Queen of hearts is back with love
2010-02-07 13:00
MENTION the name Sade and time stands still.
This is a woman who moves at a leisurely pace – she makes music on her own terms and her own time. Everything changes except Sade. She still has the same look, same band and she has kept the same lounge-jazz sound accompanied by that deep hoarse voice.
But don’t confuse her lack of change with stagnation.
While many artists who have gone the “innovation” route and pushed boundaries have now become a distant memory, Sade’s classics still move the heart – and hips – of many, especially when it comes to the art of romance.
According to the Sunday Times of London’s Rich List, Sade’s worth is estimated to be at £30 million.
It will be a moment in time tomorrow, when she emerges from a decade-long hiatus with her new album, Soldier of Love.
The timing couldn’t have been more perfect, as the world gears up for Valentine’s Day.
Lovers everywhere have a soundtrack to look forward to and Sade, the soldier of love, will be around to hum and coo us to the arms of those nearest and dearest, surrounded by the red and white and all the cheesiness of Valentine’s Day.
Looking at her own private life, one gets a sense of where the title of the album comes from.
She was married for six years to Carlos Pliego, a Spanish film director, and then had an affair with a Jamaican musician who fathered her daughter, but their relationship is strained. But it looks like she has paid her dues and finally won the love war with her present partner Ian Watts.
She told the Sunday Times of London: “Ian was a Royal Marine, then a fireman, then a Cambridge graduate in chemistry.
“I always said that if I could just find a guy who could chop wood and had a nice smile it didn’t bother me if he was an aristocrat or a thug as long as he was a good guy.
“I’ve ended up with an educated thug. I feel like I’ve won the lottery, finally.”
One can’t think of anyone better equipped to wear the queen of hearts crown than Helen Folasade Adu OBE (Order of the British Empire). She’s 51 and has released only six studio albums that have sold millions all over the world.
Perhaps that’s why it feels like her catalogue has over 20 albums, that’s why in her case, the adage absence makes the heart grow fonder couldn’t be more apt.
Introducing Soldier of Love, Sade talks about how she sees writing and recording music as a layering process.
“There is a lot of subtraction, a lot of chipping away. To me a song is like a sculpture. What’s finally left is what it is. I never do covers because I’m not a good enough interpretive singer. I don’t have the technical spectrum to render a great song, if it was done well in the first place. The point for me is to deliver a story or a feeling that doesn’t already exist.”
So, it comes as no surprise then that Sade delivers yet another punchy collection of ten timeless original masterpieces lasting just 41 minutes, like she has been doing over her 30-year long career.
On The Moon and The Sky, she sings about not being appreciated. “…about somebody pretending to let somebody go but not really letting them go. It’s about realizing you can never go back.”
She points out that she’d worked on the verses and bridge but she found it hard establishing the chorus line over a part already written as it was a bit like karaoke without the words.
The title track may be the Soldier of Love, but strangely, Sade insists that it’s not a love song. Instead she offers that it’s about looking for life and faith.
“Someone said to me recently, you often sing from a man’s point of view, which is what I do here.
“When I visualise struggle I often see it as like a wild west scene or battleground.
“It is a very masculine thing, connected to all the Westerns I watched as a child! It took a long time to get this song right, with all the layers and spaces.”
One of Sade’s most prized pride and joy is being a mother to 13-year-old Ila. A hands-on mum, Sade told an interviewer she’s never had a nanny and that for years she put her daughter to bed every night. She took her on her last tour in 2002 but kept her away from the madding crowds at her concerts.
She celebrates parenthood with the track Babyfather, and describes the beginning of the song as “like the ice-cream van coming down the street”.
Getting philosophical, Sade gushes about being a parent. “How great it is to be a parent and what a great honour and privilege, and what a terrible thing to waste.
“As long as you feel good about yourself, you can be a good parent and then it becomes an endless fruitful cycle.”
She adds that she wanted the song to sound quite rough and scrappy, not too honed.
On The Safest Place she sings about the idea that one won’t be let down but that everybody finds their own way through her songs.
“They have their own reason for being but you can listen to them the way you want. That is so important.”
When it comes to Long Hard Road Sade reveals that it was in fact written some five years ago on her birthday when she was working at home in London, proof that she has not just been enjoying the English countryside, but that music will always be at the centre of her existence.
“I always consider making a record as a vague possibility, I’m always writing lyrics in my head though I don’t always write them down. The band were keen to get involved but I didn’t want the pressure of everybody flying in.
“So I started working with a couple of guys – an Argentinian guitarist and an engineer – in my basement. I wanted to write and just enjoy it, whenever it was convenient.”
The rest were written over the past two years, mainly at Real World studios. The result proves that Sade is still a sharp wordsmith.
Despite all the wealth that comes with being such a successful artist, Sade told The Sunday Times of London recently: “I’m not someone who needs a lot of money. You could break into my house and leave after half an hour without finding anything worth stealing.”
But she still feels the need to record even though the thought of retirement is always in the back burner.
“After every album, I think, ‘Right that’s it, no more’. But how lucky am I at my age to still be doing this without any outside pressure.”
It is time once more to rekindle the flames of love, bring out your best dinner set from the cabinet and reach for those scented candles that you put away 10 years ago for the queen of hearts has returned.
VIDEO: Song "Morning Bird" from the new album "Soldier of Love"
- City Press