Tanita is Murder

...And she want to be your dog - official! As she trots out her new LP, ex-mystical folk-godey poetess and now newly-crowned queen of hock'n'pork roll, Tanita Tikaram proves she's a few lines short of a sonnet by singing songs about bacon sarnies! Would you spend your student grant on this woman, asks Roger Morton?

"I meet a lot of people who are older than me and I'm interested in how they react to me, and how I behave. I have this thing that a lot of people don't talk to me as an adult, which I like a lot. Because I like people to almost treat me like a dog. I don't mind that, as long as they don't get a bad feeling from me."
Hang on a minute, Tanita. You don't mind being treated as a dog, as long as people think you're a nice dog?
"Ha ha ha ha ha! ... Yeah. That's about it. I've met a lot of people over the last few days, and it always shocks me when people talk to me intelligently ... Or that people confide in me. I think that when you assume a certain stature, or you become successful, people sort of assume that you might have this insight. And it interests me how people react to you, without you even having opened your mouth, just from what they think they know about you."
From what we think we know about Tanita Tikaram, it might seem surprising that she should take an amused interest in being treated like a dumb animal. You might think that Tanita, of all people, would expect bright, cultivated conversation, and probably hand out knuckle raps to any pleb who fluffed their grammar.
Tanita Tikaram is, after all, our First Lady of Singer-Songwriting Sobriety. The deep-thought-diva of Basingstoke. In that case, who the jolly hockey sticks is the skittish, semi-detached, politely spaced-out imp-creature sitting opposite me? Clearly, for the last three years, someone has been doing a very bad impersonation of Tanita Tikaram.
How do we imagine Tanita? The glowering acoustic strummer standing on stage in the sensible shoes, solemnly versifying occluded macro-emotions with her eyes hidden behind drowsy lids? The raven-haired mystical poetess stalking rain-swept cliff tops and taking copious notes as her tears are whipped away by the cruel, cruel wind? The nice Hampshire girl sipping tea and dipping into Sylvia Plath? Joan Armatrading's revenge? The adult education set's Björk? That cool and superior old head on young shoulders who folk-fogeyed her way to global success courtesy of teenage culture's shrinking demographics? How old do you feel, Tanita?
"Very young ... Sort of about seven years young ... Baggy pants young ... When I'm feeling good it's like that ... When I'm feeling bad it's about 50.

It's hardly surprising that Tanita should be widely assumed to be somewhat staid and mature for her 21 years. Her first two albums, 'Ancient Heart' and 'The Sweet Keeper', were such brooding, sombrely phrased affairs, wrapping the still-life heart-surgery in elegiacal strings and sighing violins. Then there was Tanita the interviewee, with her literary talk, her down-in-the-dumps heroes (Leonard Coffin, Tom Weeps), her silence about her private life and her reluctance to elaborate on the twilight cogitations of her Iyrics. And then there were the woolly tights. If the fishnet-fad-flirts, the transparent-trivia-tarts and the gabbling, lurid, weightless wonders were down one end of pop's broad spectrum, then Tanita was definitely down the other end, with the heavy dudes. A serious artiste, it seemed.
The first thing that made me think that Tanita Tikaram was totally off her nut was the hot pork sandwiches. Actually it was 'Hot Pork Sandwiches', a jaunty little song from her new album 'Everybody's Angel'. Accompanied by sarcastic Hammond organ warbles and doing a reasonable impersonation of a hot dog stall trader with swamp fever, Tanita sings about a love affair fuelled by pig-flesh sarnies - "I want hot pork sandwiches/Wrapped in foil, Corners are laced with gristle/l trust it's been freshly boiled ... "
'Hot Pork Sandwiches' isn't entirely representative of 'Everybody's Angel'. By and large the songs are still in the searching, philosophically perplexed mould, albeit with far less melodramatic, more friendly arrangements. But, significantly, it does suggest that beneath the placid surface of Tanita's still waters, some very eccentric currents stir.
The second thing that made me think that Tanita Tikaram might be a few lines short of a full sonnet is what she did when we began the interview. Amidst the tasteful wall-to-wall greyness of a downstairs room at her manager's office, the tastefully suited Tanita started to explain that her summer haircut (which makes her look, somehow, like Pamella Des Barres' little sister) had been a mere whim, and then she stopped.
"I'm sorry. This is a bit of a distraction," she said, reaching out to close a German pop magazine that was Iying on the charcoal carpet. Then she carried on a bit. Then she stopped again.
"I'm sorry. I'm going to have to move it," she announced suddenly, and promptly stood up, picked up the offending pop mag, and dumped it on the other side of the room, like it was a rotting fish, or a piece of boiled pork.
"Too many colours," she said, by way of explanation.
Mmmmm. Erm, has your life changed much since the first album?
"Yes .... Yes .... Ha ha .... Probably... Well, I don't know. I just feel good ... Not that I ever felt bad. I'm probably more relaxed than I used to be ... Good karma. No. Something like that ... No, emm, sorry ... Ha ha ha ... Erm, yes. It's probably something like that."

