A bit of a longer post to finish up the Felt section of this Q&A. Hope it’s not too tiring.
This is what led you to titles like Crumbling The Antiseptic Beauty?
Lawrence: John Peel called it “the worst album title ever”. I thought, wow, he doesn’t like my stuff. It’s good in a way, because it meant I was doing something. I wanted him so much to like it, because I knew how important he was. But I felt the words were different to anyone. I wasn’t hiding, I was willing to stand up and be counted for it. I was proud of them.
I wasn’t copying my heroes, I was doing what I was told to do when I read their interviews, like: ‘absorb us, learn from us, and do something different.’ I wanted to add to that rich tapestry, and if you were going to copy someone, you’re never going to be counted, like the people you loved. I hate copying people. At school, I wouldn’t want to have the same shoes as everyone else.
Lawrence shows me an exercise book in which he has transcribed a sweet and clever poem about a tortoise that he wrote when he was a child. I say to him that he’s got very neat handwriting, to which he replies something like, “If you think this is neat, you should see my best…” As with the Scooby Doo play he wrote when he was 8, mentioned in Paul Kelly’s film, you get the impression Lawrence is still pleased with, or maybe even consoled by the idea of having been a promising child.
In this book is the first poem I ever wrote when I was 9. We never used it in the film.
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