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Duffy: How I Wrote Mercy
12:58 PM GMT 01/12/2008
IT WAS A CRAZY YEAR for Aimée Duffy. Virtually unknown last Christmas; Number 1 album in March; a bit wobbly in the summer as the year went surreal; and now it’s all hobnobbing with Whoopi Goldberg on US chat shows. And yet, it all started four years ago, as the former Mawffactor (ie. Welsh Pop Idol) runner-up hooked up with Rough Trade management maven Jeanette Lee and the journey to Rockferry (the album, not the place) began. Here, in an extended mix of an interview that appears in the current MOJO magazine, the Welsh soul belter gives Lois Wilson the lowdown on how she penned Mercy, the album’s centrepiece, all-conquering hit single and MOJO’s song of the year.
How did the song come about?
The record was almost finished, it had taken four years to put together. I’d been working with this very tight-knit team; there was me and [manager] Jeanette Lee and then songwriters Bernard Butler, Eg White and Jimmy Hogarth and I’d spent these four years reflecting on just what kind of record I wanted to make, because once it was out there it was how I’d be defined. I’d said a lot but I really didn’t think I’d said everything. I felt something was missing and Mercy was that missing thing. We were writing it literally at the end, when the strings were being put on Rockferry and Warwick Avenue.
How did you meet Steve Booker, who co-wrote the song with you?
It’s funny. I was looking at a flat in Ladbroke Grove and he was living in the flat. His friend answered the door, this amazing woman, she asked me what I did and when I told her I was a singer she said I must meet Steve as he was a songwriter. We went for coffee and I had this gut feeling that we should write together. I asked Jeanette what she thought and she just said, we’ve made this record so go and have fun, be creative. By the end of hanging out in the studio for two weeks we had Mercy and Stepping Stone.
Which came first, the lyrics or the melody?
I’d already written the lyrics to Mercy, it was like this melodic poem in my mind, which I just had to get out, and I knew exactly what I wanted it to sound like. Steve was very patient. He sat at the piano and put chords underneath it and we built the song from the bottom up. It’s very important that my songs start from an organic source, rather than a drum loop. You can dress it up how you like but at the end it’s about the strength of the song, the melody and the words. The lyrics were about having a feeling towards someone, whether it’s a romantic feeling or just some chemistry that you don’t want, and you desperately want to be released from that feeling. I’m very cautious about saying what a song is about, it’s my issues and baggage and when someone else listens to the song it isn’t about my baggage anymore it’s about their baggage. I don’t want Mercy to become more about the situation that inspired it than the song. The song does the talking.
Was it always the intention to write what could be called a soul song?
I never have a plan as that always fails, I learned that in the first year of putting pen to paper. I just try to be spontaneous and open, because if I’m trying to get something it won’t work. You have to see every song as a new day, don’t think what you’ve done before or where you’re going to go now, you just have to live in the moment. I don’t call myself a soul singer. I’ve no idea what I am. If I had to write a CV I’d be useless, I’ve no idea what I’d put.
Why do you think the song has found such universal appeal?
Everyone is searching for liberty in some way, from themselves or from the world they’ve created around them. Everyone would like to be set free and so they can relate.
What do you think of the many remixes of the song?
It was so fascinating to see people picking up on it, taking it and creating something from it for their genre. My favourite version is by The Roots – that was the one that blew me away. It was amazing, as I’m such a huge fan…
Best thing of 2008?
Meeting Whoopi Goldberg today, which was unbelievable. She’s an absolute quality great bird. We were both on this US TV chat show called The View and I don’t usually get starstruck but she’s a legend and she was totally up for a laugh. She gave me a hug and I thought, This is something I’ve got to tell my mum about. Usually I’ll call her: ‘I’m in Japan, it’s brilliant,; ‘I’m in New York, it’s raining.’ I give her the weather report and what I’ve eaten that day, but now I can tell her about Whoopi.
Worst thing?
You know, if I moaned about anything I really think I’d deserve a big slap because, hand on heart, my friends are happy, my family is alive, I’m alive and happy, there’s nothing to complain about. People deal with a lot of hardship and pain, and I’ve got to see a lot of the world. It hasn’t been easy at times, but nothing’s been bad.
And your best track of 2008?
MGMT’s Time To Pretend. I’ve seen them play live quite a few times and they’re amazing and the record has such great production and interesting lyrics and brilliant melody, everything that makes a great song. I think we’re seeing the new Kings Of Leon and new Arcade Fire here. It’s very exciting to listen to them.
Interview by: Lois Wilson
Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 12:58 PM GMT 01/12/2008
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Comments
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faje fajne a nawet bardzo fajne
Posted by daroll at 6:03 PM GMT 03/12/2008 Report Abuse
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fajne
Posted by daroll at 6:05 PM GMT 03/12/2008 Report Abuse
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Jesus. What an airhead. If this is the future of British pop we may as well put up the shutters and turn off the light.
Posted by Steven Arnott at 5:43 PM GMT 04/12/2008 Report Abuse
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Just what we fucking need another Joss Stone!Get to fuckerty.