'Everbody's Angel' was largely recorded amidst the ancient-hippy-fest good karma of Bearsville Studios, Woodstock USA. Unlike the last album, the songs were not written in hotel rooms while on tour but during a relatively condensed period through December and January.
"When I was recording I wanted to get this feeling of warmth, which I think the songs have," says Tanita. "I wanted the listener to have some sense that we were actually in the same room together."
What was your mood when you were writing them?
It's weird, because when I'm writing I can't remember...It's definitely a mood I'm not usally in. If you say that sombody's 'out there', then I suppose that's how I am. I'm definitely tuned in to other things ... It's like I suddenly go into this frame of mind. I don't want to sound like Virginia Woolf in a trance, walking round the woods, but it's definitely I'm not all there, in a way."
Does the album title 'Everybody's Angel' refer to your angelic self?
"No, no. Well, that's probably my ideal self. A lot of the songs are about finding a faith in something, not in the religious way, but more in the spiritual way. I mean 'This Stranger' is about physically finding a place where one feels happy and secure. And 'Everybody's Angel' is like a mother figure. somebody to watch over you, who in spite of whatever happens manages to maintain this warmth towards people."
It's been said that your previous albums were composed of, erm, 'depressing spiritual insights'.
"Depressing? I don't know ... The word depressing is not such a great ... "
You write about the rain a lot. Tell me about the rain.
"Yes, I do like that. The rain and the sun are really important to me, because the sun is ... the place where you want to be. It's such an obvious thing, but why fuss about trying to make something complicated, when everyone knows what the rain and the sun are, emotionally. So I'm always leaning on these words. And food too."
Food?
"Yes. There are certain things. Certain smells ... The weather is important because ... It affects you."
It's the light sensor in the top of your head.
"Yes. That's why I always like really light rooms. People think I like the dark. But it's a complete lie ... I like the light ... and so I always have rooms with really big windows."
It did occur to me, when I heard 'Hot Pork Sandwiches', that you'd 'flipped'.
"Ha ha ha ha ha ... It s just a food obsession. No it's not, actually. I remember. if you listen to Van Morrison on 'Cleaning Windows', there's many references to buns ... I think that those are things that people just immediately get. And hot pork sandwiches are such a disgusting thing that I thought it was quite funny, because I'm also a vegetarian. The idea is that it's this romantic song with this ... "
Pork and sex. It's not right is it?
"Well I'm sure ... It's all part of the pleasure and the pain."
Do you think that having chosen a career where you are continually obliged to be self analytical, it might over the years, bit by bit, send you loopy, nutty ... mad?
"Actually, I'm very aware of that ... Ha ha ha ha ... And that's why I keep disappearing to places. Y'know, 'I won't be beaten by all this'. But you have to take it as a sort of joke, otherwise you end up becoming an American, or something. No, I don't mean that.
"My awful vision of how you might become is the Oprah Winfrey Show ... People who can talk about practically anything about themselves, and it adds up to absolutely nothing. They know nothing about themselves at all. That's what I try to get away from. I try to do things so that I don't get too deeply involved. I don't think too deeply about a lot of things. Only the ones I need to."

