to the...

to the front of the stage.

She...she was not well and it took her

a long time to even get onto the stage

and she walked up

to the front of the stage

and held her sort of fists by the sides

and stared at the audience with this

expression of loathing on her face,

and everyone's just sitting in their seats

like, "What is...what's gonna happen?"

and she sat down at the piano

and she took the gum out of her mouth

and stuck it onto the piano

and just kind of launched into this show,

and through the process of this show,

um...became this other thing,

and you could see it within the audience,

- how they responded to this...

- Mm.

...until the end she was up the front and

touching people and dancing on the stage,

and it was an absolute

transformative performance

and it absolutely changed

everybody in a...

you know, that could

pay witness to that...

- Mm.

- ...show.

And to me, that's what we should...

that's what we should be trying to...

to do when...when you go on stage.

You know, I don't know

how it is for other people,

but I think on some level

we all want to be somebody else,

and we all look for that transformative

thing that can happen in...in our lives

and I think most people find it

in some way or another

and that's a place that they can forget

who they are and become somebody else.

- By forgetting who they are?

- Yeah.

By forgetting who they are.

Mm.

And I think maybe that's

what I'm talking about

with my father reading Lolita.

- I noticed that about him...

- Mm.

...you know, that he was doing something.

He was only reading this, but he was

engaged in this on a different level

and, er...and was thrilled

to read this to...his child.

Mm.

How old were you when he died?

Er...I was

um...19.

- Hm.

- And, er...yeah.

Um...

and that...that really

just came out of the blue.

That was, um...something that kind of

rocked the whole family and...

Shall we stop there?

(SEAGULLS CRY OUTSIDE)

(SEAGULLS CRY)

- NICK:
You turn it on.

- (ENGINE STARTS)

You turn it off.

But then one day you find you can't,

and you've become the thing

you wished into existence...

...back when you were a kid

up in your room

and singing into a broom

with the door locked.

You've dreamed yourself to the outside,

and nothing can bring you back in,

and, anyway, you're not sure you ever

wanted to be in there in the first place.

You know...you know, I was just

thinking, you know what I mean.

Are you, er...

Do you worry about getting old

or anything like that?

I think, you know, when you get

to our age, you do worry about it.

I think the goalposts change in a way.

I mean...

(SIGHS) Why is it always pissing down

with rain when I come to Brighton?

You know, I don't know

about you, Nick, but, um...

You know, I got to 50 and I was all right,

I was pretty cool with it.

But, you know, I'm...I'm 56.

How old are you?

I kind of had to think about...

reinventing myself, I suppose,

within the business that I'm in,

you know, and it was...

I can't reinvent myself.

- Do you want to?

- No.

I don't...I don't want to, either,

but I think that the rock star, you've

gotta be able to see from a distance.

It's something that

you can draw in one line...

- Mm.

- ...and you can't have 'em changing...

every second week

they're something different,

because they've got to be godlike.

But it's all an invention.

But it happened early on for me.

As a child, I think I had a desperate need

to change myself into something else.

Mm.

I'd look in the mirror and...

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