GOING TO SEA IN A SIEVE – RACONTEUR BROADCASTER DANNY BAKER’S HILARIOUS 2012 AUTOBIOGRAPHY – HAS BEEN ADAPTED FOR A NEW BBC TV SERIES. EIGHT PART COMEDY CRADLE TO GRAVE BEGINS THIS WEEK, STARS PETER KAY AS DANNY’S DAD, AND FEATURES A SOUNDTRACK LADEN WITH BRAND NEW SONGS FROM BAKER’S LONG TERM FRIENDS CHRIS DIFFORD AND GLENN TILBROOK – AKA SQUEEZE.

A new album – CRADLE TO THE GRAVE – will be released in early October to accompany the series, and its twelve tracks carry all the hallmarks of classic Squeeze – sincere though often sardonic lyrics married to gorgeous pop melodies. CRADLE TO THE GRAVE marks the first new material from longstanding musical partners Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford since 1998. The pair have been working together as Squeeze (on and off) since the early 1970s in a push / pull relationship revolving around some intangible, magical, friction. Difford and Tilbrook are the ‘at odds couple’; writers who often chafe but nonetheless need that clash of personalities to bring out their best work. In this new interview Chris Difford discusses his relationship with Tilbrook, talks about the new Squeeze album and reflects on how Danny Baker’s new series chimes with his own upbringing.

CRADLE TO THE GRAVE IS THE FIRST ‘PROPER’ NEW SQUEEZE ALBUM IN SEVENTEEN YEARS…
… Yeah, it is. And you’ve heard it. I’m interested to know what you think…

… I THINK IT’S A GOOD ONE. IT HAS THAT CLASSIC SQUEEZE THING GOING ON; FANTASTIC LYRICAL CONTENT – DRY, INCISIVE AND FUNNY – MARRIED TO GORGEOUS TUNES…
Ah, good. Thank you. I think so too. Yeah, it does indeed.

MUCH OF THE NEW ALBUM IS CLOSELY CONNECTED TO THE FORTHCOMING TELEVISION SERIES BASED ON DANNY BAKER’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY… IN FACT, THE SERIES IS NAMED AFTER ONE OF THE SONGS. I WONDERED IF THAT CLOSE CONNECTION MEANT YOU AND GLENN WERE ASKED TO TAILOR THINGS OR HAD TO WRITE SONGS TO ORDER…
Well, it’s a long story really. Originally when we saw all the scripts, which are absolutely on the ball, we were given guidelines as to where to put the songs… and then we got a free hand. We were given free reign to be as creative as we wanted to be and it was very blissful, very simple to put it together. It was just a blissful journey. We dropped the songs into the spaces that Danny and Jeff Pope (who co-wrote the scripts with him) wanted songs. We actually went along to see how the filming was going and it gave us a sort of boost because there was such great attention to detail in what they were doing. They were really funny scripts anyway, but having now seen the finished shows I’m absolutely certain a lot of people are going to be very smitten.

IT’S PROBABLY A SAFE BET THAT A PROJECT WITH THE NAMES SQUEEZE, DANNY BAKER AND PETER KAY ATTACHED TO IT IS GOING TO BE A HIT?
Well, you can’t always guarantee these things… But I think we’re pretty much half way there with those names, yeah. I agree.

YOU AND GLENN HAVE A LONGSTANDING SOCIAL RELATIONSHIP WITH DANNY, BUT IN TERMS OF THIS PARTICULAR PROJECT HOW DID THE INVOLVEMENT COME ABOUT? DID HE APPROACH YOU OR DID YOU OFFER?
That’s a bit like asking “how did you first meet a woman?” – it’s a difficult one. Erm… I think Glenn made the first call but it could have been Danny. Not sure… Anyway, very quickly there were tongues.

DESPITE KNOWING DANNY WELL FOR A LONG TIME, WERE THERE THINGS IN HIS BOOK AND IN THE SCRIPTS FOR THE TV SERIES THAT SURPRISED YOU?
No, because I’m aware of Danny’s life and it’s very much akin to my own life. It’s a wonderful thing to be able to read something as funny as that and to know that I’ve trodden similar… sort of… walkways. It’s been a wonderfully reflective time.

