The singer and GLOW star talks the songs that define her.
The pivotal songs in her life might not, at least at first glance, seem the most obvious choices for someone who at the age of seven years old was described by their piano teacher as ‘the world’s worst worrier’. Yet they are almost all iconic, uncomplicated, cathartic and without many traces of neurosis. From Kate Nash, who is all at once a singer, an actress, a worrier, a ‘screaming woman’, a ‘morose child’, and, above all, a storyteller - it makes more sense.
The emotional intensity of the songs Nash loves is combined in several instances with a narrative thread. It is in discussing storytelling that she is most ardent, a passion that’s perhaps rooted in her Irish heritage. There is a naturalness and authenticity to her preferences and an open-mindedness that’s reflected in her own style of narration. ‘Some things are open-ended in life,’ she tells me, ‘and some things are more buttoned.’ Even putting aside the straightforward, everyday subject matter she is known for, there is a profound sense that her work must be grounded more generally in reality. ‘I just try to be as truthful as possible,’ she explains, ‘It always has to be in my voice.’
The collection of songs Nash has chosen form a narrative trajectory in itself; we discussed them in order of chronological relevance to her life. The consistently infectious melodies of each of them - be that a power ballad, a folk ditty or a Max Martin masterpiece - helps the collection form a cohesive whole and shows where she developed the knack for a catchy tune. Equally, the broad influences are a testament to her relatability and versatility. Nash retains her own strong sense of identity, yet she is not an artist who will be pinned down.
“Without You” by Harry Nilsson
“This is one of the first songs I can remember listening to over and over again as a little kid. I had ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ and ‘Without You’ and they were my two favourite songs. I remember I would sit on the living room floor with my dad’s big headphones on, we had a massive CD player set and I would put it on and I’d just be… [gasps] I’d listen to it on repeat.
“That was my first love of a pop ballad and I think those feelings were my first feelings of love in a way. I would just play it over and over and I think that was my first longing for wanting to create, but maybe not knowing that yet. Just being like ‘Oh my god, this is what I love.’
“It’s quite cool that it was Harry Nilsson, because I was just listening to what my parents were listening to at that time. I fucking love Harry Nilsson, he’s one of my favourite artists. Mariah Carey is a diva and she kills it, but it’s a different experience with the Mariah version. I love a diva and I love a good belt and an intense dramatic thing, but I like the more understated, simpler versions of things sometimes too. It’s like the Dolly Parton version of ‘I Will Always Love You’, there’s something so fucking beautiful and understated about that.”
“It’s All Coming Back To Me Now” by Celine Dion
“It’s All Coming Back To Me Now’ was on the first CD that I remember buying. I had a little purple plastic CD rack and it was one of the most played on that. I loved the piano and I started playing the piano around that age, so it felt relatable for me. Again, I just loved the drama; it’s like a seven or eight minute long song, it’s so amazing, who does that? No one does that! It took me on such a story, the visuals are so clear, even now I can still feel that intense drama. Celine Dion’s amazing, it’s like watching a movie, honestly, listening to those kinds of songs.
“So that was ’96, so I was nine. I was quite a melancholy child. My mum would put me to bed and I’d always get up and walk around upstairs, where there wasn’t really anywhere to walk around. I would just walk around the bathroom, sit at the top of the stairs, hold the staircase and stare out. I really was quite melancholy and I now understand mental health issues as an adult - like I had, you know, anxiety, OCD, depression; I had so much emotion. I mean that was just me as a really morose, melancholy nine year old, I really felt that intensity.
“Those emotional songs can be the cloak that you wrap yourself in. I was drawn to the drama of those kinds of songs, definitely. I mean, those are pretty intense sad songs for a little kid.”
“...Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears
“I remember buying the tape of this song. I must have killed that tape, I rewound it and rewound it. I think that was my first recognition of realising that I was in love with pop music and how it’s so addictive and how it made me feel. Even now, if I hear those opening bass notes I’m like ‘Fuck! It’s so good!’ It hit such a chord inside.
“I think with ‘Without You’ and ‘It’s All Coming Back To Me Now’ they were me experiencing just the songs, but this was like ‘Oh my god, I love Britney’, I became obsessed with her as a pop star. The song definitely has the power of attraction and falling in love, being able to repeat, repeat, repeat and it’s such a good melody, but also Britney was an icon from day one. I felt like I just wanted to be like her.
“I would watch the music video over and over on TV and that’s when I fell in love with pop music as a thing. I didn’t even know what it was, but I knew I wanted to be part of it. I liked the simple production back then too, it was so non-aggressive. I find a lot of the production in pop so aggressive now, whereas Britney was just so fucking pure, it was easy on the ears and I wanted to hear it over and over.
“Britney takes me right back, like I can feel, I can see, I’m in the back of my mum’s car, I’m looking at the tape player, hitting rewind. I can see that and I’m like a zombie. I’m here going… [tape rewind sounds]. If someone puts on '...Baby One More Time' I’m ‘Oh god, turn it up! I have the same love for it each time, it’s amazing."
“My Name Is” by Eminem
“I remember my sister bringing The Slim Shady LP home from school and I’d never heard anything like it. The lyrics were so fucking cool, he was so weird and dark and it was so different. He just tells these fucking creative stories and I think that’s what really appeals to me, I’m such a storyteller with my songs.
