Fire

Track 6 is Fire, also from The Turn. Fire felt to me like one of the
More realised songs from The Turn
What drew you to reimagine this one?

Well, I just love it, but Shaun fancied it, didn't you?

I love it as well. It's great. And I could just feel like the original

Is brilliant, you know? I mean, that's the thing. I don't at any

Point want to say that anything on Key was me attempting to quote

Unquote fix anything that was already there because Pete's work on

Fire and on Can't Say It Like I Mean It is, I think, already great

These are just a different way of doing it. But I could just feel

With Fire that I could bring it into my world and make it something

Like really special. And it's one of my, I think it's one of my

Favourites. It's really, really great. And I was determined to just

Go like full synth. It's got all of my, and I'm sort of applying all

Of my synth skills. It's got this noise I made by sampling a bowl

From my kitchen and feeding it into this sort of, you know, additive

Synthesis thing that I use and making this gorgeous noise. It's the

Sound you hear after you sing I'm On Fire With You. You hear this

Kind of, it's that, that's my bowl from my kitchen. And it's got

Like, almost every record I've ever made, there'll be something in
The track sheet and one of the songs that's labelled Gary Synth
Because I'm a huge adherent of the old school Gary Newman synth
Sound. This kind of oily lead line that he got from the old
Polymoog. And there's a bit of that in the middle eight of
This, which I love. And it's just, it's such a great song
It's got a great lyric and it feels really dramatic. And it
Was really interesting just to kind of cast your vocal against
Sort of my way of looking at that to put the two together to
Get something new. And I think it's worked out really well

When I was listening to it, I thought it was really filmic
The electronic palette that you seem to have brought to it
It's a bit like Van Gels' Blade Runner or John Carpenter

I mean, that's the highest of all possible compliments. So thank you
Yeah. I mean, if I'm touching that, then we're on the right track

Is that kind of in the right area? Is that?

Not consciously. I mean, it's just, I don't, I work on a very

Instinctive level. So all these things that I will have heard over

The years all leak in. But most of the work that I do as a musician

Is done in a period of sustained panic. So it's not a question of

I neatly plan everything out in advance and sort of just sit and

Then sit at the sequencer and make it happen. I sit at the sequencer

Going, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, I've got to come up
With something. And what will, and like a lot of the days of the
Work on Key would be me sitting in front of it, not doing anything
All day, going, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God. And then going
Downstairs for dinner and then having a couple of hours with my
Husband sort of thinking, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God. And then
Going back to the studio for an hour and then doing like a day's work
In an hour. So then the next morning I wouldn't feel quite so bad
And then rinse and repeat for nine
Months and that's how Key was made

Well, yes, that's so often the way we're lyric writing. You know
You can sit there and stand to be depressed and hear the noises
Of life going on outside your window and just feel, oh geez
I've sat in the same spot staring at the same screen for hours
And then you just have a moment. I mean, occasionally there are
Times that you sort of like can write something in minutes, which
Like the lyric of Other just kind of happened like that. But so
Often it's as Shaun says, you're waiting for the visitation. You
Know, you're waiting for that moment
Of, yeah, just a spark to happen

So because it's one that is not featured in the live
Tour, is that more of a freedom in which to approach?

Yeah, to some degree. I mean, there were certain songs that selected

Themselves for not being on Key because we'd already done new

Arrangements of them which had landed on Minutes and Seconds Live

Or the other live collection. Things like Wishing You Were Here

Which again, completely slaps, but we'd sort of done it. The live

Version of that that we were doing on the other tour is, I think

Pretty definitive for a modern take on the song. So doing that again

Would have felt a bit like you were sort of shortchanging people

So Fire was good because it was something that hadn't featured for

A while. So you could do a new approach on it. And I like the fact

That it wrong-foots you because the intro of the new version, like

I'm sort of doing my synth version of what Pete's guitar does on

The original. I came up with this physical modelling patch that's

Got sounds like strings being plucked, but it's all synthetic and

It's playing the same part. So you think it's going in the same

Direction and then it takes an abrupt kind of right turn and goes

Somewhere else. I mean, obviously it's in the back of your head that
These things are going to be in the live set and you want them to
Feel that they'll be good. But it was more just about reacting to
What was there on the day and thinking, what would be interesting?
Or thinking, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God. And then seeing
What you eventually bring to it when that panic subsides
I mean, I think in the main, we can make the live set do
Whatever it needs to do. Whether it's the order you do the
Songs in or the way you approach the arrangements. If
Something's going to go in, we'll find a way to make it work

But there is something, there's certainly something nice for me within

Doing this is because, you know, I can struggle sometimes in terms

Of audience expectation because again, having played for 40 some

Years, people will come into your career at different points and

Sometimes those points, they're only in there for a moment. And then

Imagine that that's who you are and that's where you are. So when

They turn up and find out you're not working with, you know, a string

Quartet, they can be horrified. You know what I mean? Or another

Time that you're not sort of like Disco Dolly, you know, all of these

Things can be problematic. For me, there's a really appealing element

About presenting this album as being close to what, how we're going

To present these songs live that no one cannot say they've been pre-
Warned. Do you know what I mean? This is who I am as an act at this
Stage in my life. And that's not to dismiss anything else. That's
Not to tell anybody that they have to rethink the way they feel about
Music. It's very much more about saying, you know, this is what I
Do and I'd be delighted for you to come, but don't feel pressured
Do you know what I mean? Don't, don't if it's going to be a problem
For you, because I'm not suddenly going to become this thing that
You think I am. Because if I was ever that, I was only ever that for
A moment. And, you know, we change, we get remarried again, don't we?