Taking a Walk the music and mysticism. It's contained within a word. Each word was a magic incantation when it began. We don't we failed to see them now for what they are. They were magic things that could only be uttered by magic people when they were devised as a descriptive labeling tool. To say, the word of something precious was in itself an act of being precious or being with something magic.

Taking a Walk the music and mysticism. It's contained within a word. Each word was a magic incantation when it began. We don't we failed to see them now for what they are. They were magic things that could only be uttered by magic people when they were devised as a descriptive labeling tool. To say, the word of something precious was in itself an act of being precious or being with something magic.

Welcome to the Taken a Walk Podcast with your host, Buzz Night. If you like this podcast, share it with your friends and check out our companion podcast, Music Save Me, hosted by Lynn Hoffman. Today, buzz gets the inside story from the acclaimed singer songwriter David Gray. Buzz Night is joined by David Gray on the Taken a Walk Podcast.

Welcome to the Taken a Walk Podcast with your host, Buzz Night. If you like this podcast, share it with your friends and check out our companion podcast, Music Save Me, hosted by Lynn Hoffman. Today, buzz gets the inside story from the acclaimed singer songwriter David Gray. Buzz Night is joined by David Gray on the Taken a Walk Podcast.

Now, David Gray, thanks for being Undertaken a Walk Podcast, My pleasure. So, since the podcast is called taken, I do have to ask you first if you could take a walk with someone living or dead, possibly in the music side of things, but it doesn't have to be Who would you take a walk with and where would you take a walk with them?

Now, David Gray, thanks for being Undertaken a Walk Podcast, My pleasure. So, since the podcast is called taken, I do have to ask you first if you could take a walk with someone living or dead, possibly in the music side of things, but it doesn't have to be Who would you take a walk with and where would you take a walk with them?

That's interesting. Assuming that there was a magical language dissolving barrier, I might take a walk with the mystic Roomy. I'd imagine he'd have a few things to say he's just popped into my head, and have a little wander. I'd take him along the coast of east of England where I've got a house, which is probably my favorite place to be. So we'd wander through the dunes and the beach and consider the mysteries of the universe and everything contained therein.

That's interesting. Assuming that there was a magical language dissolving barrier, I might take a walk with the mystic Roomy. I'd imagine he'd have a few things to say he's just popped into my head, and have a little wander. I'd take him along the coast of east of England where I've got a house, which is probably my favorite place to be. So we'd wander through the dunes and the beach and consider the mysteries of the universe and everything contained therein.

Just you describing it took me there, David, that was just fabulous. Thank you so much. I appreciated. First of all, we're going to talk about your thirteenth studio album, Dear Life, and also you've been out on the past and present world tour, and I have to tell you a story. I live outside of Boston and I popped in just a little while ago to my favorite restaurant called Helen's Restaurant and conquered mass and the gentleman there who works behind the oven came running up to me like he often does, and he said, I have to tell you I saw David Gray recently in Boston.

Just you describing it took me there, David, that was just fabulous. Thank you so much. I appreciated. First of all, we're going to talk about your thirteenth studio album, Dear Life, and also you've been out on the past and present world tour, and I have to tell you a story. I live outside of Boston and I popped in just a little while ago to my favorite restaurant called Helen's Restaurant and conquered mass and the gentleman there who works behind the oven came running up to me like he often does, and he said, I have to tell you I saw David Gray recently in Boston.

He was unbelievable.

He was unbelievable.

He was just going on and on how fabulous you were, and I said, I'm going to be speaking to him in a little while, so then the waitress.

He was just going on and on how fabulous you were, and I said, I'm going to be speaking to him in a little while, so then the waitress.

Comes over, you're going to be speaking to David Gray.

Comes over, you're going to be speaking to David Gray.

So I was the buzz, if you will, of Helen's restaurant, but more importantly, you were the buzz of Helen's restaurant.

So I was the buzz, if you will, of Helen's restaurant, but more importantly, you were the buzz of Helen's restaurant.

Excellent. Well, I've got great support up in the Boston area. I think that Irish influence has made it a very strong it's always even going back to like early shows on the White Ladder run back in two thousand when we were just starting, Boston was a sort of stronghold and it's remained one and people are very sort of passionate readily, so I think in a way that's a little more relatable. I think because of that sort of Irish influence that feels very strong there. So yeah, it's been a good spot. And that was the very first show of this tour, so there was a lot built into it.

Excellent. Well, I've got great support up in the Boston area. I think that Irish influence has made it a very strong it's always even going back to like early shows on the White Ladder run back in two thousand when we were just starting, Boston was a sort of stronghold and it's remained one and people are very sort of passionate readily, so I think in a way that's a little more relatable. I think because of that sort of Irish influence that feels very strong there. So yeah, it's been a good spot. And that was the very first show of this tour, so there was a lot built into it.

It was.

It was.

A joyful occasion. We just had to go for it. The rehearsal time was over, let it all hang out on stage, which we surely did so I'm glad everyone enjoyed it. That was there.

A joyful occasion. We just had to go for it. The rehearsal time was over, let it all hang out on stage, which we surely did so I'm glad everyone enjoyed it. That was there.

So I've heard that you were inspired by, among other folks, Bob Dylan and Neil Young and Kat Stevens. Can you talk about how their storytelling styles have influenced your lyrics and music?