YOU’VE BEEN WORKING ON YOUR OWN AUTOBIOGRAPHY (TITLED I NEVER THOUGHT IT WOULD HAPPEN)… HOW’S THAT BEEN GOING?
Well, I finished it about six months ago and it’s remained in the drawer. It’s something I want to do; concentrate on the book. I aim to come back to it soon but I look at my diary now and I don’t have a free day until the end of the year. So I don’t think it’s gonna be finished until the beginning of next year. And then it’ll come out towards the end of next year, I imagine…

… AND, LIKE I ASKED YOU ABOUT DANNY’S STUFF, AS THE MEMORY HAS JOGGED ITSELF DURING THE WRITING OF YOUR OWN BOOK ARE THERE THINGS THAT HAVE COME UP WHICH HAVE SURPRISED YOU?
Yeah but, I mean, from the perspective of things like talking about old school days, Danny wrote about them so brilliantly. There’s no point in me even beginning to tell that story because I couldn’t avoid talking about exactly the same things that he talked about. So when I get to that chapter in my own book I sort of skip over it and say “If you want to hear about my school days go and read Danny’s book”…

I READ A LOT OF MUSIC AUTOBIOGRAPHIES AND ONE THING THAT I ALWAYS THINK IS QUITE TELLING IS JUST HOW MUCH SPACE THE AUTHOR CHOOSES TO DEVOTE TO THE MUSIC… 
Yeah, it is…

… LIKE MORRISSEY’S BOOK. THE SMITHS ARE DONE-AND-DUSTED IN ONLY THIRTY PAGES OR SO, WHICH IS A REALLY INTERESTING CHOICE. I WANT TO READ MORE ABOUT… WELL, YOU KNOW, IN YOUR CASE THE FIRST TOUR OR THE RECORDING OF TAKE ME I’M YOURS OR WHAT WAS GOING ON AROUND COSI FAN TUTTI FRUTTI OR WHATEVER… 
Yeah…

… BUT, HAVING SAID THAT, IT’S ALSO REALLY INTERESTING TO READ AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE ABOUT EITHER SIDE OF IT ALL, AND FIGURE OUT WHAT IT WAS THAT PROPELLED THE ARTIST TO THEIR ‘MOMENT’, IF YOU LIKE… AND WHAT IT WAS THAT PULLED THEM AWAY FROM IT…
Yeah, it is. Recently, when I read back through my own book, I realised most of it is my relationship with Glenn rather than my relationships with anybody else. But why wouldn’t it be? It’s obvious it’d be like that, ‘cos I’ve spent forty-two years with him.

… FORTY-TWO YEARS!
Yeah. It’s scary and freakish to know that you’ve spent over forty years with somebody and that it’s the major part of your life… If you read the Morecambe & Wise biography you’ll see a similar sort of existence, really – two people who were together all of their lives but who didn’t always gel and who didn’t always… know each other.

IT’S FAIR TO SAY YOU AND GLENN HAVE HAD YOUR UPS AND DOWNS… AND RECENTLY YOU TOURED AS THE ‘AT ODDS COUPLE’, WHICH I THOUGHT WAS A LOVELY KNOWING NOD TO THAT FACT. ON YOUR BLOG, WHICH IS ALWAYS WORTH KEEPING TRACK OF, YOU ONCE TALKED QUITE A BIT ABOUT THE EVERLY BROTHERS… THERE’S A BEAUTIFUL LINE WHERE YOU LIKEN THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO YOU AND GLENN. YOU SAY THEY WERE “NOT IN CLOSE HARMONY, BUT IN DISCORD”…
Ha ha, yeah. That’s right.

I’M FASCINATED TO KNOW HOW THAT SORT OF TENSION CAN WORK FOR FORTY-TWO YEARS…
Well, yeah. So am I!

… LIKE A MARRIAGE…
Yeah. If you asked quite a lot of people who’ve been married for forty-two years they’d probably tell you the same thing. It’s not always the relationship based on harmony that works. I think sometimes it’s also a misunderstanding of what it is you have to have in a relationship that can help you learn more about each other and where you’ve been and where you’re gonna go.

YOU’VE REACHED A NEW STAGE IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP, BUT HAS THAT AFFECTED THE WAY THAT YOU WORK? HAS IT AFFECTED THE WRITING?
Yeah. I think on this new album Glenn and I have been really lucky because we’ve fallen into a routine of listening to each other and understanding each other. Perhaps more than we’ve ever done. Glenn has contributed quite substantially to the lyric writing – and that’s for the better, I would say. He’s very much a studio person. Glenn loves working in the studio and I can’t really think of anything worse. I know I couldn’t do it so it’d be pointless us both trying to do it. He does such a brilliant job in there. I respect what he does and I trust him to deliver a record. I have to say that I think he’s done that. He’s delivered on this particular Squeeze record more than he has on previous records.

