Culture That Made Me: Lloyd Cole on Springsteen, Barry Gibb, and The Godfather
lloyd cole
Lloyd Cole, 62, grew up in Derbyshire, England. In 1984, the release of Rattlesnakes established Lloyd Cole and the Commotions as one of the most talented indie pop bands of their generation.
Since the first of his 12 solo albums was released in 1990, his songs have appeared on Hollywood movie soundtracks and have taken in ambient electronica detours.
He lives in the United States, in Massachusetts, with his wife; they have two grown-up sons. He will perform at Dublin’s Olympia Theatre, Sunday, October 8.
I still am fond of T-Rex. In their prime, T-Rex were the best of everything. They were making fantastic pop songs, but they were also a fantastic rock group.
I believe Telegram Sam is the acme of rock'n'roll recording and performing. It takes a Chuck Berry riff and moves it up to something sublime.
In 1972, T-Rex released Metal Guru. Heavy metal music had started coming into the psyche, so the idea of a pop group embracing the idea of metal was wonderful.
Aged, say, 11 years old, I’m not sure I – or others – could see much difference between David Bowie and Marc Bolan. They were both glamorous.
The best of glam rock was incredibly immediate and yet it had the depth that we want from great art as well. You could listen to it again and again.
They used wonderful, evocative language which we weren't used to hearing in pop music.
A great example would be Lady Stardust, which was written by Bowie for Marc, and came out in 1972. It was a fantastically exciting time.
When Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run came out in 1975 that was a big deal.
People that were keen on music did a lot of our apprenticeship, trying to be pop stars, by reading the New Musical Express from front to end, every Thursday morning.
We knew exactly what was going on. We knew about this Springsteen guy even though we hadn't heard him because we knew Bowie liked him.
“Oh, if Bowie likes him, he must be good. We better listen to him.”
I always preferred the Sex Pistols to The Clash because Joe Strummer was a pub rocker who jumped on the punk bandwagon, but he was a fantastic singer and front man for the band. They did some fantastic work.
My favourite punk rock song is Complete Control. It's perfect.
I love the fact that they recorded it with Lee “Scratch” Perry – they went to a reggae producer to produce one of the rawest pieces of rock'n'roll ever recorded.
What an amazing body of work Barry Gibb put together. He wrote so many fantastic songs, and so many songs for other people. Hits for Barbra Streisand.
Islands in the Stream for Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers. Dionne Warwick’s version of Heartbreaker is magic.
We hated The Bee Gees at the time when disco was starting, and we were all into punk rock, but we were wrong.
Night Fever is an amazing piece of music. Barry Gibb was top.
I'm a big fan of the first two Godfather films. They’re sort of movie perfection.
They’re a presentation of a span of time, of attitudes changing whilst not changing.
Al Pacino's character is the best example of that – he comes into his role and thinks he can change things and make things better, but ultimately he ends up being the same as the man before.
So times change and attitudes change and yet certain things stay the same.
I’ve been listening to electronica since I was 12. That's when No Pussyfooting came out by Fripp & Eno.
I bought it because Eno was in Roxy Music and the sleeve for No Pussyfooting was outré.
There was some nudie cards on the sleeve. It looked risqué. All early Eno stuff has that feel about it.
That's the record that got me into Eno. Discreet Music is one of the most perfect albums.
Since reading the early essays of Joan Didion, I’ve been a lifelong fan.
She's the biggest influence on my writing. When I was writing Rattlesnakes, I used language like her.
She used a double negative in a beautiful way, like the opposite of George Orwell – using the maximum number of words to say something because she wanted to say it in a roundabout way.
She did things you're not supposed to do and somehow made it work in an elegant and wry manner.
Reading her, you think she's smiling while she's writing. She's cool.
Seeing that photo of her looking incredibly thin with her arms folded in front of her – I wanted to look like the male version of her.
I love the Harry Palmer films with Michael Caine from the 1960s – The Ipcress file and Funeral in Berlin.
I love the presentation of the closeted homosexuality in the British civil service and the humour and the way of saying things – the way things had to be said when certain expressions weren't allowed to be voiced out loud.
When I’m working on art, limitations are often helpful.
To say, “Well, you can't say that” is sometimes helpful because it means you must think about a more interesting and entertaining way to present something if you're not allowed to just say it.
Even though Bedazzled isn’t the greatest film ever, it’s one of my favourites. Anything with Peter Cook in it, I will watch.
I love the scene where Dudley Moore’s character looks like he’s going to be a pop star, and he's singing, “Love me, love me, love me,” and everybody's sprawling all over him.
He’s finally got it, and then the devil comes down and he starts singing, “You fill me with inertia/You disgust me.” It’s fantastic.
Galaxy Quest is one of my favourite comedy movies. Its premise is that the Galaxy Quest is based on Star Trek.
All the Star Trek actors only make money these days by going to fan conventions, signing autographs for people.
Then these aliens come to Earth and ask for their help because they believe the Star Trek films they've seen are true.
These aliens have rebuilt the Star Trek Enterprise for these actors to come and save them from these other aliens that are attacking them.
Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver are in it. It’s brilliantly done.
I'm a big believer that the highest art that humankind has created is humour.
Good humour requires the greatest intelligence.
I recently showed my mother and my son Stewart Lee doing stand-up comedy in Glasgow when he was young.
He was doing this doing sketch about Braveheart being gay. It's genius.
