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Andrew Emery 'Can We Pretend' by Bill Withers
75 Plays5 months ago
Our podcast forces the guest to choose one song - We know, we’re awful. But when our guest is someone who writes about music and culture, where do they even begin?! Andrew knew exactly where to go, and it might not be where you expect…
Andrew Emery is an author and cultural commentator with a deep-rooted passion for hip-hop. He authored The Book of Hip-Hop Cover Art, which explores the artistry and cultural significance behind iconic album covers, and Wiggaz With Attitude: My Life as a Failed White Rapper, a candid, humorous memoir detailing his journey through hip-hop. Emery's unique experiences, including founding the cult rap magazine Fat Lace and his long-term role as an editor for Hip-Hop Connection, were retold in his most recent book Write Lines: Adventures In Rap Journalism.
Show notes:
Website: https://velocitypress.uk/product/write-lines-book
Instagram: @drewhuge
Welcome to Survival Songs, a podcast where each episode our guest tells us about a songs that gets them through the best and worst of times.
https://open.spotify.com/artist/286u8X9g8zCa5OODERzaPX?si=GK6SD3uhQt-2ztJ8ycCOOg
Help us a grow a community of survival song listeners by joining us on over on Substack:
https://survivalsongs.substack.com/
'Can We Pretend' by Bill Withers can be found on our community playlist on Spotify along with our listener’s Survival Songs. Check it out and add your own!
This episode contains small portions of 'Can We Pretend' by Bill Withers . Survival Songs claims no copyright of this work. This is included as a form of music review and criticism and as a way to celebrate, promote and encourage the listener to seek out the artists work.
Find out more about ARTIST here:
https://open.spotify.com/artist/1ThoqLcyIYvZn7iWbj8fsj?si=nYp6ValORZ-lPG0cDp4PCQ
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Transcript
Introduction to Survival Songs
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Lydia. I'm Ed. We're friends with a playlist for everything. And it turns out, we both have one called survival songs. And he got us thinking, what are other people's survival songs? So we thought we'd find out.
00:00:15
Speaker
Welcome to
Podcast Goals and Community Building
00:00:16
Speaker
Survival Songs. A podcast where each episode our guest tells us about a song that gets them through the best and worst of times. Sensitive topics might be discussed. So look after yourself. The show contains portions of copyrighted material. We'd love for you to support and celebrate the artists by streaming, downloading and buying their brilliant music. And go give our guests a follow on social media.
00:00:38
Speaker
Help us grow the community of Survival Song listeners by joining us over on Substack and add to our public playlist on Spotify. Links are in the show notes. We hope you enjoy the show.
Meet Andrew Emery: Hip-Hop Journalist
00:00:50
Speaker
Hello, welcome to Survival Songs. My name's Ed and this week's guest is Andrew Emery. I've never spoken to Andrew before, but I was keen to talk to him because I'm a big fan of his work. Also, because we were part of the same hip-hop scene in Leeds in the 1990s and knew a lot of the same people and we were definitely the same gigs.
00:01:07
Speaker
So when we finally had a chat, we spent a lot of time reminiscing and talking about the people we knew. The reason why I'm a big fan of Andrew's work is because he spent a lot of time documenting music that I love. He spent 15 years writing for Hip Hop Connection, the UK's leading Hip Hop magazine.
00:01:22
Speaker
and something that I used to read avidly. He's also written books about hip-hop as well, including the book of hip-hop cover art, Wiggers Without a Tube My Life as a Fair White Rapper, and Right Lines, talking about his years in rap journalism. He also set up Fat Lace with his best friend and PA Posse member, DJ Dang Greenpeace.
Andrew's Survival Song: 'Can We Pretend'
00:01:43
Speaker
We'll speak to Andrew in a minute, but first let's hear a little bit of his survival song. This is Can We Pretend by Bill Withers.
00:02:11
Speaker
So that was Can We Pretend, the survival song of our guest today.
Bill Withers' Emotional Impact
00:02:16
Speaker
Mr Andrew Emery, hello Andrew, how are you doing? I'm really good Ed, thank you so much for having me. ah it's ah It's a privilege and especially a privilege to talk about such ah such a beautiful piece of music.
00:02:25
Speaker
It really is an amazing piece of music. Bill Withers is like the unsung hero of soul. He totally totally is. I read something recently and it was a kind of old piece of writing by a US journalist and he was writing in praise of Bill Withers. He was kind of saying that he's kind of often compared unfavourably to Marvin Gaye or Sam Cooke, because yeah I suppose he hasn't got that purity of voice that they have. But what he does have, he has that kind of reassuring kind of richness ah that comes over. It's a very warm voice.
00:02:59
Speaker
And then when he when he tinges it with melancholy like he does here, that just gives it an added depth on on things like this and like grandma's hands and stuff like that. And he's somebody I think who can do like something like Gil Scott Herron can sometimes do where he can do like the uptempo banger and then he can do like Gil Scott only pieces of a man, which is yeah she's almost up there. I almost chose that as another heartbreaker of a song.