So I've heard that you were inspired by, among other folks, Bob Dylan and Neil Young and Kat Stevens. Can you talk about how their storytelling styles have influenced your lyrics and music?

Of course, yeah, I mean the sort of ambient influence of the music my parents were listening to in the early seventies when I was just a little boy. Definitely sort of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Rod Stewart, the Stones, the Beatles, and my dad was crazy about like Tea for the Tillerman and you know, Catch Bull at four and several of those early Jesus Cat Stephens records. So they definitely seeped in. I think the sort of soundscape of them and the kind of passion of them. I know they were very mainstream, but they had a kind of kind of very soulful lean so they were I think that that caught my ear and the directness of the songwriting they slightly questing, kind of spiritual questing style of writing from Cat Stevens anyway. And then so that's that has informed my awareness of what music could be. Like intimate encounters with that music early on. Discovering Bob Dylan was like it was like finding another continent. I mean, I think when I sort of when I was about thirteen fourteen and becoming very I was very interested in pop music. I took a road journey with my dad through France and we had one cassette and it was Pavrotti on one side and the Greatest Hits of Bob Dylan on the other. And I particularly loved the acoustic stuff, so side one of that very first Greatest Tits record, which went from sort of blowing in the wind to tambourine. Man, I suppose so it ain't me, babe, it's all over baby blue. You know the times they are changing, those sort of early kind of big Dylan cuts, if you like. And yeah, the texture of his music, the minimalism, that the abrasive quality of his sound, and there's just enough delicacy to frame concepts. And his voice just took up a huge space because there was nothing else to compete with it. So those sort of things, but just the way he painted with words is so evocative and so unique, and he was like a sort of he still is. He remains a kind of picasso Esque sort of figure in the way that with a few brushstrokes he can make something happen, and there's a sort of total confidence of any sort of earthy directness to what he does. So I think that, yeah, I was utterly hypnotized, and I wasn't listening to that kind of music at all. I was listening to the music of the day. But then in parallel I began to discover these other singer songwriters. There wasn't an algorithmic means of finding it out about music when I was young, and anyway, I lived in a very remote place. It has always been word of mouth. So the other kind of cool people who might be listening to something, you talk to them about listening to Bob Dinner and they said, well, if you listen to Leonard Cohen, you go no. So then you have to start listening to Leonard Cohen. And then it's John Martin. Then it's Nick Drake, and then it's Joni Mitchell, and it's you know, and eventually it ended up with Van Morrison. So all of those things. I was avidly interested in the writing Tom Waits as well, discovering Tom Waits's Asylum years. I bought a compilation record when I was about sixteen, and I love that. But I was listening to the pop music of the time, and I was dressed in sort of bangles and sort of lippy and kind of backcomed hair. I was like a Cure fan, but I was really really passionate about all that, and when it came to writing, my very first attempts at writing songs were like a sort of hybrid of Robert Smith and Robert Zimmermann. That's fabulous, That's wonderful, Robert Zimba Smith.

Of course, yeah, I mean the sort of ambient influence of the music my parents were listening to in the early seventies when I was just a little boy. Definitely sort of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Rod Stewart, the Stones, the Beatles, and my dad was crazy about like Tea for the Tillerman and you know, Catch Bull at four and several of those early Jesus Cat Stephens records. So they definitely seeped in. I think the sort of soundscape of them and the kind of passion of them. I know they were very mainstream, but they had a kind of kind of very soulful lean so they were I think that that caught my ear and the directness of the songwriting they slightly questing, kind of spiritual questing style of writing from Cat Stevens anyway. And then so that's that has informed my awareness of what music could be. Like intimate encounters with that music early on. Discovering Bob Dylan was like it was like finding another continent. I mean, I think when I sort of when I was about thirteen fourteen and becoming very I was very interested in pop music. I took a road journey with my dad through France and we had one cassette and it was Pavrotti on one side and the Greatest Hits of Bob Dylan on the other. And I particularly loved the acoustic stuff, so side one of that very first Greatest Tits record, which went from sort of blowing in the wind to tambourine. Man, I suppose so it ain't me, babe, it's all over baby blue. You know the times they are changing, those sort of early kind of big Dylan cuts, if you like. And yeah, the texture of his music, the minimalism, that the abrasive quality of his sound, and there's just enough delicacy to frame concepts. And his voice just took up a huge space because there was nothing else to compete with it. So those sort of things, but just the way he painted with words is so evocative and so unique, and he was like a sort of he still is. He remains a kind of picasso Esque sort of figure in the way that with a few brushstrokes he can make something happen, and there's a sort of total confidence of any sort of earthy directness to what he does. So I think that, yeah, I was utterly hypnotized, and I wasn't listening to that kind of music at all. I was listening to the music of the day. But then in parallel I began to discover these other singer songwriters. There wasn't an algorithmic means of finding it out about music when I was young, and anyway, I lived in a very remote place. It has always been word of mouth. So the other kind of cool people who might be listening to something, you talk to them about listening to Bob Dinner and they said, well, if you listen to Leonard Cohen, you go no. So then you have to start listening to Leonard Cohen. And then it's John Martin. Then it's Nick Drake, and then it's Joni Mitchell, and it's you know, and eventually it ended up with Van Morrison. So all of those things. I was avidly interested in the writing Tom Waits as well, discovering Tom Waits's Asylum years. I bought a compilation record when I was about sixteen, and I love that. But I was listening to the pop music of the time, and I was dressed in sort of bangles and sort of lippy and kind of backcomed hair. I was like a Cure fan, but I was really really passionate about all that, and when it came to writing, my very first attempts at writing songs were like a sort of hybrid of Robert Smith and Robert Zimmermann. That's fabulous, That's wonderful, Robert Zimba Smith.

