Samantha Morton started singing young, and singing for her life. “I remember once singing for someone called Irene Scott to try and get her to foster me,” she told End Of The Road’s gripped Talking Heads stage at Uncut’s second Q&A of the festival. “She ended up becoming my foster mum. So I literally was singing for my supper.”
The discussion with Uncut reviews editor Tom Pinnock – like Morton’s debut album alongside producer and XL chief Richard Russell, Daffodils & Dirt – ranged freely across a host of Morton’s deeply personal traumas and revelations. For instance, talk of key album track “Broxtowe Girl”, which details the UB40 barricade parties Morton and her friends held in the children’s homes of Nottingham, led naturally to the stories of Morton’s time in such institutions as a child
“It’s like prison, isn’t it?” she said. “When you’re in a children’s home and they’ve locked the fridge or there’s abuse going on, the way that we expressed our power was by barricading ourselves into a room, putting furniture against the door, and just seeing how long the party could last. Inevitably the fire brigade would come and the police would come and we’d be arrested and taken out. When you have nothing, absolutely nothing, no rights, your views aren’t taken into consideration, it was really tough for a lot of people. Music is a refuge. It’s a freedom. It’s private, even though it’s collective. We didn’t have Walkmans because we were incredibly, incredibly poor. [But] music brings you together.”
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Yet Morton’s musical story, and her resultant attitude, made for what Pinnock described as “one of the most positive, life affirming Q&A’s we’ve had”. She recalled how singing was her private ambition for much of her troubled childhood. “I used to sing a lot of Patsy Cline at the working men’s clubs as a kid,” she said. “I just loved being on the stage. It was always what I wanted to do. I wanted to be like Dina Carroll. I wanted to be a soul singer. It was my dream.”
After some vocal work on dance tracks by the likes of Nightmares On Wax and Nebula 2, however, landing a role in a play at the Royal Court Theatre launched her celebrated acting journey. “That just changed my life forever. There was not a moment then to consider music as a career. It was just something that was done in private.”
Russell, taking the stage beside her, explained the origins of their joint project in Morton’s Desert Island Discs appearance. “There was something very meaningful in the choices of songs,” he said. “I sampled one of the songs she played so that was a first kind of point of really remote collaboration, because she didn’t know anything about it.”
“Making music and singing was an equal passion [to acting],” Morton said. “The flame hadn’t gone out, but it was just really low in another room until Richard came along.” When Russell suggested working together, Morton admits, she had doubts. “Because of my age, it seems to be a thing in the world sometimes where you feel that you’re not allowed to do something because it’s incredibly competitive.”
And the stigma of the singing actor wasn’t lost on her. “There’s a lot of judgement, because I think a lot of it’s to do with ego,” she argued. “For some individuals it’s about making money, and then some people actually, genuinely do love being a performer. I think that we should be a bit more open about it. Those that know me well, know that I was a musician first, and an actor second.”
As light as the conversation became as the pair talked about working with Morton’s hero Ali Campbell (“You’ve got to reach for the stars, why not?”) and the many and varied jobs that she’s been sacked from – from her YTS hairdressing placement to teenage TV gig Go Wild with Chris Packham – the harrowing nature of the experiences laid bare on the record inevitably hung heavy, and the strength she showed in the making of it.
“I don’t know if I was always strong because I was given a different toolbox in life,” she said, “or there was a reason for me going through that in order to be here today to talk to you, or to make the music, or to fight for children in care, or work with the World Health Organization on ending violence towards children. ‘Strength’ is a complicated one – when people think people are strong, they take things for granted. Actually, the record is the most vulnerable I’ve ever been, because it’s me. I’m not a character. I mean, I’m playing different aspects of myself as a child, but it’s totally me, and I’ve never, ever done that as an artist. Every single role has been someone else. So I feel more vulnerable than strong and terrified at the same time about performing.”
She spoke about having had a stroke at the age of 30 and having to learn to walk again and of having her mother die young, in her arms. But also about how singing about her life on record is intended to illuminate and ameliorate the suffering of others. “Everybody sitting here today will have had a time in their life when maybe things are really tough, or you lose someone or something feels unjust, illness, poverty,” she said. “And I think what Richard and I spoke about when we met was that there’s always light at the end of the tunnel. We were talking about how beautiful life is…For us, [this record] was about redemption, rebirth, life, light. It’s hard to remember that when you can’t pay your rent or your phone, or someone’s left you, or you want to leave somebody, there’s pain. The record is about acknowledging that, but then fighting through it, like a portal to another place that is so beautiful.”
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