As introspective songwriters go, Tanita is probably as near as you can get to being hermetically sealed. Not that this detracts from the undoubted ability of her songs to tug forcefully at the emotions. But even Suzanne Vega will deal with, say, child abuse in a song. David Sylvian will be drawn to write a song about psycho-killers. Even Emily Dickinson (17th Century singer-songwriter) slipped in some proto-feminism here and there. Tanita's dream-songs, however, when they stray into daylight, go no further than family and observed relationships (pork sandwiches excepted). This is curious.
In the last year Tanita has world-toured her way through America, Europe, Japan and Australia. She has charmed her way through the clamour of the pop world, limo-gliding past cardboard cut-outs of herself in New York shop windows, and taxi-riding down dusty Turkish streets. She has gone missing (the disappearances), just to get away and to surround herself with the babble of foreign voices that she was used to, growing up as the daughter of a Fijian-born British Army father serving in Germany. In a rented apartment in Paris, she wrote her current single 'Only The Ones We Love' about the importance of family and the people who care for her.
During all this time she was passing through a world crawling with war, famine, chugs, violencr. pornography, poverty, computer sex games, Acid House ...
"And men with ponytails."
Yes, and men with ponytails and none of it seems to impinge on Tanita's work. Why?
"I don't know ... See, it's always seemed to me that in spite of these things, people don't stop feeling the things I write about. They don't stop having feelings for their families, or for love, or fo some spirituality. They don't just go away because something happens."
Some people might say that your level of introspection was indefensible?
"They probably do ... But I just don't really know what they're talking about. The songs aren't songs which don't care about people. I just don't understand that argument. It's totally over my head ... I mean you might as well say to me 'You don t write songs about this carpet'. That's how much sense it makes to me.
"I don't think it makes the song irrelevant, just because I'm not waving some sort of a banner. I mean it would be even worse if I wrote a song because I thought 'Oh, people think I don't care about the world'. It would sound like Tanita's 'She Cares About The World Song'. That would be just embarrassing."
Your bit of the pop world must have its fair share of chancers and dopers and arrogant prattlers. Do you get on with people like that?
"Ha ha ha ha ... Well there's this attitude in music, that these people become sort of part of the scenery. You just deal with it on that level. You don't really give it too much thought. So it never really touches you. It's almost like the colour of the thing. Although I don't tend to. You see it sometimes and I'm always shocked."
Do you think you'd have a good time on a night out with Happy Mondays?
"I don't really know too much about the Happy Mondays ... but I know they've got really dry hair ... I could suggest some conditioner they should use. The amount of dry hair about the place! It seems to be a band virus."
If it was publicly announced that you were an alcoholic, do you think it would do your career a favour?
"An alcoholic? ... Erm, I can t think it would do me any good. I can think it would do me some harm. I suppose I could put out a press release. But I just don't like all that. All that teasing and presenting something other than you are, I've never been attracted to. I do my work and I'm happy with that, and I m very happy to do TVs and interviews, but it really doesn't have much to do with who I am. To want to present the whole of your life as a work of art just leaves me cold. It's too much like Oprah."

Maybe it's not that someone's been going round doing a bad impersonation of Tanita Tikaram. Maybe it's just that, because she's not as wrinkly as Van Morrison or as wing-chic as Tom Waits, no-one believes that this dippy and amused and unassuming girl can be the Tanita Tikaram. Which is why her friends, when they read about Tanita keep meeting some entirely unrecognizable cool and sombre mysterious poetess. And why it's gone unnoticed that a true eccentric, a vivid dreamer, a soulful spectator has crawled into the cosy world of CD mega-sales ... on all fours, wagging her tail.
"Serious artist? ... I don't want that either. I want people to like my songs, but I don't want to be seen as particularly serious. I don't want my work to be seen as lacking a certain substance, I think that's important but I just don't mind what people think of me, really."
Are people wary of you because you're such a mysterious poetess?
"Only when they don't know me ... Like in America, it's 'HI! I'M A WORD PERSON'. And I go 'Oh ... Really ... Good ... Great.' But when people get to know you, you're just another person who happens to write songs."
What's the best thing about success?
"Well it just sort of makes sense of what you do, that you touch some people's lives. It's as basic as that. I mean that's all a good song can do really, just take on a meaning for someone and become part of the way they see things. And I think that's important."
Would it annoy you if there was some Japanese Tanita copyist out there doing bad impersonations of you?
"No, no. I would love it. It would be so nice. I don't know how to go about encouraging that, but I'm sure if there's anyone out there, please do, please do ... It would give me such a buzz."