That is marvelous. Well, congrats on your thirteenth album, Dear Life, and of course the tour as well. The album is wonderful and it's touching. You know, once again your signature deeply personal way of looking at life's ups and downs. Can you share any personal experiences that shaped some of the themes of this new album.

That is marvelous. Well, congrats on your thirteenth album, Dear Life, and of course the tour as well. The album is wonderful and it's touching. You know, once again your signature deeply personal way of looking at life's ups and downs. Can you share any personal experiences that shaped some of the themes of this new album.

I don't know about personal experiences, but I mean, I'm approaching the age that my father was when he died, So that's a strange thing to think. So I haven't got some sort of strange sense of prophecy that I will collapse and expire on exactly the same data or anything. It's just more that to think that this is the point he was at in his life when he had to stop and just before we came out on this tour, my guitarist Neil of thirty two years it was diagnosed with cancer and just a couple of weeks, shy of rehearsals, he had to pull out. So we've got this mortality idea that's becoming stronger, informs more of the way that you think. It's like an accent on the words that your mind turns around, it's just there. I think it sharpens your sharpens flavors. It's like it's like seasoning in a way for your thinking. So you've got finite time, finite resources, and so these things have definitely had a profound effect on the way. Ever since my father died and I witnessed that magical, strange and heartbreaking event, It's changed my life, my thinking forever. So I've seen people born and I've left. I've lost a few friends and very close friends and close family members too. So I think that this weighs down on the writing and comes through into the song so some very directly. But I think one of the things that rescues this album from worthiness is that when the images came, there's a lightness and a humor to the way that they're presented, so that they're not angst ridden sort of that there's yeah, there is a grace about the way that the subjects are handled. There's a kind of microscope and a telescope being used, so it's looking at the minute shai of detail of life and feeling. And then there's a sense of just planetary perspective, cosmological perspective almost. I'm using a lot of imagery from space and things. I mean I read about all that stuff a lot. I didn't really sort of pay attention at science in school. I found it rather dull. But now I'm avidly interested, both in the natural world and that becomes very scientific when you start to analyze things, but also just the nature of matter and time and things. As we start to learn the sort of mind bending depth of what's out there and the contradictory nature of quantum, the quantum world, it's I mean, I can't assume to understand even a fraction of it, but I try and grasp the basic threads. So I used the sort of short story writer's trick of slightly imagined perspectives characters that were placed, so there's female perspectives on some of the songs. After the Harvest, for example, Fighting Talk is like a dialogue between me and I imagined me and songwriter and wife or loved one, and so lots of different fassets have seen, so it's lots of views of the same mountains. So that's that's kind of I didn't I didn't head out with with with massive sort of ambitions of the scope of what the lyrics were going to contain. But the songwriting gods were kind and one thing I think that did inform or enrich the perspectives of the record was the COVID lockdown and just stopping. And I did what a lot of creative people do when things gound to a whole. I thought, well, guess what, I'm go down to my studio, make stuff. Check this out. World stopped, Gray won't stop. And after about three or four weeks of messing down there, I found I was getting quite stressed because I was already going I'm going to make an album, and I was like, can you never stop? I mean, like I was saying to myself, why this Surely this is an opportunity to be with my family under unprecedented circumstances. And I've been telling myself the lie that I was going to stop at some point and spend some time with them. But so I just down tools, and I only really worked when I really felt like it, and let the field go fallow. So rather than just the consolation of constant activity, I allowed myself to just exist for a while under these extraordinary circumstances. So we were in a world where suddenly this event horizon that's always racing towards us of the next day, the thing that's coming, the plan that the next year, the next six months, the next six to six weeks, wasn't there. There was just a sort of frozen line, and we just had the space and time around us that's always there that we failed to see, and we had each other, and we began to assess the sort of the riches that lie just in our locale and just that little bit of time, the seasons of the birds singing whatever. And also we were just watching a death, a death count. We were watching a sort of mortality graph, and seeing as that's the part of our culture that we suppress so so passionately. You know, we are still searching for eternal youth and eternal idiocy. It seems it's it's it's something that suddenly we were just staring at these stats on a sort of city by city, country by country, global scale. So I think that that period of reflection enforced reflection and dislocation from this norm, this racing, rushing norm where you're never really anywhere at any given time. I think that played into my hands when I came well. It's tempting to see a correlation between this huge slowdown, me downing tools, and then when I did pick my tools up again at the end of COVID, because I had the white Lander tool, which had been postponed for two years, coming right at me, I knew I had five months to work. I just began to work like a demon. And I wish it was always like that. I wish I could turn it on like a tap and this this stuff would just pore out. It's never usually that simple, but that's what happened this time, and I got into such a flow. But I'm basically chiefly I'm a lyricist. The music supports the lyrics. I'm with Sinatra on that. I think I see it all as a prop. It's a stage set so that the words can happen. That's what the music is to me, and that's the sort of that's the influence of Dylan, I guess right there, because it's it's it's so you can deliver the line. And what songwriting is is looking for delicious space amongst chords and sounds where their vocal needs to be and the story can be told. So you're sort of create eating a stage set, a tableau almost, And yeah, this time around that the lyrics just poured out. I've been in a process of sort of simplification since I started writing as a teenager, to be less adjectives, less descriptive language, more simplicity. But this time around it just completely reversed, and I went into these mad, kind of crazy multi line rhyming schemes that were more like rapping in a way, and lots of fast vocal deliveries. But the pleasure of writing is obvious. I think in listening to the record, the joy of the music and mysticism that it's contained within a word. Each word was a magic incantation when it began, we don't we failed to see them now for what they are. They were magic things that could only be uttered by magic people. When they were devised as a descriptive labeling tool to say the word of something precious was in it self an act of being precious or being with something magic. So I think they still contain these things, and when they're combined in these strange chemical combinations, crazy things can happen, and that little dynamo drives the obsession of my existence.

