Streaming audio of Kit's answers can be heard by clicking on the player alongside each question. For help in playing music, see our Playing Audio page in the Big Help Desk. You said you came to America because you thought that it was a market that you would, perhaps, fit in with better. I often wondered whether you were just happier here as a person, that the American social life was more interesting and more congenial to you. When you came to America, you were able to be anonymous and just work on your music and work on your performing, whereas, in England you mentioned that you did not like being pointed out when you walked into the room at a party. Is that a positive part of coming here, just to make a clean break? So, for you there is a real separation between being a star and performing on stage. You did enjoy performing on stage? Don't you think it is inevitable that you want to sing your own songs? A lot of songwriters have commented that some of the most throwaway efforts have turned out to be their most popular and most loved. Do you think that writing with your own sensibility in mind is a restriction? Do you have to step outside your own sensibilities? Let's flip the question around. Do you enjoy singing other people's songs. Do you think you can get to as deep a level singing somebody else's song as you can singing your own? Who sang some of your songs? You mentioned that you really enjoyed Peter Cetera and Chaka Khan--their version. Do you think they took the song further than you might have done? Is this a possibility in your mind? Two songs that you sang on the Sprawl record were A Flower Opens Gently By and From Me To You They started out vivid and but quiet, in a rather reserved way, although they are apparently very angry songs. Do you think you changed the songs and the attitude radically by your delivery on the record or was it always there? Do you think it was implied? Do you think this is an example of taking a song further? You picked those two songs particularly from a list of sixteen that I gave you. Why those songs? What characteristics might they have that appeal to you? These are two songs from two contrasting people. Janis Ian was always known as a very articulate, very poetic songwriter using words very carefully and very well from the first appearance on the New York scene. Rick Nelson used to be "Little Ricky Nelson," and he grew to be a very powerful songwriter. Now, do you think songwriting is a natural skill or can it be an acquired skill? What does your music and Captain Sensible's have in common? Do you think you can smell the fun that people have in a recording session? Do you think that contributes to the mood of the final record ? Do you think that always shows or do you think great records can be made in a very horrible environment? So, a lot of these things seem to be spontaneous and don't seem, on the surface, to depend on musical technique. You have a very strong musical technique. Do you think that can have a limit the way that expressions and ideas come out? In particular, do you think a little knowledge can become a dangerous thing? Do you think a strong technique is necessary to achieve that simplicity which you say is pop music? We are now three hundred years after Bach and thirty-five years after the Beatles. People have done an awful lot in the meantime. Songwriting now doesn't have the same freedom as the Beatles had because there are thirty-five years more of people's effort and thirty-five years more of tradition leaning on you. Do you feel that is a burden? Do you think the technology and the possibility for sound casts a new possibility in the direction of an old song? Do you think a songwriter starting off now, somebody who is driven to write songs, do you think they feel the pressure of this tradition or do you think they feel that it is just a brand-new-bright-new world? Do you think that somebody who is genuinely driven to write a song from the heart might feel that thirty-five years of other people's activity all built up to a heavier tradition of popular music which didn't exist thirty-five years ago. Do you think there is more of a pressure on people to "succeed" today? Do you think that is thrown more in a songwriter's face? Do you think that would distract somebody who is genuinely interested in writing a song and genuinely oriented in music? Do you think people would get diverted more easily now than they used to? You are implying it takes quite a little bit of thought and application and work to write a song. The popular image is that we do the show right here. The song is just written. Do you think somebody setting off today has an option to be a songwriter or do you think that only comes once you have experienced being a performer of your own songs? Do you think it is possible to wake up one day and decide you are a songwriter. What do you think would be the most straightforward way of developing a songwriting career? Do you think somebody should focus it that or do you think that they should grow out of their own experience? After the two cycles you have been through between performing and songwriting are you ever tempted to go back into performance again? So you are perfectly content with where you are? So, it is really the teamwork you enjoy? So you are really looking to change your surroundings every so often?
Kit
Hain at the Stereo Society (selected
links):
To Kit Hain's home page (all links) To Kit's interview To Kit's comments on Spirits Walking Out To Kit's comments on School For Spies To Kit's note on Dancing in the City Kit sings principal vocals on these Contessa's Party tracks: Kit sings principal vocals on these Sprawl
tracks::
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