I get told I'm a confessional songwriter, which gets on my tits because I think of negative connotations attached to the word "confessional". I don't like the idea of songwriting being therapy. I don't want to put myself so directly in the foreground.

Beth Orton

Categorized in : Thinking Ideas Negative

You can have all sorts of relationships, but there's something with musicians working together where you can have relationship that can just continue to grow in a beautiful way.

musician working-together beautiful

The upside to smoking is that you get to be social. I was looking for a light when I bumped into Ben Harper's manager. A couple of days later, Ben and I were in the studio.

marijuana couple light

From the beginning, I wanted to make dance music with a human ele... by Beth Orton

From the beginning, I wanted to make dance music with a human element to it.

elements humans wanted

Norfolk is not on the way to anywhere, you don't stop off on the way somewhere else - it's an end in itself. You have to want to go there; it's an effort.

effort somewhere-else want

Heaven is what we spend our lives trying to find. by Beth Orton

Heaven is what we spend our lives trying to find.

blown-away trying heaven

I don't believe in trouble. Because I think that trouble is sometimes good, sometimes bad. I've been known to be called trouble, which I think is quite a compliment. But I suppose, thinking about it, that my best and worst trouble has always had something to do with a man.

men believe thinking

I'd say my greatest fear is fear itself. by Beth Orton

I'd say my greatest fear is fear itself.

greatest-fear

I don't read music; I taught myself guitar. by Beth Orton

I don't read music; I taught myself guitar.

taught guitar

The way I write, words can means lots of different things. by Beth Orton

The way I write, words can means lots of different things.

different writing mean

We're all like little ants who scurry around with the materials that are at hand right now. Each generation finds new materials. Its just evolution, isn't it?

glowing generations hands

I love the water more than anything. I'm not very good at sunbathing - I get really bored. I love swimming and I love being like a fish and getting in the sea and just - I don't know, it feels right.

swimming sea love-is

I didn't jump a lot of trees because I didn't like heights. I liked getting a mirror and walking around with it facing the sky. I'd imagine I was walking in the tops of the trees and falling into the sky, or walking up the stairs whilst going down.

mirrors sky fall

One time I completely thought I'd turned into a werewolf and was sure I could see hairs sprouting from my face. At those times I'd suddenly go very quiet and not talk to anyone, stunned from the developments, being a werewolf and all.

development faces hair

I was scared of the Bible - it seemed whenever I read it I got bad luck. Then I befriended a couple of Jesus's disciples and I used to show them modern life - how to run the hot and cold taps and things like that. They seemed alright but it didn't change my feelings about the Bible jinx.

couple running jesus

I want it to be more universal than that - like a painter doesn't have to explain his life story away to justify his painting.

painting stories want

To me songwriting is more like redemption. I can extract the poison or the pollen, the essence from a situation and the rest becomes a husk that blows away.

poison essence blow

The husk could be some useless bloke or losing myself and changin... by Beth Orton

The husk could be some useless bloke or losing myself and changing my DNA with bottomless grief.

dna useless grief

Therapy is like telling your nightmares when you're a kid; they lose their power to hurt and control.

nightmare hurt kids

When I first started writing, a friend said I should be careful because I'm letting people know how to reach right in and play with my workings. And they do!

play writing people

At about the age of ten, my friends and I discovered the joys of sitting in graveyards drinking merrydown cider and kissing and stealing our elder siblings' records.

sibling kissing drinking