Immediately you know they are a very classy couple with their home just like a Sunday Times magazine picture, with their balustrade and upper floor view, looking out at other smart houses. You see how modern it is, with the maxi dress (early 70s fashion, rather lovely) and his shiny chrome chair, but you also know that it's right at home with the pictures from the Italian past, with the balustrade and the lilies. There's the cat looking out of the window - I wondered at the significance of that. (And now I know! I read Ossie Clark's obits last year!) The two people in the picture look at the artist, and therefore they look at us, as we look at them. All the objects in the picture are so simply rendered but subtly, too, with shading on the table and the book, a play of light on the floor.
We were very pleased with this picture and wished that the gallery had more by David Hockney. I suppose the Tate was poor - it had great paintings but didn't acquire much new stuff. I supposed that David Hockney was quite a young man. After this Hockney went to California. He produced great pictures of the harsh light and modern buildings in California, and was more openly gay, producing intimate paintings and drawings of his lovers.
I think I was quite surprised when I watched a film about him and heard him talk - that Yorkshire accent! I thought he would sound la-di-dah! But no, he sounds like Geoff Boycott. "Put kettle on lass, Tha father's due home from mill, etc, etc." It got a bit mangled with Californian as time passed.
Mum and I went to see his pictures inside a mill inside the Yorkshire mill town of Saltaire. Saltaire was a town built by the mill owner, Titus Salt, (1803-1876) and strangely my husband's mother went to the grammar school there. Every street is named after a member of Titus's family. He seemed to have many daughters. In this mill town, Hockney's pictures of homosexual relationships stood out as exotics, and no doubt he meant them to. He was teasing the down home folk of Yorkshire, but it was OK. People accepted him and were proud of him even though the pictures raised a good few eyebrows and my mum asked me if it was OK to look at them. But David Hockney is a wonderful drawer, a master of line, like a Japanese artist. He simplifies so exquisitely.
Here is Hockney when going towards the New Matisse style, with a portrait of his parents. Here you can see just his dad. It's a great painting.
Eventually he came back to Yorkshire for a good few years, and painted the scenery! It was the last thing people expected him to do. He had painted buildings with plants, and portraits, and the Californian light - no one expected him to embrace the gloomy light of Yorkshire. But he obviously saw it with new eyes and absolutely loved it. He started to paint with an ipad as well as brushes.
Apparently Hockney, in his old age, has gone back to California. I hope he is enjoying that too.
Lately Alex Turner reminds me of Hockney, because he is, in a different way, an outstanding artist, and has also a strong Yorkshire accent, and is also living in California (but not at present as he is doing the festivals with the Arctic Monkeys.)
What makes Turner, A. exceptional is the individual content of his lyrics and the expressive nature of the tunes. One particular example is an early song, which seems to be about a holiday romance, called The Only Ones Who Know. It's very beautiful. He he is singing it with Richard Hawley's band.
The Only Ones who know
Despair in the Departure Lounge - a different song
he's pining for her
in a people carrier
there might be buildings and pretty things to see like that but architecture won't do
although it might say a lot about the city or town,
i don't care what they've got keep on turning them down
it don't say the funny things she does,
don't even try and cheer him up because
it just won't happen
he's got the feeling again,
this time on the aeroplane
there might be tellies on the back of the seats in front but Rodney and Del won't do.
although it might take your mind off the aches and the pains
laugh when he falls through the bar but you're feeling the same
cos she isn't there to hold your hand,
she won't be waiting for you when you land
it feels like she's just nowhere near
you could well be out on your ear
this thought comes closely followed by the fear
and the thought of it
makes you feel a bit
ill
yesterday i saw a girl who looked like someone you might knock about with,
and almost shouted
and then reality kicked in within us
it seems as we become the winners
you lose a bit of summat,
and half wonder if you won it at all
and don't say owt cos you've got no idea
and she's still nowhere near
and the thought comes closely followed by the fear
and the thought of it
makes you feel a bit
ill
despair in the departure lounge,
it's one and they'll still be around
at three
no signal and low battery
what's happening to me?
This one has a complicated scheme to make the most of the rhymes, or near rhymes and assonance. It has also a very sad and pretty tune. It's the first song I have heard where someone compares the state of their mobile phone (no signal and low battery) to the state of their mind.
He writes about his own experience from outside it, so often he starts in the third person, as in the above song, to start with (he), ("he's pining for her") goes into the second person (you) ("she won't be waiting for you when you land") and finally arrives at the first person (I) ("yesterday I saw a girl") and for any foreigner this must be really difficult to understand (who is he? who is you?) but they are all Alex. He's just a bit reluctant to "go public" with his experiences.
In those early days, A Turner used to make a point of writing in the vernacular - using words like "owt" (anything) and "summat" (something) as Yorkshire people do, and addressing women and girls as "loov". He also drops his aitches and gees. (Standard English only spread with the printing press, a relatively modern invention, and Northern people spoke a language aligned more with Norse). However, with success Alex came down South and mixed with Londoners and started to lose the accent.
Then Liam Gallagher, in an interview, said "What a shame Alex Turner is losing his Yorkshire accent." Rather as though accusing him of disloyalty.
I will write a bit more about the lyrics of Number One Party Anthem. This is an accountof a sordid quickie in a nightclub. Here I mark up the near rhymes and rhymes in bold.
So you're on the prowl wondering whether she left already or not Leather jacket, collar popped like antenna Never knowing when to stop Sunglasses indoors, par for the course Lights in the floors and sweat on the walls And cages on poles Call off the search for your soul, or put it on hol
d again She's having a sly indoor smoke She calls the bloke who runs this her ol
dest friend (he changed bloke to folks probs for the Americans, interesting because bloke is better) Sipping her drink and laughing at imaginary jokes As all the signals are sent, her eyes invite you to approach And it seems as though those lumps in your throat That you just swallowed have got you going (oooo what were they Alex?) [Chorus:] Come on, come on, come on Come on, come on, come on Number one party anthem She's a certified mind blower, knowing full well that I don't I may suggest there's somewhere from which I might know her Just to get the ball to roll Drunken monologue's, confused because It's not like I'm falling in love I just want you to do me no good And you look like you could [Chorus:] Come on, come on, come on Come on, come on, come on Number one party anthem Come on, come on, come on Before the moment's gone Number one party anthem Yeah, yeah The look of love - the rush of blood The "She's with me" - the Gallic shrug (French babe?) The shutterbugs - the Camera Plus The black and white - the colour dodge (not sure this is right) The good time girls - the cubicles The house of fun - the number one party anthem Come on, come on, come on Before the moment's gone Number one party anthem Yeah, yeah
There is such a strong contrast between the beauty of the song and the banality of the experience - without exactly making it any more than it was. Perhaps there's a sadness to it. A sad excitement.
The latest album is a different direction - we might call it Turner's Californian period. It's not very easy to like, but it is interesting and shows development in themes - that is it seems to try to express alienation through fiction. Alienation from the modern world, from fears springing from being famous, from being far from Sheffield (although California is full of UK's exiles who have made a packet, sometimes from music, and I daresay they are saving themselves from paying tax) and they have probably formed a few social clubs where they can hang out and eat pork pies and chips and drink proper ale.
Interview with Alex Turner so you can hear his accent.
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