I don't know about personal experiences, but I mean, I'm approaching the age that my father was when he died, So that's a strange thing to think. So I haven't got some sort of strange sense of prophecy that I will collapse and expire on exactly the same data or anything. It's just more that to think that this is the point he was at in his life when he had to stop and just before we came out on this tour, my guitarist Neil of thirty two years it was diagnosed with cancer and just a couple of weeks, shy of rehearsals, he had to pull out. So we've got this mortality idea that's becoming stronger, informs more of the way that you think. It's like an accent on the words that your mind turns around, it's just there. I think it sharpens your sharpens flavors. It's like it's like seasoning in a way for your thinking. So you've got finite time, finite resources, and so these things have definitely had a profound effect on the way. Ever since my father died and I witnessed that magical, strange and heartbreaking event, It's changed my life, my thinking forever. So I've seen people born and I've left. I've lost a few friends and very close friends and close family members too. So I think that this weighs down on the writing and comes through into the song so some very directly. But I think one of the things that rescues this album from worthiness is that when the images came, there's a lightness and a humor to the way that they're presented, so that they're not angst ridden sort of that there's yeah, there is a grace about the way that the subjects are handled. There's a kind of microscope and a telescope being used, so it's looking at the minute shai of detail of life and feeling. And then there's a sense of just planetary perspective, cosmological perspective almost. I'm using a lot of imagery from space and things. I mean I read about all that stuff a lot. I didn't really sort of pay attention at science in school. I found it rather dull. But now I'm avidly interested, both in the natural world and that becomes very scientific when you start to analyze things, but also just the nature of matter and time and things. As we start to learn the sort of mind bending depth of what's out there and the contradictory nature of quantum, the quantum world, it's I mean, I can't assume to understand even a fraction of it, but I try and grasp the basic threads. So I used the sort of short story writer's trick of slightly imagined perspectives characters that were placed, so there's female perspectives on some of the songs. After the Harvest, for example, Fighting Talk is like a dialogue between me and I imagined me and songwriter and wife or loved one, and so lots of different fassets have seen, so it's lots of views of the same mountains. So that's that's kind of I didn't I didn't head out with with with massive sort of ambitions of the scope of what the lyrics were going to contain. But the songwriting gods were kind and one thing I think that did inform or enrich the perspectives of the record was the COVID lockdown and just stopping. And I did what a lot of creative people do when things gound to a whole. I thought, well, guess what, I'm go down to my studio, make stuff. Check this out. World stopped, Gray won't stop. And after about three or four weeks of messing down there, I found I was getting quite stressed because I was already going I'm going to make an album, and I was like, can you never stop? I mean, like I was saying to myself, why this Surely this is an opportunity to be with my family under unprecedented circumstances. And I've been telling myself the lie that I was going to stop at some point and spend some time with them. But so I just down tools, and I only really worked when I really felt like it, and let the field go fallow. So rather than just the consolation of constant activity, I allowed myself to just exist for a while under these extraordinary circumstances. So we were in a world where suddenly this event horizon that's always racing towards us of the next day, the thing that's coming, the plan that the next year, the next six months, the next six to six weeks, wasn't there. There was just a sort of frozen line, and we just had the space and time around us that's always there that we failed to see, and we had each other, and we began to assess the sort of the riches that lie just in our locale and just that little bit of time, the seasons of the birds singing whatever. And also we were just watching a death, a death count. We were watching a sort of mortality graph, and seeing as that's the part of our culture that we suppress so so passionately. You know, we are still searching for eternal youth and eternal idiocy. It seems it's it's it's something that suddenly we were just staring at these stats on a sort of city by city, country by country, global scale. So I think that that period of reflection enforced reflection and dislocation from this norm, this racing, rushing norm where you're never really anywhere at any given time. I think that played into my hands when I came well. It's tempting to see a correlation between this huge slowdown, me downing tools, and then when I did pick my tools up again at the end of COVID, because I had the white Lander tool, which had been postponed for two years, coming right at me, I knew I had five months to work. I just began to work like a demon. And I wish it was always like that. I wish I could turn it on like a tap and this this stuff would just pore out. It's never usually that simple, but that's what happened this time, and I got into such a flow. But I'm basically chiefly I'm a lyricist. The music supports the lyrics. I'm with Sinatra on that. I think I see it all as a prop. It's a stage set so that the words can happen. That's what the music is to me, and that's the sort of that's the influence of Dylan, I guess right there, because it's it's it's so you can deliver the line. And what songwriting is is looking for delicious space amongst chords and sounds where their vocal needs to be and the story can be told. So you're sort of create eating a stage set, a tableau almost, And yeah, this time around that the lyrics just poured out. I've been in a process of sort of simplification since I started writing as a teenager, to be less adjectives, less descriptive language, more simplicity. But this time around it just completely reversed, and I went into these mad, kind of crazy multi line rhyming schemes that were more like rapping in a way, and lots of fast vocal deliveries. But the pleasure of writing is obvious. I think in listening to the record, the joy of the music and mysticism that it's contained within a word. Each word was a magic incantation when it began, we don't we failed to see them now for what they are. They were magic things that could only be uttered by magic people. When they were devised as a descriptive labeling tool to say the word of something precious was in it self an act of being precious or being with something magic. So I think they still contain these things, and when they're combined in these strange chemical combinations, crazy things can happen, and that little dynamo drives the obsession of my existence.

