Petula Clark: 'John Lennon gave me some advice that I can't repeat'
Hi Petula! True or false: your dad named you after two of his former girlfriends, Pet and Ulla?
I have no idea if it's true or false. This is a story that's come up, and I don't think it came from me – it's just there. It could be. I've never heard of anyone called Pet or Ulla.
I've never heard of anyone else called Petula either, though.
No, but there are some Petulas. There's actually a Petula Clark in the States. I don't much like it actually. It sounds like a sort of stagey type name and I prefer Sally, which is the name on my birth certificate. I've always been called Petula.
When you were seven, you performed publicly for the first time outside a department store for a tin of toffee. Would you have preferred cash?
Not outside. It was a department store called Bentalls(1), which is still there in Kingston-upon-Thames, and they had what they called the escalator hall, and in the middle there was this platform and there was an orchestra playing. I'd never seen an orchestra before and I didn't know an orchestra was made of people – I'd only heard it on the wireless. I was mesmerised by this. My dad went up to the conductor and said, "My daughter would like to sing with the band", and so I did. Yes, I was paid with a tin of toffees, which I thought was pretty good. I was happy with the sweets.
Tell me about your first appearance on the radio in 1942.
This was a show that was called It's All Yours, and it was a show that was on the BBC Forces Network – it wasn't heard anywhere in the UK. It was for kids who had their dads, uncles, brothers, serving in the forces and they could go and say, in my case, "Hello Uncle Dudley, we're thinking of you." I was there to send my message and in the middle of rehearsals there was the most almighty air raid, and the place was really shaking and some of the kids were a bit nervous, and the producer stood up and asked if anyone wanted to come up and do a song to calm things down. Nobody else volunteered, so I said I would sing a song. I went on to the stage and they stood on me on a box and I sang. And they heard it in the control room and they asked me to sing a song, as well as send my message. That was the first time I'd sang on the radio, and there was a huge response to it and that was the beginning.
You were dubbed "Britain's Shirley Temple" and were considered a good-luck mascot by the British Army. Was that a lot of pressure on a 10-year-old?
I didn't think so. As a kid, I just loved to sing. And, let's face it, during that moment in time kids were living a weird kind of existence – we were living in air-raid shelters, and things weren't what you would call normal at all.
You've released songs in French, German, Italian and Spanish. Why did you think that was important?
The whole French thing is because I went there after I fell in love with a Frenchman – it had nothing to do with a career at all. That just happened. Suddenly, I found myself being a star in France and becoming a woman in France; married, two children, huge career in all the French-speaking territories. Then the Italians wanted me to record in Italian, and the Germans, then a little bit in Spanish. Then Tony(2) came to Paris to talk about the next French session and he said to me: "You really should be recording again in English". But my head wasn't in it at the time – I was totally into French, Italian, German, whatever. I said: "Well, you know, if I could find the right song" and he said he had an unfinished song he wanted to play me, and he played Downtown on the piano. I said: "Woah, I like that." So I asked him to write a lyric up to the standard of the tune, and two weeks later we did it.
Does Downtown scan OK in German?
I think it's still called Downtown (laughs). In French it's (puts on French accent) "Donton", because they were trying to find something that sounded like downtown, but of course it doesn't mean the same thing. In Italian it was Ciao Ciao!
I asked my nan whether she was a fan of yours, and she said you seemed very French at one point. Do you think people in the UK assume you ditched us for the French?
Yes, they did. People thought that I had either deserted the country or run away from my life. The press decided to make a bit of a hoo-hah about it. But if I was going to run off anywhere, France would have been the last place. I couldn't speak a word of French.
You've now rerecorded Downtown five times ...
Have I?
Apparently so(3). Are there any other ways you'd like to record it? Maybe a rap version? Drum'n'bass?
No.
Reggae?
No. Are you kidding? But I don't think I've recorded it five times. There have been remixes but that had nothing to do with me.
I found the new version on your album incredibly moving.
