> Sandy Denny > Obituaries, Interviews and Articles > An interview transcribed from the ‘Sandy at the BBC’ bootleg CD
An interview transcribed from the ‘Sandy at the BBC’ bootleg CD
Date: early '70s.
(Interviewer)
Well, eh… the fact that eh,… Bob Dylan song
If you gotta go, go now
should, eh, should have been translated into French, it may be a surprise to some people; it certainly was a surprise to me. Eh, Sandy, can you explain how on earth you aquired these French lyrics. Not from Dylan, obviously.
(Sandy)
No, no, of course not. Ehm, you can't get near him, anyway. Eh, no, we were at Middle Earth one night, we were going to do a gig and we weren't… we weren't on till three O'clock in the morning so you're messing around in the dressing room and we were singing If you gotta go, go now, and we thought it would be very nice if we gave it a sort of a Cajun beat, with eh, eh… accordion, things like that, and violin and translated the words into this sort of Americanized French but of course we couldn't get that, so of course the sound doesn't come across like that so we ehm, we announced over the P.A. that we desperately needed some French people, who happened to be in the audience and they rushed to the dressing room, and stormed in, and they eh, spent about an hour translating the words into French, and… that's how we got it, I mean we decided to record it, just for a joke really, but eh, we quite liked it.
(Interviewer)
And it's a big hit.
(Sandy)
Mmmm… (laughs)
(Interviewer)
Do they remain anonymous, these French people, or…
(Sandy)
Well, actually I wish they wouldn't remain anonymous. I do know one of the girls quite well… ehm… but she's back in France so of course, when they come over they'll be able to get in touch with us again. At least this girl will, so I'll be able to tell her and give them some royalties 'cause obviously, yes, it's a bit unfair really, 'cause it's quite a big hit, you know.
(Interviewer)
It isn't, of course, very representative of the sort of thing you do generally.
(Sandy)
Not at all. In fact, you know, I wonder what people who don't know our music, you know, think about what we are like really. They must think we're some sort of joke type Bonzo Dog Doo Dah band type group, but we're not! I'm quite serious here.
(Interviewer)
Sure. So you're more concerned really with your album work?
(Sandy)
Oh yes. Much more. Ehm, and, of course, trying to get a good sound on stage is always a very important thing and we're really working towards that now. Ehm, so the single really, we weren't expecting it to do anything, in fact we didn't… we hardly knew it had been released until something … (?) kept cropped up, you know.
(Interviewer)
At least you don't have the usual pop group panic of what the next one is going to be. I don't suppose you care…
(Sandy)
No, not really. Really, it's, it's quite eh, irrelevant to what we're doing musically…
(Interviewer)
Sure. Great. Thank you very much, Sandy.
(Sandy)
That's OK…
(Interviewer)
But you don't mind doing it for us now, joke or not?
(Sandy)
No, not at all!
(Interviewer)
Si Tu Dois Partir, or something. Here we go.
(Sandy)
OK…
> Sandy Denny > Obituaries, Interviews and Articles > An interview transcribed from the ‘Sandy at the BBC’ bootleg CD
An interview transcribed from the ‘Sandy at the BBC’ bootleg CD
Date: early '70s.
(Interviewer)
Eh, last time you were with us Sandy, it was as a member of Fairport Convention and you seemed fairly happy with that setup.
(Sandy)
Yes, I was indeed. It was just a question of going in different direction, and eh, I find what I'm doing now is very much what I want do do. And eh…
(Interviewer)
Well tell us, tell us more as what you are doing now, a little bit about Fotheringay, in other words.
(Sandy)
Well… ehm… It's difficult to label. I find these terribly difficult to label these days, it's… we just like doing things our own w…. well, we've done a lot of our own material, and eh… we just enjoyed it, it was really nice.
(Interviewer)
Where do you play, mainly?
(Sandy)
Ehm… well, we're doing mainly concerts at the moment, but eh, when the universities open, we'll be doing universities as well.
(Interviewer)
Let's talk about your eh, one… it is one album album so far, isn't it?
(Sandy)
Yes we've just about finished it. We've got about, you know, just a few overdubs to do, and we've finished the whole thing. Ehm… it's got, as I said before, we do mainly our own material and that's what you'll find on the album… Ehm, couple of traditional things; we'll be getting more into to doing more traditional stuff, soon. It's a question of eh, we've had a terrible deadline to meet. We've had, you know, we were booked for concerts before the group was even in existence, that been… so eh, all that material we've been working on is, eh, you know, it must go on the album because we don't know anything else to put on it.
(Interviewer)
The numbers you've done for us today, are from this. Would you like to choose one of these now?
(Sandy)
Ehm… well this is called The Sea, and I suppose it's a bit frightening, really, in aspect, but it's a nice enough tune so if you'd just want to relax and listen, that's alright.