Posted by Sweary Stan at 6:55 PM GMT 06/12/2008 Report Abuse
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To see Duffy live on stage at this point in her career (Oct. 24 at the Metropolis in Montreal) is to marvel at the beauty and wonder of crocuses and daffodils poking through the last vestiges of snow in the early spring. The seemingly fragile flowers are so obviously tenacious and not to be denied.
Duffy’s dignity and power are unbridled. She has the decidedly rare ability to evoke a sense of ecstacy. “The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it.” (St. Teresa: Chapter XXIX; Part 17, The Autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila)
It is time to move past questions about whom Duffy sounds like, to an acceptance that her heart is true and her sound is her own. Musicologists acknowledge that anyone singing or writing in blues, soul, rock, jazz, pop, rap, dixieland, swing, scat, and even country and folk is, at least tangentially derivative of, and owes a debt of gratitude to, Louis Armstrong. Furthermore, the great Satchmo himself happily acknowledged incorporating influences from such disparate sources as Guy Lombardo, Latin music, American folk songs, classical symphonies and opera. The bountiful tree of Western music is just that —fruitful and generational.
What is wrong with Duffy’s music or voice reminding listeners—for a myriad of reasons—of Roy Orbison, Diana Ross, Billie Holiday, Norah Jones, Janice Joplin, Darlene Love, Amy Winehouse, Ronnie Spector, Dusty Springfield, Brenda Lee, Connie Francis, or any other performers? No one has a monopoly on singing about unrequited, dangerous, painful love.
Duffy’s stage performance provides incites into her talent and character. When listening to her recorded work one is left with the question: Can she really sing that powerfully and mournfully, or is her voice somehow enhanced or doctored in the recording process? Such doubts are forever laid to rest throughout her live performance. Nuance, power, depth and “harrowing rawness” (Walters, Barry: SPIN Magazine, May 13, 2008) are stunningly confirmed.
The brilliant musicians who form her band are more than capable of producing the breadth of sound necessary to enhance Duffy’s range of mood and volume, which are, at various times, subtle, haunting, throbbing, and pounding. As a measure of her force as a singer, at a few points when the band was fully rocking out—the percussion at a level that changed the pulse of your heart, the keyboard and guitars taking your breath away—almost as an auditory illusion, there was Duffy’s soaring voice, somehow dominant and above the tumult.
It is not just her voice that one is struck by. The quirky hand gestures that are oddly endearing in the videos, seem, on stage, to be indicative of communication between Duffy and her band mates, similar to the orchestral directives employed by Van Morrison in concert. She may not be a “control freak” but, as she says, she has “nothing else in [her] life that [she cares] about right now.” (Duffy in, Petusich, Amanda: Duffy: Girl From the North Country. SPIN Magazine, Aug., 1, 2008, p. 61)
Duffy definitely cares. My girl friend and I were standing four to five feet back from the very center of the stage at the Metropolis in Montreal on Oct. 24th, and from that vantage point one could see the sweat, the passion in her eyes, the knowing glances between the band mates, and the pride on the faces of everyone on stage—knowing they are part of something very special. One does not make music the way Duffy and her band mates do unless one cares.
Posted by rubenley at 3:05 PM GMT 18/12/2008 Report Abuse
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Re rubenfuckhead
Eh?You really must know you are one of the biggest cunts I have ever heard,really a massive,massive cunt.You spent that much time to tell people how much of a cunt's taste in music you have.Why type such a long post when you can just type either A) I like Duffy.Or B)I am a massive,massive cunt.Both are true and in fact go hand in hand.You cunt.
Posted by Sweary Stan at 6:32 PM GMT 28/12/2008 Report Abuse
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RE: Sweary Stan...Boy are you left- or right- handed..that probably accounts for what they call you down the pub..Sweaty Stan With the Sticky Hands..you are the butt-crack of the footpath I step over everyday..What a waste of space and talent you have become..
Posted by no longer your cousin at 8:20 AM GMT 08/01/2009 Report Abuse
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RE: no longer your cousin
You gonna bark all day little doggy or are you gonna bite?Buttcrack of the footpath?You are really struggling with that one,go and find your cock and balls and come back with something better even if you just call me a cunt,like I'm gonna do to you now,you cunt.
Posted by Sweary Stan at 4:56 PM GMT 10/01/2009 Report Abuse
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"Mercy" sounds like Aretha Franklin's "Chain of Fools" to me
Posted by ALF at 3:22 PM GMT 24/02/2009 Report Abuse
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RE: ALF
He should have gone to the aural equivalent of Specsavers, the fucking horse-ass.
Posted by Joe at 2:37 AM GMT 07/03/2009 Report Abuse
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RE: ALF
He should have gone to the aural equivalent of Specsavers, the fucking horse-ass.
Posted by Joe at 2:38 AM GMT 07/03/2009 Report Abuse
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RE: Joe
Settle petal. There's derivative and there's re-hash, but Duffy still sounds like re-hash to me.
Posted by ALF at 6:26 AM GMT 22/03/2009 Report Abuse
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