Really, we'll be right back with more of the Taking a Walk podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.

Really, we'll be right back with more of the Taking a Walk podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.

You take those themes and you kind of describe that of you know, the mortality themes and themes of resilience. But within there, and maybe it's that aspect of awareness of what's around you that you described within there, there's also feelings of joy and optimism in there as well, and it's just marvelous how you deal with the complexity of that.

You take those themes and you kind of describe that of you know, the mortality themes and themes of resilience. But within there, and maybe it's that aspect of awareness of what's around you that you described within there, there's also feelings of joy and optimism in there as well, and it's just marvelous how you deal with the complexity of that.

Thanks. Yeah, But I I think all working is is putting yourself in the way of something good happening. So I don't know why sometimes it works out better than other times. I guess it's the seasons of self as well. They our own sort of shedding of skins, and you know the changes that are brought upon us, and sometimes you're not you're still in a process of coming to terms with something maybe not completely ripened and your viewpoint. But anyway, this time around, as I say, everything fell into focus and I had just huge amounts of pleasure and in the writing, and the writing is the tricky part. The lyrics are the tricky part of the process. As far as I'm concerned. Anyone can write music, it's it's getting the song out, and they don't often land in one go or I'm not often positioned to take advantage of inspiration as it's termed. I normally have to stay and then pick it up some other point later. Because life is what it is. I've got a lot of stuff I've got to try and squeeze into my life. It rarely offers me just infinite opportunities to just think about what I want to do. Every day. There's usually other stuff getting in the way, so I have to kind of find ways to pick up the loose ends and pick What was remarkable this time was just how easily that happened. It's one thing writing songs off the cuff. When it all starts to flow, that's great, But usually most of my work is picking up other bits and trying to finish them. And what was remarkable on writing this record was just how how much of that I managed to do. I just I was like, oh that idea, Yeah, okay, I've got one verse, I've got one line for the chorus, and it would be like right, okay, and I just sit down and I just write my confidence levels. I read a lovely line today, hang on, I might be able to find it. And this I thought was very pertinent because I use the word tension. Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. Absolute unmixed attention is prayer. That's simone bile. So I'd say that my attention levels were a heightened, heightened level. I managed to everything else disappeared, and I was just in this world for a sustained period of time, day after day after day, and it allowed my reach to become much more natural. Anyway, these I'm just trying to explain something I don't really fully understand. Well, you explain it well.

Thanks. Yeah, But I I think all working is is putting yourself in the way of something good happening. So I don't know why sometimes it works out better than other times. I guess it's the seasons of self as well. They our own sort of shedding of skins, and you know the changes that are brought upon us, and sometimes you're not you're still in a process of coming to terms with something maybe not completely ripened and your viewpoint. But anyway, this time around, as I say, everything fell into focus and I had just huge amounts of pleasure and in the writing, and the writing is the tricky part. The lyrics are the tricky part of the process. As far as I'm concerned. Anyone can write music, it's it's getting the song out, and they don't often land in one go or I'm not often positioned to take advantage of inspiration as it's termed. I normally have to stay and then pick it up some other point later. Because life is what it is. I've got a lot of stuff I've got to try and squeeze into my life. It rarely offers me just infinite opportunities to just think about what I want to do. Every day. There's usually other stuff getting in the way, so I have to kind of find ways to pick up the loose ends and pick What was remarkable this time was just how easily that happened. It's one thing writing songs off the cuff. When it all starts to flow, that's great, But usually most of my work is picking up other bits and trying to finish them. And what was remarkable on writing this record was just how how much of that I managed to do. I just I was like, oh that idea, Yeah, okay, I've got one verse, I've got one line for the chorus, and it would be like right, okay, and I just sit down and I just write my confidence levels. I read a lovely line today, hang on, I might be able to find it. And this I thought was very pertinent because I use the word tension. Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. Absolute unmixed attention is prayer. That's simone bile. So I'd say that my attention levels were a heightened, heightened level. I managed to everything else disappeared, and I was just in this world for a sustained period of time, day after day after day, and it allowed my reach to become much more natural. Anyway, these I'm just trying to explain something I don't really fully understand. Well, you explain it well.

