And I just wondered what it opened you to.

Well, I went when I was 18.

I was there for three years in New York.

And it was amazing.

I mean, the first time I...

The people I worked for, he was a veterinarian and one of his lab technicians, one of his employees said, I'll take Mary out because obviously I didn't have any friends yet.

And she took me to this club on Long Island called St. James Infirmary.

How critical are you of when you're writing? Is it a different approach? Is it something that is harder for you? Or, I don't know, how do you feel about it?

Right.

In the garden where the runner beans were.

Because when I was, I don't know how old I was, I went into the garden and I was out there for ages.

And my mum came out and said, what are you doing? And I said, oh, I've been weeding the garden for you.

And I pulled up all the runner beans.

But it's amazing the number of things we would fit into gardens of that size.

Yes, I know.

I know.

You have to really love something to keep going in it when you have tougher times, I think.

Yeah, yeah.

Because, I mean, even Sinatra talked about his lean periods, you know, where he couldn't even get arrested.

Or maybe he did, but that was for something else.

Yeah.

But, yeah, you have your lean periods because also there are trends.

You know, this album, for me, has got so much attention, much more attention than my last five albums because some of them were maybe a bit more introspective.

I mean do you think that has affected or in fact fed the skill that you have for writing lyrics because almost without doubt when you write a lyric you're bound to go through that process of thinking somebody else said that

Mm.

So anyway, so I got there and I was sitting at the bar, I think, waiting for the couple of friends that I'd made since I've been there, and this came on.

And so you're, you're in a club, so it's loud.

And I was like, "Oh my God." I mean, the, the same thing happened when I heard Never Gonna Give You Up by, by Barry White, in the same place, funnily enough.

Um, and this was after that.

I, I, it just blew my mind, because it's like how the strings...

And first, first of all, the drummer is a guy called, um, Ed Greene, Barry White's drummer.

Was it a musical environment?

Do you want to tell us about that period? Well,

yeah, because, you know, when I arrived with my Beehive and everything, I did talk a lot about soul music and the Supremes and the glamour of Shirley Bassey's dresses and things like that, which I was into.

But I kind of seem to have been through lots of different genres of music because I've got an older brother and sister.

She was into like the blues, Muddy Water, people like that.

My brother was into the Bee Gees and the Beatles.

And then I discovered Motown and Stax and things like that when I was in my teens.

But also, I used to go and see bands all the time.

I

Yeah.

There was that side of me as well, you know.

Um, and then from my brother I got The Beatles and the Bee Gees and things.

So my brother and I would harmonize and sing together and, you know, we used to do If I Fell by The Beatles, but we had to do it twice because I'd say, "I wanna do the harmony." And he'd go, "Well, no." I'd go, "All right.

Well, let's sing it twice and take turns doing the harmony," you know? So there was, there was that influence.

My sister was into Muddy Water and the blues and stuff.

My parents were Peggy Lee, Judy Garland, Bing Crosby, Jim Reeves.

All right.

Yeah.

There was that side of me as well, you know.

Um, and then from my brother, I got The Beatles and the Bee Gees and things.

So my brother and I would harmonize and sing together and, you know, we used to do If I Fell by The Beatles, but we had to do it twice, because I'd say, "I wanna do the harmony." And he'd go, "Well, no." I'd go, "All right, well, let's sing it twice and take turns doing the harmony," you know? So there was, there was that influence.

My sister was into Muddy Water and the blues and stuff.

My parents were Peggy Lee, Judy Garland, Bing Crosby, Jim Reeves.

Um, so I, I was getting influenced by everything fr- but I discovered Motown and Stax on my own.

All right.

So we know you th- you started having success in 1982, but how did it all start for you? What, what, what made you become a singer in the first place?

Uh, well, uh, my family were quite musical.

Um, I mean, they weren't professional musicians or anything, but my, my mum had a really beautiful voice, and my dad, and my brother is also a musician and, uh, and my sister is also very musical, but she's not a musician.

But we all sang at home and w- there was this corner of the room where we would do our party piece and things like that.

Um, and, uh, my brother got a guitar when he was about 12, 13, and so we would sing together and harmonize together and things like that.

And then, um, when I saw Judy Garland on TV, it was like, oh, I wanna, I wanna be like that, you know? Um, I mean, I was only about six when I saw her on TV.

She was on the, uh, Sunday Night at the London Palladium.

Okay.