DO YOU MEAN THAT IN THE STUDIO GLENN IS A MAN FOR THE DETAIL OF IT ALL, BUT WHAT CONCERNS YOU IS THE BROADER BRUSH STROKES?
He’s more of a collector of butterflies than a collector of aircraft numbers, which is what I am…

SQUEEZE HAVE BROKEN UP A COUPLE OF TIMES OVER THE YEARS… I WAS TALKING TO MARK ELLEN RECENTLY AND HE SAID THAT AS TIME HAS PASSED AND WE’VE ALL GOTTEN THAT LITTLE BIT OLDER AND THAT LITTLE BIT WISER, THE REALISATION HAS FINALLY DAWNED THAT NOBODY ACTUALLY EVER REALLY SPLITS UP…
Mmm.

… YOU’VE WORKED WITH OTHER PEOPLE AND YOU’VE WRITTEN FOR OTHERS, BUT IS THERE SOMETHING YOU CAN’T CAPTURE WITH THEM THAT’S ALWAYS THERE WITH GLENN? WOULD YOU CONSIDER HIM YOUR… FIRST LOVE? 
That’s actually a really good question… Yeah… I suppose I would. I do like working with different people because everybody has a different view of what it is they feel comfortable with… But with Glenn there’s a natural history and a natural amount of baggage which we carry together. And that’s also about the way that we’ve written songs together in the past; a certain language that we both use, musically and lyrically, that is unique to us… I couldn’t take some of those lyrics and put them with other people that I’ve worked with. For instance, if I’m writing with Paul Carrack there’re a lot of lyrics that he probably wouldn’t really appreciate.

… SO WORKING WITH GLENN IS THE MOST FULFILLING THING FOR YOU, CREATIVELY?
Well, I suppose the only time I get right to the bottom of what it is I really want is when I do my own solo stuff, you know?

YOU GOT SQUEEZE BACK TOGETHER EIGHT YEARS AGO AND I THINK YOU WERE JUST TOURING BACK CATALOGUE – THERE WAS NO NEW STUFF. IN 2010 YOU RELEASED SPOT THE DIFFERENCE, AN ALBUM OF RE-RECORDINGS, BUT WHEN GLENN AND I TALKED A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO HE SUGGESTED THAT IF A SQUEEZE REUNION WAS ACTUALLY GOING TO WORK YOU NEEDED TO WRITE NEW MATERIAL. HE ALSO SAID THAT WRITING NEW MATERIAL HAD BECOME A MUCH LENGTHIER PROCESS THAN IT HAD EVER BEEN IN THE PAST…
Our songwriting was an intuitive process. When you’re younger you write more from intuition and you follow the path of the closest horizon. But when you’re older you’re closer to the horizon and you know how long you’ve got left and so you slow down. You observe more of what you’re doing. I think Glenn is more thoughtful nowadays when he gets a lyric and wants to sing. He takes more time and makes more effort and he combs through every line and every word. If you go back to the first two or three Squeeze albums neither of us had the time nor the inclination to do that…

WHEN YOU’RE YOUNG YOU FACE FORWARDS AND CAN GO AT TWO HUNDRED MILES AN HOUR IF YOU LIKE…
Yeah, you can. And you do. But before long you reach the end of the stage and you can fall off it, if you’re not careful. Ha ha…

WHAT IMPLICATIONS DOES THAT HAVE FOR THE SONGS?
It doesn’t make them better or worse songs. It just makes them songs.

YOU JUST MENTIONED KIND OF ‘PUTTING THE BRAKES ON’ WHEN YOU GET A BIT OLDER… AND YOU’VE ALSO BEEN WRITING YOUR BOOK SO I WONDERED IF YOU EVER DO LOOK BACK AND TAKE STOCK OF WHAT YOU’VE ACHIEVED… WHETHER YOU’RE AWARE OF WHERE SQUEEZE SITS IN TERMS OF PUBLIC AFFECTION?
I’m really grateful for the journey we’ve had, and also for where we sit in people’s minds. Underneath all of that is a business that we have to tick over and run and make sure has quality. I believe this new record does. It’s a quality record…

WHERE DOES IT SIT IN THE CATALOGUE FOR YOU PERSONALLY?
There were one or two Squeeze records in the past where, when I listened to them when they came out, I’d skip one or two tracks on my record player. This one’s not like that…

YEAH, THERE’S NO TRACK I WANT TO SKIP PAST. IT HANGS TOGETHER BEAUTIFULLY AS A ‘COMPLETE LISTEN’… 
Thank you. I’m very happy with that. It’s a huge record for me.

YOU’RE VERY PROUD OF IT…
I am, yeah. It’s a great record. In a way I don’t actually care what happens to it – if no-one else likes it or if it doesn’t sell… I’m not that bothered. What I mean is, it’s more important to me that what Glenn and I have done is create a record together as mature men, older men, and shown that our relationship has lasted a good length of time. And it’s lasted through everything.