And it almost is like the equivalent of being in as they say, for you know, athletes being in the zone, right, I mean you were in the zone.

And it almost is like the equivalent of being in as they say, for you know, athletes being in the zone, right, I mean you were in the zone.

Yeah, And I'm trying to keep an equivalent zone on the tour I'm doing. I'm trying to keep in order for songwriting or any writing or art to happen. Openness. It's a heart led thing. You have to be open, I think anyway. I believe at the very core of what I'm doing, it's about allowing the deepest thing to be to become visible. So and that's a very awkward process in the world we live in. It's it's a hostile environment a lot of the time. So it's I'm trying to persevere and keep that to the fore during all these concerts and not just play the songs and get the lights working, but to actually be there for the audience and talk and bring them in to some of the stories and specifics to do with it. And not only that. For my band too, it's about them. They've been playing with me for a long time. Yeah, I'm trying to keep them emotionally available. When you've spent as long as we have together on the back in the back of a tour bus, inever to be the shutterest stuff to come down at some point like, oh Jesus, you know such and such is on one. You know, oh Christ, he's been at the vodka, you know, like quick into your bunks. It's like it's I'm trying to keep I'm trying to keep everything. I'm trying to keep people there for each other because I think just somehow the emotional presence is just vital to this thing that I'm trying to do, which is not just playing the new record. I'm deep diving into all the old albums as well, so like really picking tracks from places that I haven't been for a long time, so some of the stuff of Life in Slow Motion, New Day at Midnight, Lost songs, albums that I haven't been giving that much attention to. So it's it's really exciting, but making sure you don't lose sight of the bigger picture. Just because you hit the right notes and you stand in the right place and the lighting man gets his cues, it doesn't mean it's the you're doing what you need. You need to be there, like there they're and at risk, so you need to be risking something. It's entirely risk and reward. I want the audience to feel like something just happened.

Yeah, And I'm trying to keep an equivalent zone on the tour I'm doing. I'm trying to keep in order for songwriting or any writing or art to happen. Openness. It's a heart led thing. You have to be open, I think anyway. I believe at the very core of what I'm doing, it's about allowing the deepest thing to be to become visible. So and that's a very awkward process in the world we live in. It's it's a hostile environment a lot of the time. So it's I'm trying to persevere and keep that to the fore during all these concerts and not just play the songs and get the lights working, but to actually be there for the audience and talk and bring them in to some of the stories and specifics to do with it. And not only that. For my band too, it's about them. They've been playing with me for a long time. Yeah, I'm trying to keep them emotionally available. When you've spent as long as we have together on the back in the back of a tour bus, inever to be the shutterest stuff to come down at some point like, oh Jesus, you know such and such is on one. You know, oh Christ, he's been at the vodka, you know, like quick into your bunks. It's like it's I'm trying to keep I'm trying to keep everything. I'm trying to keep people there for each other because I think just somehow the emotional presence is just vital to this thing that I'm trying to do, which is not just playing the new record. I'm deep diving into all the old albums as well, so like really picking tracks from places that I haven't been for a long time, so some of the stuff of Life in Slow Motion, New Day at Midnight, Lost songs, albums that I haven't been giving that much attention to. So it's it's really exciting, but making sure you don't lose sight of the bigger picture. Just because you hit the right notes and you stand in the right place and the lighting man gets his cues, it doesn't mean it's the you're doing what you need. You need to be there, like there they're and at risk, so you need to be risking something. It's entirely risk and reward. I want the audience to feel like something just happened.

Can you talk about the collaboration on Plus and Minus with TALLYA Ray, What that was like? That song is fabulous?

Can you talk about the collaboration on Plus and Minus with TALLYA Ray, What that was like? That song is fabulous?

Thanks. Yeah, this is the song that's taken of all the songs I've ever written. It's the one that's taken the longest to complete, so it's twenty years between the first time I played the chord sequence and Italian putting her voice on to what was basically, by then a finished song. So it was lovely the way it worked with her getting involved. She's so young. I mean, she's the same age as my daughter. So and she was doing some event in New York and my manager just happened to see her. And at this point we'd finished the track. I got my daughter to sing on it a bit. I'd done some of the bvs and we'd kind of created a semi but I couldn't find the right voice. We were trying to get certain people to do it, and then their schedules were just it was hanging around waiting for someone to find a day. I was becoming frustrated and we just wanted to move on. So anyway, he heard this Talia singing it this thing in New York, and he just so, I heard this girl sing last night, and she's got a great voice. I think it could really work for what you've been describing. She's got quite a low voice. She could do the low parts. And he said, and then When I talked to her after the show to say well done, she said, oh, who do you manage? And I mentioned your name and she said, oh my god, I'm like obsessed with David Graham. I'm listening to White Lader all the time at the moment. So I said, wow, okay, and then we had a zoom call. I met her. I really liked her. She had a picture of Amy Wyanhouse on a wall behind her. I thought, oh, yeah, I get that. Yeah, she's like a North London girl. So but she was super cool. I said, listen, obviously, tuning is important singing the song, learn the part. Listen very carefully to the phrase it it's about rhythm, so very fast vocal. You're going to learn how to breathe. So if you're going to practice, I believe you can sing in tune. So I said, concentrate on the rhythm. She came to the thing that she'd really done her homework, so it wasn't an easy song to sing. So I mean, I know because I've recorded it myself and done various parts. So she was great, and she's kind of up for everything, but not in a horribly ambitious kind of like tread on you with my Stiletto's kind of way.

