“HE IS AS REAL AS IT GETS”
NOEL GALLAGHER on the uncompromising Paul Weller: “He thinks most of us do the same old same old and get away with it.”
I WAS ON MY way to get something to eat when a message appeared: “I’ve got this tune. Do you want to write some lyrics?” I knew he was making a record but I didn’t know what stage he was at, because I hadn’t seen him in a while. He caught me at a good moment. I scribbled down some train-of-thought stuff, sent it back to him half an hour later, and that was Jumble Queen.
It was all inspiration.
I didn’t hear from him until a year later, when I listened to the album for the first time. He asked me what I thought of the album, and I said: It’s quite chilled, isn’t it? He replied: “Are you fucking saying it’s boring?” No! The more you listen to it, the more it reveals itself. The reality with Weller is that the older he gets, the more at ease with himself he is, the better he gets because he’s always growing. Maybe a lot of songwriters went through a reflective period during lockdown – how did we get there, where are we going? – so that comes into it too, but there aren’t many people I got into as a kid whose releases I still look out for today. There is
Neil Young, Morrissey, Johnny Marr and Paul Weller. I’m struggling to think of anyone else.