Yes. It was interesting, because I didn't want to do it. I just turned it down flat and then I had to go to Paris and I was there for three days and when I came back to the studio, I was played this beautiful track with no melody on it. And I said it was lovely, and they told me it was Downtown. I got to the microphone and I didn't know how I was going to sing it, and it really feels like a new song. We haven't changed the lyrics at all, that's the interesting thing.
In 2011, a district in New York(4) christened their logo – a blue lark – Petula Lark in honour of Downtown becoming an anthem for New York City's urban area.
I didn't know that.
Well, would you be happy with any of the following happening? A logo featuring a tree being christened Petula Bark?
(Awkward silence.) Yes, why not.
A logo featuring a black fin poking out of the sea being christened Petula Shark?
(Awkward silence.) Yes, I don't think it quite fits the image, but it's cute.
A logo featuring a group of subatomic particles called Petula Quark?
That's not bad ...
Anyway! Is it true you turned to John Lennon for advice after protests at you performing a bilingual show in Montreal in 1969?
I was doing a series of concerts at the Place des Arts in Montreal. I'd previously gone to Montreal as a French performer. But then Downtown became a huge hit everywhere, and they asked me to go back to Montreal, so I thought I could do a bilingual show and do both French and English songs. I was wrong. I sang in French and the English-speaking audience were unhappy and quite vocal, and the French were particularly vocal when I sang in English. It was like open war. It was really very hard, and I was very hurt and I couldn't understand it at all. I really didn't know what to do and I needed to talk to somebody who I had no connection with, and John was in town with Yoko doing a bed-in for peace. So after the show one night I went over the hotel – no security, of course, I just walked in – and said I wanted to see John Lennon. So up I went, and there they were sitting in bed and he was adorable. He could see I had a problem and he put his arms around me. I told him what it was all about and, well, he gave me some advice that I can't repeat.
Didn't he say "fuck 'em"?(5)
Yes, which was an interesting comment. Anyway, he said it didn't matter, let them get over it, and he told me to go and have a glass of wine in the living room, and there were a lot of people in there. It was just chilling out, nothing weird. There was some music being piped in, a very simple little song, and we started singing along with it, and it was Give Peace a Chance. We were all being filmed and recorded, so I'm on Give Peace a Chance.
Some fans have set up a Facebook group protesting at the fact that you're not a Dame. It has 289 members. Would you like to be a Dame?
I don't really ... All that stuff is ... I've got a CBE, and that's very nice. I keep it in a box. My grandchildren found it recently and took it out and played around with it. I've never worn it, ever. I don't care.
Let's talk about your new single, Cut Copy Me. Are you very computer-literate?
Not especially, no. Just a bit. Sort of. I'm not glued to it by any means. I just thought it was a beautiful song.
What did you make of the vocal effects on it?
It's more the backing that's like that. The synthesisers, or whatever that is. The voice is not particularly played about with. Maybe just a little bit, but it's not like Cher's Believe. We weren't trying to do a contemporary record, it just sort of turned out the way it turned out.
It does sound very now. A little bit Lana del Rey.
Yes, I've heard that. But I wasn't trying to do it. Frankly, it's just me singing a song. It just happens to be a song that's a little bit different. I'm going on tour in October, and I will be doing these songs on stage, and we don't have any funny, computer-type effects at all. I'm sort of against that.
Footnotes
(1) Bentalls stays open until 9pm on Thursdays
(2) Songwriter Tony Hatch, who also wrote Don't Sleep In The Subway, My Love and Colour My World, amongst others, for Petula. He also wrote the theme tune to Crossroads.
(3) The original in 1964, the 1976 disco version, also in 1984 with a new intro, again in 1988 with Dutch producer Eddy Ouwens and finally for her new album, Lost In You.
(4) It was the Lark Street Business Improvement District in the downtown area of Albany, New York
(5) I didn't actually swear in front of Petula Clark, I promise.