My Life In Music

Beth Orton

Roxy MUSIC Avalon (1982)

It’s the first record I paid for with my own money, aged 11. I knew about Roxy Music from watching Top Of The Pops, which was a ritual each week – sitting having teas on knees and suddenly something pulls you out of the room into another world. From the opening chords of this record I was transported. It wasn’t a record to dance to exactly, but I wanted to move to it. There is a sadness too. My father had just died and I felt comforted by the sound of Brian Ferry’s voice, maybe. I guess I found it evocative and hopeful in an unknowable way. It’s a feeling that I’ve been looking for ever since.

SUFJAN STEVENS Carrie & Lowell (2015)

Sufjan’s songwriting is incredible – I’m completely taken by the stories and his voice and how everything sits so perfectly together. It’s one of the most beautiful-sounding records. It’s touching that he was moved to write about his mother, although I don’t generally focus on the real-life stories being behind songs – I feel it’s none of my business. But wherever the inspiration came from, I find these songs really moving; they’re full of humour and pathos. I do have to be careful when I put it on that I feel stable enough to take in so much beauty all at once. Especially around the kids, because they ask all sorts of difficult questions…

ERYKAH BADU Baduizm (1997)

I love Erykah Badu, she’s extraordinary. When Baduizm came out I was just like, “Thank God someone made this record!” There had been nothing like it before. I remember listening to it in my flat around the time my first album was released and it bringing me an incredible amount of happiness. I love the beats on the record, her voice, her words – it was massively inspiring for me and I’m sure hundreds of thousands of others, too. She speaks with great clarity and her whole delivery is completely unique. The older she gets, the more interesting she gets in terms of her musical output and who she is as a person. She’s a total legend.

JONI MITCHELL Blue (1971)

I first heard this when I was 17. I was on a date with someone and he brought it over to play me. Sadly I don’t remember his name, and I’m not sure I ever saw him again. But I do remember that after he left I lay there watching the sun on the wall for the rest of the day with Blue on repeat and being utterly moved. I thought it was against my better judgement – I didn’t want to like a high-voiced singing lady; I wanted to be cooler than that, but I’m not, thank goodness. Joni spoke to me and that was that. I’d always written poems, but hearing Blue inspired me to start putting them to melodies, so it’s a life-changing album for me in that respect.

KATE BUSh The Man With The Child in his Eyes (1978)

She’s a genius, right? “The Man With The Child In His Eyes” was the gateway song to her world. I didn’t fully understand it, but I felt it deep. When I learned how young Kate Bush was when she wrote it, I wonder what she knew of what she was writing? But songs always grow and change with time and experience. I love her later records, too – Hounds Of Love is obviously incredible and possibly a more sophisticated creation. But I respond to music on an emotional level so much of the time, and there’s something about catching an artist in their formative stages, when their defences are still down.

LEONARD COHEN Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967)

My last record, Kidsticks, felt like a bit of a clearout, as if I was throwing all my most precious loves out into the wind. Now the dust has settled, I’m finding myself going back to people like Leonard Cohen with an even greater respect – that clarity and purity of sound, the balance between the music and the lyrics. He’s such a soulful dude. What a fucking lyricist. I listen to him and I believe him. He is only ever looking for the poetry in it all, and right now, that’s all I want to know about. I was very sad when he died; I don’t know that there will be another voice like his.

ERIC B & RAKIM Paid in full (1987)

I was in my mid-teens and we’d moved to London. I remember my brother putting this on and I was like, “What is that!? Wow!” Whether it was Eric B & Rakim, EPMD, the Beastie Boys or even Salt N Pepa, I loved the cheekiness and the way people were dressing with so much colour suddenly. More than anything, I liked dancing, and I’d go out just wanting to hear one of these songs. Hip-hop was an introduction to something outside of England that wasn’t so stuffy and grey. It was dynamic and hopeful. Of course we had David Bowie, but this was a different kind of escapism. It was a whole new culture.

ALTHEA & DONNA Uptown Top Ranking (1978)

I mean, come on! This is one of the best songs ever. I don’t know much of what’s being said – what I do hear is “love is all I bring”,

“strictly roots” and of course, “gimme little bass” – but from the opening notes of the track I’m up and on the dancefloor. They have the loosest delivery and are the coolest of the cool. When I hear this track I feel free, untouchable. It’s a reminder that I don’t have to feel tied to any one else’s opinion of who I should be. It’s a song of female empowerment in a sweet and subtle way.