Chords for Richard Clapton pt 1 (on Talking Heads with Pete Thompson, 2008)

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_ _ If Richard Clapton [A] didn't want to be a pop star, then it was a pity he was such a talented
[E] songwriter. _
Under orders to write a hit [Bb] song, he did.
_ [Cm] _
_ _ _ _ [Eb] Eventually [Gm] he latched onto the hard
rocking lifestyle a bit too hard.
_ [Eb] _
But _ [Bbm] _ _ [Bb] 30 years on, [Eb] Richard Clapton is a great survivor. _ _ _ _
[Bb] _ _ [F] _ _ [Dm] _ _ _ _
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_ [N] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ A
Richard Clapton had the air guitar, and eventually a real one, courtesy of a friend's dad.
But
being a rock star wasn't such a lure.
Richard Clapton, welcome to Talking Head.
Peter, it's lovely to be here.
But you became a legend anyhow.
Well, a leg end, after a fashion.
Would you explain the difference? _
Yes.
_ I feel more like Foghorn Leghorn than I do a legend.
_ I mean, yes, it's quite_
I guess it's quite odd the way other people perceive you.
I mean, I can't really feel
that.
Well, over the years, there's been 18 albums.
What are the ones that the audiences want to hear most? _ _
_ Quite honestly, I'd have to say that Good By Tiger really stands out.
_ _ Like Girls On
The Avenue, which I think the public at large mainly recognise, for my hardcore audience,
it was a bit of a flash in the pan.
It was not taken all that seriously by my audience.
I mean, it's a bit of a party song at the end of the gigs.
A rather nice article about you a few years ago said you've got lots of milestones, but
plenty of burnt out car wrecks on the way.
_ Yes. _ _
_ _ _ Sums it up, really.
It does.
You wouldn't have changed a thing?
I wouldn't have changed a thing.
_ _ [C] _ I think because
_ ever since I was very young, you know, a young teenager, I was always kind of _ besotted with
_ that whole bohemian kind of lifestyle. _
Richard, let's turn the clock back and look
at your early years, which, to be honest, you wouldn't really wish on anyone.
_ _ _ [Ebm] _
[Bbm] _ [Eb] Well, I was born in [Bbm] Sydney during the [Ebm] Menzies era, [Bbm] and my mother was [Eb] the night sister at
[Bbm] Sydney Hospital, [Ebm] and my father was a doctor.
[Eb] _ _ _ [Bbm] _ [Ebm] _
My parents had separated.
They were actually
divorced by the time I was two, so I got off to a pretty shaky start in life.
The early years of my mother are a bit of a blur.
Her life [Bbm] became a [B] rollercoaster, and
I was on the [Bbm] ride with her.
_ [Ebm] _ _ [Abm] _ _ [Db] _
[Gb] She'd sort of had periods of fairly [B] normal existence and
not [Bbm] too different to everyone else's upbringing, but then [Db] she'd sort of fall down into these
holes [Gb] and, quite honestly, we'd end up pretty much out on the street, I mean, you know,
with no roof over our heads.
And I do recall a couple of times I think I was placed into
orphanages.
[Eb] _
Well, my mother was sort of the antithesis
[Bbm] of my father [Ebm] because she'd always aspired to probably more the [A] bohemian, [Ebm]
artistic sort
of side of life.
And [Ab] I mean, she never did realise that sort [Ebm] of dream she had. _
Until my mother died when I was ten, _ _ [A] _
which was from suicide, _ _ _ I had no knowledge of my
father.
You know, she never mentioned him.
I knew nothing about him at all.
_ So, you know,
a few days after she died, it was a bit of a shock, you know, when my father came _ _ _ _ _ _ to
[B] boarding school where I spent all my high school years.
And we just never got on.
It
was a fiery clash from the very start.
My father obviously wanted me to, you know, become
a doctor or some _ similar sort of career. _ _
_ [D] _ _ [A] My best friend at [E] school, Ross, was also [D] from
a fairly well [A]-off family.
[B] And we [Gbm] were [D] completely besotted [Gbm] with the Rolling [E] Stones.
[A] We were
into [D] that thing of, you know, [E] young teenage boy thing of, you know, [A] getting broomsticks
and looking yourself in the mirror and going, how cool am [E] I?
I _ can't get enough.
There was no way my father would have [A] ever
allowed me to have a musical [E] instrument.
So Ross's father actually bought me my first
electric guitar.
_ [A] _ _ When my father realised that I'd been [D] buying all these Rolling [A] Stones and
Bob Dylan albums and things like that, he [D] was _ [A] quite outraged.
[E]
On the day of the maths
exam, [Bm] my father and I [A] had yet [E] _
another [D] falling out.
I went into the [A] city in Sydney and bought
a Rolling Stones album instead of going to the maths exam.
So that [D] was the end of that.
_ _ [A] I was so determined to get out of Australia.
And [E] my friends and I are [A] looking over, especially
the UK, and it [G] was just all happening.
And it was just, in England, and [A] specifically
London, there was this explosion of the whole hippie cultural revolution was happening.
_ So I saved up the money, got myself the [Em] cheapest fare on the [A] ship going across, and _ [C] that was
how I got to London. _
_ _ _ Richard, it wasn't until your mum died when
you were 10 that you met your dad.
_ I wasn't even aware of my true identity.
So, you know, when a doctor who was distinctly Chinese-looking came to pick me up, it was,
_ yeah, a bit of a bombshell.
What impact did that have on you? _
Well, I really had a lot of resentment, _ not just for_
I had resentment towards my father,
and on the other side of things, I had resentment for my mother's family, because I just felt
they contributed to her demise _ to a very great extent. _ _ _
Because, I mean, you know, quite frankly,
my mum went from being unsettled to quite unhinged, you know, towards the last couple
of years of her life.
_ _ _ _ And so I carried this baggage for a long time, and it really did
literally take decades to sort of try and reconcile it.
God knows, for a 10-year-old, you went through an awful lot. _
Yeah, I've reflected on that. _ _ _
_ And perhaps it's contributed a lot _ _ to the way I've lived
to the nature of my songwriting, you know, _ because I guess no pain, no gain, you know. _
Bob Dylan had a pretty chequered childhood, when you read about it, and so did most of
my idols, really.
Is that where the sunglasses came from?
_ _ Partly.
Now, the sunglasses actually came from _ _ a condition called pterygium, which you
get on your eyes, and the eye surgeon_
the eye surgeon, after he'd performed the operation
successfully, he said to me, if I were you, I would start wearing shades on stage.
And
I said, well, yeah, and it just became an image thing.
And now it's_
you know, if
I don't want to be recognised, I take them off. _ _ _
Let's see what happened when you got to London.
_ [N] _