Robert Wyatt is a national treasure and can always be relied upon to provide a lateral perspective on life and music. When interviewed on Radio Scotland a few years back this was his reply to the question – What Is music For?
“We are basically water animals – aquatic animals struggling on land. When we see land mammals like whales we feel connected to the rest of the world via the atmosphere which is mainly water. Music provides an aquatic atmosphere – it fills a room the way water fills an aquarium and you’re sort of touching everything else with music. So music is a way of touching people”
Hence ‘Sea Song’, I suppose: If you didn’t read the fantastic interview with him and his forthright and eloquent wife a little while ago – search it out. It’s scarifying.
It was in Wire 284: that would make it a bit easier to search out, innit?
I did read that – a great and honest interview. Actually,that was how I first heard about Rachel Unthank’s fine cover of ‘Sea Song’ (which you can hear on my Wimmen Songs mixtape blog entry from a few days back).