Monthly Archives: July 2024

1st 3: Tell me a little more about your role as a mum, following your atypical start to life.

E: It’s really important to me. I didn’t realize how important it was to me until I had my daughter Sylvia. She was named after my grandmother because after my mum left, my grandmother moved in, and she was the only person who ever made me feel safe. And I loved her. When Sylvia was born and I looked at her for the first time, my first thought was “Oh hello again!” That this was something I was supposed to do.

1st 3: Like songwriting—it comes easily to you. We’ve read that sometimes you can write a song a day.

E: I do! I have to stop myself from writing!

1st 3: Have you always been like that?

E: I’m a double Gemini—I don’t call it songwriting, I call it song catching. Most people are so caught up in being the God of it that they don’t sit back and let the song happen. I feel more like I have antennae, rather than being a pilot. It’s like when I was back being a chef—people would ask me, what’s the difference between being a male and a female chef? And I would say, a female chef feeds her customers and a male chef feeds his ego! I don’t feel the need to lay down on top of an ingredient and fuck it into submission. Similarly, I follow the song. It will come to me if I let it stay open. I respect it—I don’t need to be the God of it.

1st 3: So when they come to you, the songs, how do you record them?

E: They’re all different. Sometimes I can be walking down the street and I just start singing. Like with “Jesus, Love This Tired Woman”; I had just dropped my son off at school and I hadn’t been sleeping; I was exhausted. As soon as I walked out of school, I literally started singing it like I knew it already. By the time I got home it was almost like a hymn, a mantra; and as I got inside I just had to grab my guitar and write it down. It’s a gift, you know, when that happens. And I don’t mean I’m gifted; I just mean I’ve been given a gift. It’s lovely.

1st 3: Do you still play the ‘cello?

E: I don’t, because I live in a tiny apartment in Greenwich—340 square feet! All four of us, no upstairs, a hound dog, thirty guitars—and Sylvia’s boyfriend often stays over! I moved in 34 years ago, just me, my pug, and the guitars. At that point, I was never getting married or having kids. There’s an energy there in my house.

1st 3: And has your music, your voice, changed over the years? Did it change after you became a mother?

E: Yes it’s changed, but I’ve never liked my voice. I’ve always called myself a songwriter, never a singer. I think I’ve got an interesting voice and maybe it’s getting a bit more gravelly and resonant—but I’ve done 11 gigs in a row and I might be missing a few top notes!