Sounds magazine - May 1985 
Interview by Chris Roberts

Yeah, that's when I laughed.

"I probably just couch mine in different terms as a result of my history. Everybody accounts for what they're doing in some way."

I'm nagging at Green because of the image I had of him before I walked into this hotel and said, "Why do they always have all the lights on in the daytime in these places?"

He replied, "Well, it'd be a bit silly if they didn't, cos it would be dark." But by now he was telling me my Rothmans were racist.

Green is wearing an apricot polo-neck jumper, is not very blond but is very tall. You have to, really, admire his work with Scritti Politti very much. 'Songs To Remember' such as 'The Sweetest Girl', 'Faithless', and the elusive 'A Slow Soul', suggested as much emotion as they displayed vivid intelligence. The Arif Mardin production 'Wood Beez' - taking Green Gartside, David Gamson (keyboards) and Fred Maher (drums), into the real top twenty - seemed somehow flippant in its gorgeousness. But, oh, how serious a matter it is to play like Aretha. There followed the splendid 'Absolute', then a wishy-washy contradiction in terms with the ill-fated 'Hypnotise'.

And then came the word. And the word was 'Girl'.

Aretha is again spiritually involved, which anyone with more soul than a Paul Hardcastle record won't be complaining about. References to chains of fools, and a young Shirley MacLaine on the cover. Woman as icon? Go on!

"Hadn't occurred, actually. It could be there. I was taking stock of all the lyrics of the songs for the new album and, lo and behold, in every song there was - this girl, or that girl. It seemed a good idea to show awareness of the device being used, to take it out of neutral and show it didn't connote or denote certain things. It was important to admit a consciousness of the materiality of referring to 'girls' in songs."

Oh... yeah, right, definitely. To admit a... thingy. Yes.

"I don't really have Aretha as an iconographic symbol or cipher. It's not part of a 'Scritti mythology'. Just an apt device. Little bit of gratuitous clever buggers, probably."

Aw, and I thought we were going to pretend to be intellectuals.

Green, an Englishman, and David and Fred, two New Yorkers, are hoping 'The Word Girl' will be a hit because they find making pop music exciting and challenging. In June the second Scritti Politti album will appear, and it will be called 'Cupid And Psyche '85'.

Now come on - I don't have to ask, do I?

"There is a fable, the myth of Cupid and Psyche, and the deal was that they would stay in love as long as they never tried too hard to find out too much about each other - they should just enjoy each other's company and not make demands. But that's what they made the mistake of doing, so Cupid fled, for some reason, and Psyche was sent around the world for eternity to find him. Although, at the very end of the legend, they do get reconciled. I think so, anyway."

"So - it's fine as long as you don't overanalyse, since familiarity breeds contempt. But in our society, Cupid has now come to stand for 'romance' and Psyche for 'hidden lurking depths', so of course it would've been preposterous to call the album 'Cupid And Psyche'. But putting '85 after it makes it... perfectly cool. It makes it awfully sensible."

David: "Well, that's what he told me!"

Green: "I think it's quite a funny little title."

I would say Green is as perceptive as he thinks he is, which is quite remarkable.


DAVID AND Fred, bless their drawls, have just moved into a new flat in London. David returns from a phone call and says to Fred: "Rentals. We have to find out where the oil meters are so they won't overcharge us or something."

Both musicians used to play for Material, and Fred has played "real drums" on the last three Lou Reed albums. Talk to me, Fred.

"Pop songs come and go so fast; it's marvellous. You can mark off areas of time in your life. I personally find that exquisite. Pop music is everywhere; it permeates."

Are you aiming for depth? (I'm busy lighting a racist Rothman so I have to chuck in a filler.)

David: "I wouldn't concern myself about depth. I don't think we worry about that."

Green: "Vapid pop songs can be very moving. Here, we get into heavy water 'cos of this notion of soulfulness, honesty, earnestness. Is it implicit with most journalists that there's something more expressive and truthful than pop music? I genuinely don't believe that jazz music or whatever is any more effective to the senses and emotions."

"This fallacy persists of evincible demonstrations of passion - the hotline to the psyche of some artist as something to be treasured. That's a heap of bollocks. There's no claims to be made for something with 'more wailing' on it. The alternative to the dominant pop code, which is being wilfully individualistic or obscure and making a point of it, is so oversubscribed. The tortured psyche of a spotty man who's 'gone over there to do something clever', when 'over there' now has a history and conventions of its own, which are as arid, dead, stifled, oppressive and reactionary as the mainstream. So, given that we aren't doing that, then... er, what was I saying?"