00:03:24
Speaker
but But he just can imbue his voice with that kind of timbre of kind of despair and, you know, melancholy, which I think this song does so beautifully. So, yeah, Bill Withers for me is like, he's in the pantheon.
Discovering 'Can We Pretend' Through Sampling
00:03:38
Speaker
um this This particular record, when did it first arrive like in your life and when did when did you first hear it? What was your reaction to it? So I'm i'm somebody who is a real, I'm going to say an ignoramus when it comes to the history of soul. um And like a lot of hip-hop fans, i I come to a lot of stuff through samples.
00:03:59
Speaker
and and and And there was a really kind of obscure but quite likeable 1989 rap album by a group called Positively Black. And they had an album called Escape From Reality. ah um And when I took to Elmer there was a song called um Ebony Princess.
00:04:16
Speaker
And it and it uses uses this track pretty much wholesale. And at the time there was of course no internet. ah So I never knew what the sample was. My my my knowledge of Seoul was so scanned. So it was years later and my friend ah Rob Percy, who is the ah the founder and runner of Hip Hop Karaoke and and basically a man who knows more about music than anybody I've ever met in my life.
Music as Emotional Support
00:04:44
Speaker
ah I asked him because on he'll know and he was like, oh yeah, that's Bill Withers. Can we pretend it's from the Adjustments album? It's ah it's a you know a really overlooked ah Bill Withers album.
00:04:56
Speaker
And then I think Questlove did a compilation called Babies Making Babies, um and I interviewed him around the time of the release of that, and he put that on there as well. And I was like, okay, so this is like a connoisseur's deep soul cut. And when I finally heard the original, it it was breathtaking. I just really, I found it really moving, really profound, and just also that transportative in the ways that The music can be, you know, I often get transported by moments in music, you know, not not the whole song sometimes. it's It's the way a chorus swells or the way a rapper hits the bar. And and with this, it's like, I don't know, it's when it's when that first kind of background ah kind of melody comes in. And I remember just taking me off somewhere and it's become, I'd say borderline my favorite song of all time as a result.
00:05:54
Speaker
but also also a song that is very evocative to me of certain times in my life when I've needed a bit of emotional support. And I think listening to some of your wonderful guests who've been on before, it's interesting, like sometimes you kind of use music as a crutch and sometimes we use it as an escape. So oftentimes I'm i'm a depressive and sometimes when I'm feeling low, what I want to do is put on my headphones and put on MOP.
00:06:20
Speaker
i want to I want to listen to a follow instructions or Brownsville or something super hardcore to nod my head to because that takes me away from it all. But in in other moments, something like Bill Withers Can We Pretend, which is about relationships and about how they change and the past and the future, you know that's that's sometimes what you need. is Instead, that's the kind of medicine you need.
00:06:45
Speaker
And for you, like what makes it a survival song? I know you sort of touched on that slightly, but but what what in particular about the song makes it your survival song? I've just got married for the second time and I had a pretty low moment after my first divorce. um Even though it was a very amicable divorce and we we still share a dog to this day and we're still friends, um I felt like I'd failed somehow in life. you know I felt that I hadn't done something right
Survival and Mental Health: Andrew's Perspective
00:07:12
Speaker
or I'd made a mistake.
00:07:14
Speaker
and as often mut music was my crotch. I played a lot of stuff that had real emotional importance for me. And it's not that the lyrics particularly like correspond to what was going on in my life. It's not that, you know oh, these words mean this to me. It's the fact that The song is so emotionally rich in its own, you know, in terms of the music, the lyrics, the and Jose Feliciano guitar solo is incredibly moving. So, yeah, and I think it kind of helped get me through that time. You know, music is there, I think, sometimes to remind us of good times, to lift us out of bad times. Absolutely. And it's something, obviously, that you ah you've kind of lived and worked and kind of
00:07:58
Speaker
and really immerse yourself in. Do do you find yourself still being surprised by music? Because because sometimes you we sort of sometimes feel like I've heard everything and nothing has surprised me. and Incredibly inspired, yeah. i mean I would say this week alone, I've added 30 brand new albums to my feed on Spotify that I want to hear. I think, you know, I grew up in a musical house. My dad had a mobile disco. and He was a metaller. I discovered hip hop in 1984 when I was 11. And, you know, my life is kind of, which helps as a memoirist, it put it punctuates my life with these events. You know, I can remember being in Crash Records in Leeds when Three Feet High Rising came out and that was a damn damn Greenpeace for the first time.
00:08:36
Speaker
ah sitting in a filthy house at university and seeing the what's my name video or or the players ball my outcast video for the first time. I can remember the years. I remember the days, you know, and and music kind of punctuates my life in ways that other events don't. I wish to go to my to my death, whether it's, you know, heart attack running for the boss or it's in Dignitas. I don't care. I just want some soundtrack of some music that i' you know playing a lot while I'm there.
00:09:04
Speaker
um I could ask you what you'd have at your funeral but I think that's like another the podcast. I just feel like in keeping with survival songs. um It's a question we always ask but like what what does survival mean to you? It's an interesting concept because obviously for some people it's much more about kind of like looking forward, some people's looking back, some people it's like just being in the present and the now.
