3. Unit 4 + 2Concrete And Clay

I moved to North West London when I turned eleven, in November 1964, and this came out in the summer of 1965. I heard it on pirate radio – those stations, Radio Caroline, Radio London, they were around – and it was just a breath of fresh air. It was so romantic, so rhythmic, I’d never heard anything like it. I had my first crush on a local girl and it just fitted, I’d see her at the park and the music would be in my head. I was really looking forward to moving to London, I’d heard some cockney accents and thought they were quite weird, quite funny and good. When I arrived from Ireland I had a broad Irish accent, and had to lose that quickly. Then I had a really broad Wolverhampton accent when I moved to London, and got the piss taken out of me mercilessly. I found that really hard – that kind of rocked me, really.

When you covered this on My Beauty, in covering a song from your childhood were you trying to connect with something from then?

When I heard these songs, and all the beauty in them, it was definitely something that I had lost. I was coming back to it really.