Not too sure, but could you fill in on a live review for me next Tuesday?

Green goes on.

"It's yet to be demonstrated that the circa-1980 'move away from pop music' was at all radical or potent. We're interested in mastering our form. That's where we are, that's what we're learning about. We're prepared to be organic."

South London militant DJ Ranking Ann has contributed a razor sharp rap of the feminist persuasion on 'Flesh And Blood', the single's B-side 12 inch extension. Underneath it, Green intones with customary angelic invisible pitch.

"Yes - it's white cod reggae, but legitimate because it has no pretences to be roots rockers, as Fred says. Having heard Ann's two albums, I thought she'd like the sentiments of the song rather than approve of the rhythmics. I knew she was stroppy, but it's positive. She saw she'd be giving her counsel to a completely different audience - teenagers. Which I think is great. It complements what we've done on the other side."

All this took a while. There were two phases of delay after 'Songs To Remember' - finding management after leaving Rough Trade and then recording "in bits". Green says he wouldn't've been happy to do a whole album with Arif Mardin straight away (although other whispers suggest they couldn't afford his fee after 'I Feel For You'), and Scritti embarked on the last leg of recording in London with Howard Gray. But the next record "needn't take this much time at all". Fred and David's involvement in soul and funk music with both Material and Ze has come through, notably on tracks like 'Small Talk' and 'Lover To Fall', although I find these nearer to the sham of a 'Sussudio' than the shuffle of 'Sweet Soul Music'. One song called 'A Little Knowledge' is, however, beautiful.

"There aren't many autobiographical songs. I'm rarely moved by personal tragedy. Hopefully the body of work though, if not personal as in 'diary', does add up to something."

Would it be fair to say you're eclectic?

"Yes."

Are grinding, rocky guitars your only taboo?

"That's interesting - no, I can't think of any areas we wouldn't like to explore. Polkas. I'm not too keen on getting around to the polkas."


SCRITTI SAY they prefer to talk Chic rather than "post-punk gothic doomhead despondency and complete inertia and irrelevance". (Possibly the most sweeping statement I've heard since Reagan died. Whaddya mean, he's alive??)

"One had to investigate the resurgence of James Brown and Aretha Franklin. And then we all dragged ourselves through the awful Mutant Disco days, till black hip-hop cut across in America like nothing since punk in Britain..."

I have my monthly moan about superslick Arif Mardin.

"Well, old Arif's done his fair share of soulful r'n'b," Green cuts in calmly.

On the subject of image, why did you suddenly start dressing up in Harvey Nichols curtains and cultivating a Lady Di hairdo when you got on to Top Of The Pops?

"As fast as an image can get you out there, it can string you up. People whose image is larger than their music get hoisted by their own petard, quickly."

Not if the image is relevantly brilliant.

"You're a mug if you prescribe a plan, you're bound to come a cropper."

I retain reservations.

"Hopefully we'll now present ourselves honestly."

There are fine things, inspired ideas and phrases, nuances and execution, in Scritti Politti's music. And their records always have brilliant covers.

And now, the 'Absolute'.

"There is philosophically the notion of the ultimate truth about the world, isn't there?"

Green, I can tell, has been through this one a few dozen times - at least in his head - but, delighted as I am at meeting an articulate pop star who doesn't think he's Jesus Christ, I think it's worth another trot-through.

"We're all running around and none of us is quite grasping what it is. The point of the song was a) there isn't one and b) it's somehow a terribly difficult myth to live without. It's hard to reconcile yourself to the idea that there's nothing on this earth that's more than other people's opinions."

Talking of which, I'm now looking for a line from Verlaine's 'Green' to close with, but all twelve are utterly irrelevant. Not that that would normally stop me; but the poet's words seem pompous and silly, the sweaty-browed whinings of a man who's eaten too many boiled carrots and so can't sleep.

"There's Noel Coward's thing about 'the potency of cheap music'," mentions Green Gartside (my, what a name!). "A lot of popular music is very beautiful, I think."

So let the art of the century flourish. And long may Green, with his dignified respect for the Arethas of this world (for there are, really, more than one) continue to appreciate and glamorise the anti-fact. Stupidly, rightly, '85.