Thanks. Yeah, this is the song that's taken of all the songs I've ever written. It's the one that's taken the longest to complete, so it's twenty years between the first time I played the chord sequence and Italian putting her voice on to what was basically, by then a finished song. So it was lovely the way it worked with her getting involved. She's so young. I mean, she's the same age as my daughter. So and she was doing some event in New York and my manager just happened to see her. And at this point we'd finished the track. I got my daughter to sing on it a bit. I'd done some of the bvs and we'd kind of created a semi but I couldn't find the right voice. We were trying to get certain people to do it, and then their schedules were just it was hanging around waiting for someone to find a day. I was becoming frustrated and we just wanted to move on. So anyway, he heard this Talia singing it this thing in New York, and he just so, I heard this girl sing last night, and she's got a great voice. I think it could really work for what you've been describing. She's got quite a low voice. She could do the low parts. And he said, and then When I talked to her after the show to say well done, she said, oh, who do you manage? And I mentioned your name and she said, oh my god, I'm like obsessed with David Graham. I'm listening to White Lader all the time at the moment. So I said, wow, okay, and then we had a zoom call. I met her. I really liked her. She had a picture of Amy Wyanhouse on a wall behind her. I thought, oh, yeah, I get that. Yeah, she's like a North London girl. So but she was super cool. I said, listen, obviously, tuning is important singing the song, learn the part. Listen very carefully to the phrase it it's about rhythm, so very fast vocal. You're going to learn how to breathe. So if you're going to practice, I believe you can sing in tune. So I said, concentrate on the rhythm. She came to the thing that she'd really done her homework, so it wasn't an easy song to sing. So I mean, I know because I've recorded it myself and done various parts. So she was great, and she's kind of up for everything, but not in a horribly ambitious kind of like tread on you with my Stiletto's kind of way.

Oh brilliant. Tell me about the makeshift studio and what impact that had on this process.

Oh brilliant. Tell me about the makeshift studio and what impact that had on this process.

Yeah. I was forced out of my home studio in London because my awful neighbor was doing a refurbishment and decided he was going to dig out his basement and my studio was down there, and it was ridiculous. It was so loud we couldn't even think, let alone work. So I hastily turned my garage. I've got a house on the coast up in Norfolk. I turned my garage into a sort of recording space. Well I say recording space. I basically just put a floor and walls in and we moved some gear in there. So I was sort of reluctant to use When I go up there, it's generally a place for recharging and absorbing the world rather than trying to make things. I might be ruminating on things that I'm working on and singing them to myself and play a bit on my piano up there, but I don't sit down and work, So I was reluctant to kind of confuse the two worlds. But actually it was the greatest thing ever because The sort of quiet that rains up in this part of the world is I'm on a nature reserve. I'm out in the middle of you know, you know, in a marsh. Basically we're just heading down towards the ocean, so it's a very empty, pure place. I think suggestibility is a key ingredient for the sort of self hypnosis that's required to make things to write. To suddenly be in a creative mood, and the moment I close the car door when I go up there, I mean it's my happy place. It's a world of stars, of wind through reads of bare branches, of the sounds of the geese on the marsh. It's a world of sound and spectacle and subtlety and nuance. And I immediately awakened the moment I'm in it, So I'm already in a suggestible state, more broadly than a creative state, a state of suggestibility. So the quiet that was there was wonderful, and as as I say, this kind of relaxed state of being when you haven't got sirens and buses screeching and all the kind of angst that the city brings you basically freed from that. So it was remarkable and the other key thing was I normally work a sort of rigid, semi rigid day. So we'll normally meet at ten in the morning, have a cup of tea, chat, start working about ten thirty, quarter to eleven, and finish at about quarter to seven, with a little lunch break and a few cups of teeth thrown in. But that would be my working day. But up there, my producer came and stayed, so we'd work like a three day cycle. So he'd come up on the first day. We'd work Tuesday and then stay Tuesday Wednesday night, but we'd go. I'd go and he'd be tidying up what we'd recorded, and I'd go and make some supper. We'd have a glass of wine. And the very first night that we were down there, it was like it was beautiful evening, early spring, or it may probably winter actually, to be honest and clear, evening. I've made some supper, we had a glass of wine. We were sitting there. It was about nine o'clock and he said, well, should we just go back in the studio, and I said, yeah, yeah, three hit let's do it. And so we had this We had this little space in the evening if we wanted it where we could go and try things out, so not work on the track we were working on, or just I said, oh, I've got this set of chords and a kind of feeling that there's a fast vocal that's going to go with them. I said, I'm just working on this the other day and I didn't really have a chance to look at it. So and that was after the harvest, and that was the very first night we were up there. So we just started working and I started coming out with I didn't get the entire lyric, but I got these kind of soft word ending its almost French word endings, so all these cadences, and I thought, there's something here, this is new, and also I was almost it was like a semi wrap. He put this little drum machine rhythm in, and we put these synths on and I put the guitar parts down, and suddenly I came up with the second section, which is I Know that Love is Bigger, blah blah blah, and I was like, wow, well, you know this is it. We're off. This is the stuff. So then I, you know, he left and I finished that song at the end of the week, and then we finished recording it up there. But that was the sort of template. So we'd work on things during the day and then we'd have a sort of free hit in the evening till like midnight when we could work on other stuff. And that was very, very fruitful. So yes, it was a total breaking of my my heavy compartmentalization was shattered by the new new world of being just up in the middle of nowhere with nothing else to do and no one else to tell you what to do or come to bed or watch the TV series. You know. There there was nothing else, no distractions, So that was rather marvelous. Yes, it's like the story of the puppet becoming a real boy. I'm sort of slowly turning back into a human being. I'm on the other side of bringing up children and having a career. I'm becoming human again.

