SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Sometimes, songs take decades to grow and form.
BRYAN FERRY: Like most artists, I have lots of scraps, you know, kind of, of scrapbooks and sketches and things which you at some point develop into bigger things.
SIMON: That's Bryan Ferry, best known as a member of Roxy Music.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MORE THAN THIS")
FERRY: (Singing) I could feel at the time there was no way of knowing. Fallen leaves in the night. Who can say where they're blowing? As free as the wind...
SIMON: The band formed in 1970, Bryan Ferry as frontman and principal songwriter. He's kept cassettes of rough musical ideas and sketches from all of that time and is now releasing them in a spoken word album called "Loose Talk," but much of the talking on this album isn't from Bryan Ferry. It's from Amelia Barratt.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FLORIST")
AMELIA BARRATT: The theater is closed in the morning, but outside is a florist. So I watch him wrap stems in paper and twine. No gloves on.
"The Florist" (laughter). It starts with, the theater is closed in the morning, but outside is a florist.
You know, all of my texts have to start with a really strong first line. That's how I kind of get going. And from there, everything just kind of fell into place. I mean, the way I write is kind of collage fragments of observation, and it has this quite emotional arc to it. And it's one of the texts that is most like a story.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FLORIST")
BARRATT: Imagine one day, he comes home to me and says, there is nothing more I want than this. He gestures to the tulips that look out from a bucket bunched in the passenger seat of the van.
The way that it ends, with the narrator in tears, was not something that I really planned. But it seems to resonate with people, that one.
SIMON: Where does a poem come from for you?
BARRATT: As an artist and a visual person and a painter, as well, I notice things, and it's kind of my job to do so. So I start with a load of notes - things that I notice or observe or sometimes, occasionally, fragments of speech. And then it really is - I often do think of it like collage. I lay everything down and go from there. And how it actually happens is kind of a bit unknown. But with the knowledge that they're going to be worked on by Bryan, that's a great motivation, having so much respect for Bryan's music.
(SOUNDBITE OF BRYAN FERRY AND AMELIA BARRATT SONG, "ORCHESTRA")
SIMON: Bryan Ferry, how do you think your music has changed since the days of Roxy Music?
FERRY: Well, it's been very freeing for me to work on this project and improvise and not be tied down by song structures and so on.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ORCHESTRA")
FERRY: (Singing) Hello there (ph).
I think as people do get older and mature, they become more reflective, and that's pretty obvious in some of the music on this album. I'm also very interested in the idea of collage with collage of sounds, and that's always been my thing. I mean, from the first beginnings of Roxy Music, I always found that exciting. And on this project, you know, having the - these great, poetic stories, which are kind of fragments of everyday life, but there's some mystery about them, and that's the kind of feeling I like to get from music, too.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ORCHESTRA")
BARRATT: Chairs fixed to the floor. The youngest violinist wears a shirt with a cinched waist - looks out remorsefully from it. There won't be a dry eye tonight.
SIMON: Do music and poetry, spoken word, both have the quality of making us really look deeply and see what's right in front of us and otherwise might not notice, or just take for granted?
BARRATT: Certainly, I think poetry has that potential. Spoken texts have that potential. That's why I've always really liked working with that medium. It can take one out of oneself slightly. But then the music - I don't know. I feel that there's more of a sense that one can lose oneself to a kind of other dimension. Maybe that's what's interesting about this combination of those two things.
SIMON: Let me get you both to talk about the song "Holiday."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOLIDAY")
BARRATT: A T-shirt fell upon me - a loose cloak. Surprise. I love a uniform, a holiday for the scattered mind. A pack of cards - 54 floats upon the water. Different costumes along the coast state one thing and one thing only - frivolity.
Yeah. I mean, the more that we were working on these tracks, I started to get excited about what I could do next that was different. They had been moody in a particular way, a bit more downbeat and kind of gritty and industrial. I wanted to - I remember feeling like I wanted to write something that had sunshine in it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOLIDAY")
BARRATT: A squeal of delight, and then an aside. I do not wish to count all the times we have missed an opportunity to just live life.
FERRY: It felt very fresh when it came, that one. And it was kind of uplifting, and yet quite intense in a funny way. And then there's a certain stateliness about it, as well, which I somehow feel.
(SOUNDBITE OF BRYAN FERRY AND AMELIA BARRATT SONG, "HOLIDAY")
SIMON: This is a wonderful collaboration. I wonder if it makes both of you think about more collaborations.
FERRY: Yeah. Well, we're well on the way through the second album, actually.
BARRATT: It's very exciting. And I think we've found a way to work, which is we can both kind of work quite intensely in our own way. I think in a collaboration, that's really the dream where you don't have to talk about what you're making. You're just making.
(SOUNDBITE OF BRYAN FERRY AND AMELIA BARRATT SONG, "LOOSE TALK")
BARRATT: You've found some common ground, and there is a kind of trust there.
FERRY: Yeah. We don't seem to get in the way of each other, as it were. It's really good. Well (laughter), proof is in the pudding.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOOSE TALK")
BARRATT: Lights out. Take the lights out of this blinking head. Deep belief, blossom, so as to split the shell. Spill. Drop out and down. Sink like ink in an oil tank.
SIMON: Bryan Ferry and Amelia Barratt talking about their new album, "Loose Talk." Thank you to both of you for being with us.
FERRY: A pleasure.
BARRATT: Thank you for having us.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOOSE TALK")
BARRATT: Lay back. The seats are leather. Lay back. It's over. And with the mist lifted... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
