KATIE Melua and I speak a day soon after it is announced that Gary Lineker is back in his role on Match of the Day after the kerfuffle over him speaking out against the Government’s Illegal Migration Bill. Melua calls the controversy over the BBC’s impartiality rules ludicrous.
An immigrant herself, I imagine she has choice words for the Home Secretary. “I’m no politician,” she cautions, “but it’s obvious that no refugee ever leaves their country by choice.” She confesses to feeling heartbroken when she left Georgia still a child — and guilty over the opportunities she had which relatives back home did not.
“There’s no doubt what Gary has said is right,” the songwriter tells me. “People shouldn’t be afraid to make their voices heard.”
On her new album, Love & Money, Melua explores this personal conflict with disarming candour. On the title track, she lays bare a vulnerability that has never quite left: “I was in the neighbourhood pretending to be someone good, sending love and money home.” Becoming a household name at 19 with her 2003 debut, Call Off The Search, Melua has long shouldered a sense of obligation common among the children of immigrants who believe it’s their job to become the family breadwinners. “There are videos of me at six or seven years old, laughing as I climb into old Soviet planes.” Melua says, recalling the abandoned airport near her grandma’s house in Tbilisi, Georgia — a land she fled with her family at the age of nine, in the aftermath of the civil war.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة March 30, 2023 من Evening Standard.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة March 30, 2023 من Evening Standard.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Only £65k a month to live like Boy George
The Karma Chameleon singer listed his house for £17m in 2022, turning down offers. Now, he's looking for a tenant
Welcome to London, unicorn capital of Europe
We're flying far ahead of anywhere outside US for tech investment
Arteta's Arsenal evolution The next phase
Malik Ouzia and Simon Collings assess how the Spaniard will try to bring down Man City after he signs up for another three years with the title in his sights
Title fight catches fire after Gunners embrace dark side
Arsenal-City clashes take on a welcome edge of animosity
Whack the hippy gong-boho's back
It happened in Paris one grey February day. Sienna Miller was in an oversized, black leather jacket, lace-trimmed silk slip and clumpy great wedges.
There's a Starlink waiting in the sky... 7,000 in fact.Can Elon Musk stop them crashing to Earth?
As he was preparing his fields for seeding this year, Barry Sawchuk came across a giant slab of space debris. It had come from a spacecraft belonging to Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX.
'Politicians are only into power-mongering, corruption and cronyism'
We speak to alt revolutionary DEEPAK CHOPRA about biomarkers, his digital twin and his work to save humanity from disease
I've been waiting for a production of Godotthis brilliant all my life
Ben Whishaw and Lucian Msamati bring a potent, tragicomic chemistry to James Macdonald’s rich revival of Samuel Beckett’s challenging play.
Trust me, the Ritz is London's bestrestaurant
To whom we turn in moments of gloom and glory can be instructive, a filter of our truest friends. I've fallen out with the Ritz a couple of times, including once after a visit to the bar which didn’t warrant a review (“But you said it was lovely!” they said.
'Healing is a dirty word'
After four traumatic years, FKA twigs is back with a new album -and a thrilling metamorphosis