YOU’VE ALSO MANAGED BANDS AND ARTISTS, WHICH IS SOMETHING ABOUT YOU WHICH MIGHT SURPRISE A LOT OF PEOPLE. I’M NOT SURE TOO MANY PEOPLE WOULD KNOW THAT ABOUT YOU… 
Yeah…

YOU’VE MANAGED BRYAN FERRY, MARTI PELLOW… HAVING BEEN AN ARTIST, HOW IS IT BEING THE OTHER SIDE OF THAT PARTICULAR RELATIONSHIP..?
With The Strypes, who I now co-manage, it’s about facilitating their needs and having an open ear, and being able to tell them what happened in my career when this situation came up or that situation came up. “These are the lessons you could learn from the mistakes that I made” kind of thing… With Bryan it was more day-to-say stuff. Life management, if you like, rather than strategic record company management. It was more about going out for dinner…

… HA HA, OF COURSE IT WAS! DO YOU MEAN BRYAN FERRY NEEDS MICRO-MANAGING..?
Well, he doesn’t necessarily need it… but… he certainly does enjoy having someone to spar with. I actually think it’d be slightly different now – I think I’d probably make a much better job of managing Bryan Ferry now than I did back in those days. I was a bit timid around him, because I’m such a huge fan…

… AND HE WAS AWARE OF THAT?
I would imagine that he was. Bryan Ferry is a very smart man.

A COUPLE OF MONTHS AGO YOU PLAYED A SOLO SHOW IN A VILLAGE NEAR BOLTON, AND PETER KAY INTRODUCED YOU BY SAYING EVERYONE THERE SHOULD ASK FOR THEIR MONEY BACK AS YOU WERE THE BLOKE WHO NEVER SANG THE SONGS OR KNEW THE CHORDS ANYWAY… ON YOUR BLOG YOU MENTIONED THIS AND SAID SOMETHING I CAN ONLY PRESUME WAS SELF-DEPRECATING… YOU SAID THAT YOU ACTUALLY FEEL LIKE THAT…
I did. I think that’s very true. I do feel like that. Somebody will ask me “Can you play this song?” or “Can you play that song?” and I can’t do it without a crib sheet. I certainly can’t remember the words to most of the songs. One could say that’s very lazy – but I just don’t have the time to work on getting all of that information stored. I have a sort of… erm… dyslexia towards songs that trips me up, whereas Glenn is a jukebox. He can walk around and sing anything and everything. I’ve always really respected that about him. I’ve always thought that is an amazing talent he possesses.

WE FILMED A SESSION WITH HIM AND GOT HIM TO PLAY A COUPLE OF TRACKS FROM HIS LAST ALBUM. HE OFFERED TO THROW A SQUEEZE SONG IN AS WELL AND WHEN I ASKED WHICH ONE HE THOUGHT HE MIGHT DO, HE SAID “I DUNNO, YOU CHOOSE – I’LL DO ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING YOU WANT”… TEN SECONDS LATER HE JUST CONJURED UP A PERFECT ‘ONE TAKE’ VERSION OF UP THE JUNCTION…
Ha ha, yeah, I know… Amazing… I couldn’t do that, ha ha.

TO ROUND UP… ON THE NEW ALBUM THERE’S THIS LOVELY LINE “A SIMPLER LIFE FOR ME IS ALWAYS IN MY PRAYERS”… IS THAT ONE OF YOURS OR IS IT ONE OF GLENN’S?
It’s actually one of mine, that one. Erm… One of my favourite songs is called SIMPLE LIFE and it’s by Tony Bennett. As the days are being whittled away from my life, that’s what I find that I want. I would love a simpler life. But I can’t have a simpler life – because life is complicated. I’d like to view each day as sitting by a lake with completely calm water on it…

… THAT’S A BEAUTIFUL THOUGHT…
Yeah, it is, isn’t it? But what happens is you sit by this imaginary lake with calm water and someone lobs a brick in. All the water starts to ripple. And then somebody else chucks another brick in. Then a kid falls in and gets wet and you’ve got to pull it out. Then you’ve got to get in the car and drive for two hundred miles… Life’s just not that calm is it? I suppose, thankfully, that’s what has always kept me going really…

WHAT DO YOU MEAN?
Well, if life was that calm I’d be sitting at that lake and I’d only have my own reflection to look at and… I’d be… really bored.

… SO THANK HEAVENS FOR GLENN CHUCKING HIS GUITAR INTO THE LAKE…
Ha ha, absolutely, yeah!

Pre-order a limited edition CD version of Squeeze’s CRADLE TO THE GRAVE here
Squeeze tour the UK – supported by John Cooper Clarke – in September / October. Dates here
Order a copy of The Lyric Book Company’s beautiful volume THE LYRICS OF CHRIS DIFFORD here
The Glenn Tilbrook edition of The Mouthcast and video session referred to in this interview can be found here