00:09:27
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I've said I've someone who has suffered with mental health issues, quite, quite like over the last 10 years, I'd say I had a kind of like a life I never kind of came on my agenda. And all of a sudden I crashed and burned. And, you know, and for me, survival is very much coping with that day to day through medication, through talking to people. And you know and I think music kind of helps situate me in the here and now.
The Emotional Connection to Music
00:09:52
Speaker
It helps to show me my family, their love of music, my my but daughter who you know writes her songs in the shower and then performs dance moves for us. Stuff like that helps me to survive because it makes me really thankful for what I've got and I don't mean it's in a banal kind of mindfulness way when you are a depressive, having something every day that you you look forward to really helps and um a lot of that is music. It's going to gigs with my wife, it's going to gigs with my, you know, we're we're looking at taking the kids to their first proper gigs or the first festival next year and experiencing their joy. That's survival for me, it's is's getting past the low moments and experiencing the real highs of of life and you know music obviously a huge part of that.
00:10:35
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And so back to sort of this record, is there a moment in this record that like you wait for that's like the bit for you? There is. It's the first, it's the first time he sings, there's a light that shines in your face sometimes.
00:10:58
Speaker
And it's the brilliance of the line. So the song was written by his then wife as well. I mean, this is what gives it the added nuance because it's about a failed relationship. But it captures so much because it's, you know, it's a standard kind of thing. There's a light that shines in your face. You know, you light up the room, that kind of thing.
00:11:18
Speaker
but then it's tinged with sometimes.
The Risk of Overplaying Favorite Songs
00:11:20
Speaker
eight grade it kind of It's almost like the poison on the end of the pen. It takes the line and into a different area and that always hits me every time. and How often do you find yourself listening to this record? We've been asking this quite a lot because we realise some people, it's like they they visit every now and again when they need it. is this like or Is this a kind of regular? There's always that worry that if you overplay a song,
00:11:45
Speaker
you're gonna make yourself go off it a bit. um Like for years, my favorite song of all time was Rebel Without a Pause by Public Enemy. And it it was my go-to song to perform at Hip Hop Karaoke, you know, in the coming times I perform. And then I started making myself a bit sick of it, so I had to go away from it for a few years to rekindle my love of it. I don't have this problem with Can We Pretend, because I think it's just so perfect. And that and I kind of enjoy different moments at different times I get caught up in something so I was listening to it probably four or five times yesterday because I knew I was going to be talking to you about it and then like I kept trying to think
00:12:24
Speaker
Right, let's listen, listen to that bit. I want to want to really get those lyrics in my head. But I get caught up in the guitar, you know, because it's got one of the great solos. And then just every time I'm like, the solo keeps taking me away from the song. So and and that' that for me is is a brilliance of a song that it It bears repeated listens, it never wears itself out.
Enjoying Music Beyond Analysis
00:12:44
Speaker
You know, it's it's it's always got something new to to give me. We've spoken to um quite a few musicians and one of the things they always talk about is how they, are the song they always choose, they they're able to stop being analytical about it. And I suppose it's a similar thing for you because obviously you have the music, so you have that side, but also in the journalist you have that critical side as well. Are you able then to, does that just kind of, that turns off when this and song comes on?
00:13:10
Speaker
completely turns off. A, because as I've already said, I know nothing about soul music. you know I've got very basic tastes. I'm i'm a Marvin and Stevie man all day long. And you know, what else do you need? And a bit of Bill. ah Yeah, that's it. And I think it goes to like something that's very important. I think in and what your podcast is touching upon as a series is music is often about feeling. And I think often you you you go past the lyrics into how the music makes you feel. I talked about MOP earlier, sometimes lifting me out of of a funk, and that's because of the adrenaline it is you know when they're doing their hardest material. yeah And what they're actually rapping about, which is usually shooting people in the face 100 times, doesn't
Andrew's Work and Closing Remarks
00:13:55
Speaker
matter. yeah
00:13:55
Speaker
yeah Andrew, thank you so much for like giving us time and and ah and coming on the podcast and talking so beautifully about the record. um if people want to find out ah thank you and what If people want to find out more about you, where can they find you? What what is there out there? ah my My most recent book, Right Lines, Adventures in Map Journalism, can be bought at ah the places that a lot of people buy books, i Amazon, Waterstones, ah but I recommend they get it from velocitypress dot.com, ah which is my publisher. It's a really great independent who publish music, publish books exclusively about music, dance music, hip hop and stuff like that. So they deserve that support. So yeah, that's that's the best place to go to find my stuff.
00:14:41
Speaker
Well, thank you for joining us and sharing your thoughts. I really appreciate it. And um hopefully speak to you soon. Take care. Thanks. e It's been a joy.
00:14:58
Speaker
We really hope you enjoyed the episode. If you want to support the podcast further, you can choose to upgrade your subscription on Substack. But most of all, we'd just love it if you told your friends about what we're up to. Thanks for listening.