Tracey Thorn has never quite felt like she fitted in, not as a pop star and not really as a singer. But her new book reveals a writer in fine voice
about the experience of singing. Not just what voices do to those of us who listen to them and love or loathe them, but what they do to the person who sings.
“Why isn’t singing just wonderful? That’s almost the heart of the book,” she says. In fact, one of the titles she toyed with when she was writing it, was The Trouble with Singing. She laughs when she tells me it was deemed too negative. But really, that is Thorn’s interest. Here’s this activity that we do when we’re happy and when we’re sad, that lots of us venerate, idealise even. Plenty of us would give anything to be able to do it – not just carry a tune but really be able to belt it out. Yet Thorn’s experience of singing is that it’s far from straightforward. And she’s not alone. Sandy Denny, Dusty Springfield, Karen Carpenter, Linda Thompson – they are all women who struggled if not to find their voices then certainly to sustain them, or in some cases to live with them. Think about Janis Joplin or Amy Winehouse or Whitney Houston. Thorn explores how voices work and how audiences hear, what it feels like to have people love your voice and also the pain of when it won’t do what you wish it would. She ranges through literature, interviews other singers and includes a playlist that if you’re anything like me will keep you up far too late as you listen to songs you’ve not heard for years and others which are new to you. But most of all, Thorn gives the unique perspective of someone who knows what it’s like to stand behind the microphone. “This book is very personal,” she says. “It’s very much not a history of singing, it’s me exploring my own things and picking singers who’ve experienced something similar.”
The book isn’t a redemption story. Thorn doesn’t start off finding singing a bit tricky and end the book cured taking to the stage of the Albert Hall or the O2 and ready to sing her heart out. It’s not that that wouldn’t have been appealing, it’s just that it wouldn’t have been true. “The book didn’t solve anything,” she says. “There was a time when I thought I was going to have an epiphany moment and that’s how the book would end. But I’m glad that I didn’t do that because it would have been dishonest. I don’t think anything major is going to change. The only change is I’ve become a bit more forgiving of myself. I try to make my peace with where I am at now.” She laughs. “That all sounds a bit mindful and inclusive but it’s the only sane way I can deal with it really.”
When I spoke to Thorn the last time, she was worried that having pulled the curtain back about her time as a pop star she’d have to face the fact that she couldn’t put it back. Her cover would be blown, everyone would now know about her awkwardness. How lovely that if anything the book added to her already considerable fan base – people responded to her wry wit and openness. She wasn’t exposed in a negative way, she was revealed and people liked what they saw. In Naked at the Albert Hall, it feels as though she’s finding even surer footing. Her first edit may be a process of removing all of the “perhapses” – “sometimes it’s nearly every sentence” – and she may