Richard Ashcroft On His Songs For Lovers

05/28/2000 7:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Craig Rosen

(5/28/00, 7 a.m. ET) - Former Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft's new album, Alone With Everybody, hits stores June 27, but his first single and video, "A Song For the Lovers," will be shipping to radio shortly, and a video is already at video outlets.

LAUNCH asked Ashcroft about his own top songs for lovers. "A lot of Marvin Gaye's music without a shadow of a doubt, Al Green, 'God Only Knows' [by] the Beach Boys. All these tracks are songs for lovers I think. Most of Al Green's music."

Ashcroft explained that his "A Song For The Lovers" was inspired by a Joy Division song. "The track that actually inspired that probably was 'Love Will Tear Us Apart.' I heard it on a radio in a hotel room when I was embarking on a love affair, and it seemed to be a pure moment of . . . a great soundtrack for that point in my life even though the sentiment of the song sounds like it's quite odd for that moment, but it sounded great to me," he said. "And that conjured up the ideas of a Play 'Misty' For Me thing where a guy needs to hear a song for the lovers. He needs to hear the track that I'm actually singing. So it's just a weird twisted concept."

-- Darren Davis, New York

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