I get told I’m a confessional songwriter, which gets on my tits because I think of negative connotations attached to the word “confessional”. I don’t like the idea of songwriting being therapy. I don’t want to put myself so directly in the foreground.
BETH ORTONKissing was something I did a lot of. Kissing in a wheat field as the sun begins to set on a summer’s evening, with the haze of that light.
More Beth Orton Quotes
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I’m not comfortable holidaying in other people’s poverty.
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I just like the child’s nightmares and therapy, once an experience has found the light of day I’m no longer under its spell, I’m free to tell it. I hope in telling honestly I can in some way help other people to do so also.
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When I was really young I used to collect frog spawn. I made a pond out of an old sink and I loved to spend hours watching the frogs grow.
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We’re all like little ants who scurry around with the materials that are at hand right now. Each generation finds new materials. Its just evolution, isn’t it?
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I have a friend who says the best boyfriends are ones with intimidating, good-looking older brothers. The boyfriends try harder because they’re so insecure. Maybe I’m the female equivalent.
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I want it to be more universal than that – like a painter doesn’t have to explain his life story away to justify his painting.
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I was born on a pig farm in Norfolk. We grew up in the city called Norwich in Norfolk, then I moved to London when I was thirteen.
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To me songwriting is more like redemption. I can extract the poison or the pollen, the essence from a situation and the rest becomes a husk that blows away.
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I don’t read music; I taught myself guitar.
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My dad got me a chemistry book one Christmas and I burnt the garden shed down. I remember there was the most beautiful smell forever after in the remains.
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When I’m on a roll nothing makes me happier or feel more satisfied, like plugging in, life makes sense.
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I was scared of the Bible – it seemed whenever I read it I got bad luck. Then I befriended a couple of Jesus’s disciples and I used to show them modern life – how to run the hot and cold taps and things like that. They seemed alright but it didn’t change my feelings about the Bible jinx.
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One time I completely thought I’d turned into a werewolf and was sure I could see hairs sprouting from my face. At those times I’d suddenly go very quiet and not talk to anyone, stunned from the developments, being a werewolf and all.
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I didn’t jump a lot of trees because I didn’t like heights. I liked getting a mirror and walking around with it facing the sky. I’d imagine I was walking in the tops of the trees and falling into the sky, or walking up the stairs whilst going down.
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My manager said the next best inspiration to heartbreak is travel, and it’s true.
BETH ORTON