When she was a boy

Rip It Up, Issue 200, 1 April 1994, Page 18

When she was a boy

One of the unexpected surprises of last year was Canadian Jane Siberry’s When I Was A Boy - an album that combined torch balladry, dance beats and epic poetry. Siberry in person is not unlike her music - enigmatic, childlike and incredibly exacting (answers are always carefully considered). At times she seems only marginally involved with the task at hand, but at her solo show performed later that night, Siberry drew a (very willing) audience into her world with considerable ease, a world where Siberry seemed finally to feel at home, where the angels and spirits of her music could work their spells without interruption. Since the completion of When I Was A Boy last year (her sixth album) Siberry has in part been busy making videos.

“When the record was nearing completion they {the record company} didn’t want to make any videos because I’d never gotten a video played. So I thought I’d make them just as I saw them, trusting that there would be’ value to them even if it was just for momentum for myself on some level. In the video for ‘Sail Across the Water’ there had to be five women and it had to be bright bright blue and gold . . . it just had to be . . . and they had to move out into the water and be pulled back in on the other side of this boat. I had to put the breaks on the video editor not to go for all the visual candy fluff and be very strict in that I didn’t want to use a shot unless it added to the story. It made me realise that the total opposite criteria is the norm for music videos. Music is one of the few ways we get to feel and see how other people feel and to infiltrate that with such a disrespectful way of working, well, it’s just a visual wank .... even worse than doing it in advertising somehow.’’ Brian Eno produced the track ‘Sail Across the Water’. What was it like working with him? “I’m tired of talking about Brian Eno. The great thing about Eno is the personal power he' has created for himself. . . it’s indelibly imprinted in his very name so that working with him involves a form of accreditation, and yet in the process of doing it there was a careless element introduced which I felt strongly about so that I went back later and re-did a lot of stuff we did together. ” What sort of person interests Jane Siberry? “I like people who are saying without apology what they think is important because we’re so curious about each other. Someone honks at someone else on the road and everyone turns to look at the face of the man who honks and the man who’s been honked at. The thing I enjoy most is seeing how other people see the world in the most unadulterated way possible. So it could be someone

trying to explain to me why my watch isn’t working and for some strange • reason the way : they speak tells you how they see the whole . * world. I mean,

have you ever understood it when people say ‘well, you need a producer so you can be objective’? I think the point is to be subjective. " And songwriting? "A lot of it’s subconscious and I trust it more than the conscious work that I do. If I’m attracted to something I bet you can look around and see that other people are attracted to it too. I’ve always wanted everybody to like me but by accident I find I get stronger and stronger rejections and this has actually strengthened me and given me a new freedom. People think I’m doing what I want to do but I feel like I’m compromising most of the time. But in the last year I feel most of my decisions are more aligned with faith rather than with fear. If I catch myself making a decision out of fear then I reverse it.” Faith in what, Jane? . "Faith in that we’re all divine and.if one listens to oneself one won’t be steered wrong. That's why I relate to Prince changing his name to something we can’t pronounce. Isn’t there a religion somewhere where they don’t have a name for god? I think a lot of people believe in something they can’t pronounce. It’s very important that older women, for example, say ‘this is the way I feel’ and even if you can’t explain it, it’s right. So now you get the younger women and men saying to their mothers 'Don’t apologise, say what you’re feeling’. You get all these older women finding themselves through their children.” I read that you financed yourfirst album by working as a waitress. “I always assumed that record labels wouldn’t be interested in me because I could only do it my way or I’d fade away ... I already knew that about my energy because I grew up fading away most of the time. I used to fantasise about cranes lifting me up as a kid when other kids were fantasising about dwarves and fairies. I just fantasised about different kinds of machines that would lift me up because I was too tired. So I knew that if I was going to do something creative I had to do it my own way or else I’d die ... so I did my first record independently and paid for it through waitressing. By the second record I had a real good live following so I signed with a record company." Oddly, John Bonham (the late Led Zeppelin drummer) gets a thank-you on the credits of when I was a boy. What’s the story there? ’ ' . “In ‘The Temple’ I sampled John Bonham in the chorus from ‘When the Levee Breaks. We tried to get permission but they wouldn’t give it, so we had to reproduce it exactly. The drum- •. mer was happy ... like a pig in shit. He just loves to bang on the drums really loud. In fact al-.

most every groove on the record is an extrapolation of that one groove . . slower, faster.”

Jane Siberry

by

greg fleming