by Jim Windolf
"The whole songwriting process is very, very mysterious," says Nick Lowe. "Most songwriters don't know how it works, and if they did, they'd do it nonstop. But you just can't. You can try, but it's generally not much good. It's dissatisfying and it hurts, if you just keep doing it."
Lowe's career in music goes all the way back to the mid-1960s. When I spoke with him the other day, I was surprised to learn he had been part of the same Hamburg scene that had been a rock-and-roll boot camp for the Beatles. But it could be argued that Lowe has done his best work from the mid-90s onward, with his last four albums - The Impossible Bird; Dig My Mood; The Convincer; and At My Age - all of which are filled with elegant, three-minute masterpieces played with an easygoing, late-night feel.
Still, I listen to his old stuff all the time. It has made the transition from vinyl records to compact discs and from compact discs to the digital files in my iPod, and it has grown on me over the years. When I was a kid, I wanted to feel sure the music I listened to was dark and disturbing. I liked Lowe's albums mainly as a respite from the time I spent with records that wore their profundity or outlaw status on their album sleeves - things like Pink Floyd's Animals or David Bowie's Station to Station or Bob Dylan's Desire or Talking Heads' Fear of Music. Lowe never played that game. From the start he presented himself as an everyman with a knack for serving up almost any emotion, any mood, in the guise of breezy pop songs, a feat that seems more amazing to me now than it did when I was fifteen and trying hard to brood.
With the group Brinsley Schwarz (named after its leading member), Lowe recorded "(What’s So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding," a song that may be on its way to becoming a standard. Touted as the Next Big Thing, circa 1972, Brinsley Schwarz more or less fell on its face after an ill-fated promotional trip to New York. Lowe went on to make great pop records on his own ("So It Goes," "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass") and served as house producer for the independent Stiff Records label, where he sat at the controls for Elvis Costello and The Damned, among others. He also played bass and sang (and wrote a lot of great rock and roll songs) alongside Dave Edmunds in the band Rockpile.
He says he felt lost in the 1980s, but he made some great records then, too. Nick Lowe and His Cowboy Outfit, The Rose of England, and Pinker and Prouder Than Previous are well worth seeking out. A good representation of his collected works comes together on Quiet Please... The New Best of Nick Lowe, released this week from Yep Roc. He called me the other day from his home in London.
I saw your show at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall this fall. It was very enjoyable.
Oh, thank you.
One thing that struck me this past year - at Christmastime, at my kids' school, they used "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding" in the pageant, almost as a Christmas carol. Then there was a holiday TV special here, with Elvis Costello and a comedian, and it turned up again. It's funny how that song is used nowadays.
It's very, very strange. Isn't it peculiar that this song keeps turning up in these different places? Some people seem to think it's like a Woody Guthrie song.
INTERVIEW CONTINUED HERE