Yeah. I was forced out of my home studio in London because my awful neighbor was doing a refurbishment and decided he was going to dig out his basement and my studio was down there, and it was ridiculous. It was so loud we couldn't even think, let alone work. So I hastily turned my garage. I've got a house on the coast up in Norfolk. I turned my garage into a sort of recording space. Well I say recording space. I basically just put a floor and walls in and we moved some gear in there. So I was sort of reluctant to use When I go up there, it's generally a place for recharging and absorbing the world rather than trying to make things. I might be ruminating on things that I'm working on and singing them to myself and play a bit on my piano up there, but I don't sit down and work, So I was reluctant to kind of confuse the two worlds. But actually it was the greatest thing ever because The sort of quiet that rains up in this part of the world is I'm on a nature reserve. I'm out in the middle of you know, you know, in a marsh. Basically we're just heading down towards the ocean, so it's a very empty, pure place. I think suggestibility is a key ingredient for the sort of self hypnosis that's required to make things to write. To suddenly be in a creative mood, and the moment I close the car door when I go up there, I mean it's my happy place. It's a world of stars, of wind through reads of bare branches, of the sounds of the geese on the marsh. It's a world of sound and spectacle and subtlety and nuance. And I immediately awakened the moment I'm in it, So I'm already in a suggestible state, more broadly than a creative state, a state of suggestibility. So the quiet that was there was wonderful, and as as I say, this kind of relaxed state of being when you haven't got sirens and buses screeching and all the kind of angst that the city brings you basically freed from that. So it was remarkable and the other key thing was I normally work a sort of rigid, semi rigid day. So we'll normally meet at ten in the morning, have a cup of tea, chat, start working about ten thirty, quarter to eleven, and finish at about quarter to seven, with a little lunch break and a few cups of teeth thrown in. But that would be my working day. But up there, my producer came and stayed, so we'd work like a three day cycle. So he'd come up on the first day. We'd work Tuesday and then stay Tuesday Wednesday night, but we'd go. I'd go and he'd be tidying up what we'd recorded, and I'd go and make some supper. We'd have a glass of wine. And the very first night that we were down there, it was like it was beautiful evening, early spring, or it may probably winter actually, to be honest and clear, evening. I've made some supper, we had a glass of wine. We were sitting there. It was about nine o'clock and he said, well, should we just go back in the studio, and I said, yeah, yeah, three hit let's do it. And so we had this We had this little space in the evening if we wanted it where we could go and try things out, so not work on the track we were working on, or just I said, oh, I've got this set of chords and a kind of feeling that there's a fast vocal that's going to go with them. I said, I'm just working on this the other day and I didn't really have a chance to look at it. So and that was after the harvest, and that was the very first night we were up there. So we just started working and I started coming out with I didn't get the entire lyric, but I got these kind of soft word ending its almost French word endings, so all these cadences, and I thought, there's something here, this is new, and also I was almost it was like a semi wrap. He put this little drum machine rhythm in, and we put these synths on and I put the guitar parts down, and suddenly I came up with the second section, which is I Know that Love is Bigger, blah blah blah, and I was like, wow, well, you know this is it. We're off. This is the stuff. So then I, you know, he left and I finished that song at the end of the week, and then we finished recording it up there. But that was the sort of template. So we'd work on things during the day and then we'd have a sort of free hit in the evening till like midnight when we could work on other stuff. And that was very, very fruitful. So yes, it was a total breaking of my my heavy compartmentalization was shattered by the new new world of being just up in the middle of nowhere with nothing else to do and no one else to tell you what to do or come to bed or watch the TV series. You know. There there was nothing else, no distractions, So that was rather marvelous. Yes, it's like the story of the puppet becoming a real boy. I'm sort of slowly turning back into a human being. I'm on the other side of bringing up children and having a career. I'm becoming human again.

Congratulations on dear life, David Gray. I could listen to you talk all day, I could listen to your music all day. This is such joy for me talking to you on the podcast, and I just thank you for everything.

Congratulations on dear life, David Gray. I could listen to you talk all day, I could listen to your music all day. This is such joy for me talking to you on the podcast, and I just thank you for everything.

My pleasure. Buzz say hello to the chaps at the restaurant in Concord.

My pleasure. Buzz say hello to the chaps at the restaurant in Concord.

I will thank you, David.

I will thank you, David.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts.