Miles Kane’s latest studio album, Change the Show, was released last Friday, following up 2018’s Coup de Grace. It apparently boasts a more emotionally honest approach, with Kane saying “I always just write for me, what I’m going through …. I think this one maybe just highlights it more.“ However, the album has something else going for it as well; the return of Lily Savage.
The drag queen alter-ego of comedian Paul O’Grady, Lily Savage was initially developed back in the seventies, soon becoming a popular part of eighties gay culture. Opening the track “Don’t Let it Get You Down“, O’Grady quotes the character with the lines “I can’t bloody well understand it, if you want my honest opinion. It’s got everything: clear diction, beautifully spoken. You know, it’s topical, you know. It’s up to date.“
Apparently, the job of getting the character involved was more difficult than one might think. Kane originally wanted to sample from the original Savage sketch, but the BBC’s fee rights had them asking for “stupid money“. On the bright side, O’Grady – a fan of Kane’s – offered to redo the lines free of charge, reportedly joking that the BBC were “tight bastards“.
Kane had this to say about the matter: “To get the licensing off the BBC they wanted stupid money for it, so we contacted him and it turned out he’s a big fan of mine. He’s got all my records. So me and him spoke on the phone and he had me in stitches. And he’s like, ‘I’ll just re-record it for you’.“
Despite some people questioning the importance of the line in the first place, Kane was apparently adamant, insisting that it was “more important to me than the song itself now“, saying the line is “like it’s describing my record“.
The album may have only just come out, but fans might have some other releases to look forward to as well, with Kane claiming that his collaborations with American singer Lana Del Rey have amounted to a whole album’s worth of unreleased material. Having worked together in the past on songs such as Del Rey’s “Dealer“, Kane said that “We did so many songs …. There’s quite a lot, y’know. Probably enough for an album: we’d still need to finish some bits off, but there’s definitely some completed tunes.“
If you’re interested in hearing Kane’s latest LP, Change the Show can be ordered from here or listened to here. He’s also got some tour dates coming up, moving through Liverpool, Nottingham and Brighton over the next few days, as well as Europe this April. So if that’s not too last-minute for you, you can look here for more details.