“I love him as an artist because he represented the struggle of being a fucking teenager, being misunderstood and being like ‘Fuck you, fuck everyone.’ There’s so much aggression in it and I felt that in my hormones as a teenager. He gave a voice to all the ways that you’re misunderstood and the hardship of being a fucking adolescent. There’s anger and there’s ‘I’m an outsider’ and ‘fuck everyone.’
“It’s weird because even though there’s so much aggression in there, there’s also the humour and the sarcasm. He said things that no one else was saying and he created characters and stories and I liked that.”
“Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana
“I feel like everyone has this on their list of songs, because who doesn’t remember hearing this and just being like ‘Wow, I feel so amazing right now!’ I got a tape and it was all different songs - it had Sum 41, Blink-182, Papa Roach, Fred Durst and Nirvana. ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ satisfied every single inch of me and it really hit every nerve. It’s the most complete pop song ever, you’re just ‘Oh my god, this is probably the best song ever written.’
“Like the Britney song, it was a perfect song for me. ‘...Baby One More Time’ and ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ are perfect pop songs, they’re from completely different worlds, but worlds that are important for a teenager to have a connection to. As an adult it’s still an important connection for me to have, that’s the thing with these magical songs, I feel exactly the same way when I hear ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ now. It’s always satisfying and I never want to turn it off. I’ve heard these songs so many times and they always feel as good.
“It’s been a soundtrack to so many times and I also discovered so many of Nirvana’s albums and grew to love them as an adult in a completely different way than as a child. I’ve danced to it in clubs so many times; on tour, before a show, after a show and I’ve played it in the club before shows, so that the audience will hear it. There’s certain songs that I like to play to get people going and this is one of them.”
“Mercedes Benz” by Janis Joplin
“My Mum played me Janis Joplin for the first time one night when I was 14 or 15 and I was just ‘This is a woman?! Oh my god! What?! I didn’t know that a woman could sound like this!’ That was quite life changing and it totally changed my perception of what you had to be as a female singer. It was such a breath of fresh air, because I’d listened to so much pop and this was my first experience of a woman singing in a completely different way. It broke boundaries for me and it opened different doors, because I was suddenly ‘Oh, you don’t have to just be this one thing.’
“I guess that ‘Mercedes Benz’ was more of a ditty and it wasn’t the perfectly constructed song. I think it’s just really playful; music is really playful and singing can just be funny and downplayed, but this song is also raw, it’s so fucking raw and gritty.”
“Dy-Na-Mi-Tee" by Ms Dynamite
“Fuck, I was so excited when I heard this song. I was staying up late one night - I can’t remember what radio show I was listening to, it was a radio that would play new songs - and I taped it off the radio. It was just so fucking cool, [sings “Dy-Na-Mi-Tee”]. I think that was the first song I heard where I thought ‘I could write a song.’
“After that I did my first ever performance in public. I’d done a school performance before that, but I did a performance with a garage MC who asked me to sing and I was ‘Lady K’ [laughs]. I sang in Croydon at a pub or something and I was doing the garage thing for a bit. That was the biggest music scene at that time in the UK, pirate radio was bigger than normal radio. I would go clubbing in Watford, I would grind in the clubs and I would get CDs from the DJs there who would have all new stuff.
“That sort of reminds me of punk in a way, it was just kids in their bedrooms and they were running the clubs. I felt Ms. Dynamite did something really meaningful and she felt like a political artist to me. I don’t think I knew that at the time, but I think that’s why I was drawn in by her. I was looking at lyrics in a different way then too, thinking about the world a lot and wanting to help the world, maybe being political and not realising it. I wanted to write about the fucked up shit in the world.”
“Violet” by Hole
“This whole album Live Through This is probably my favourite record of all time, I feel so empowered by it. I love Courtney Love, she’s a very unique, kind of controversial character who’s very outspoken, who does wild, weird things and has that guttural voice. And it’s still pop, the melodies are very singable.
“It got me through a horrible break up. I listened to the album on repeat and I was ‘I can get through this, because Courtney Love has gotten through some crazy shit.’ I was angry for a lot of reasons, relationship stuff, music industry stuff, and it became my armour or something. ‘Violet’ was the song on that record that first made me go ‘Whoa.’
“Sometimes I think ‘Miss World’ is my favourite but ‘Violet’ broke down the door of how to be a screaming woman, I learnt to scream and sing differently from that. She opened up that world of ‘fuck off everyone and fuck what anyone thinks of you, I don’t care.’”
“Black Is The Colour” (Live At The Point) by Christy Moore
“Christy Moore is one of my mum’s favourite artists and I listened to this so much growing up. He had a record, Live at the Point, which we would always listen to on journeys around Ireland and Irish music was the first music I experienced live. My mum was born in Dublin, we would go to Galway and go in taverns all the time and it soundtracked my childhood.
“I just recently fell in love and ‘Black is the Colour’ was the song that I really liked and listening to it recently I felt like I was like inside romance. I was like, ‘Ah, I’m so in love right now’ [laughs]. I’ve been quite starved of romance for a really long time and I felt I was in it. I was ‘God, this is so romantic and this is just kind of fucking insane’. I’d forgotten the importance of it and how much I wanted it, so that’s why I put the song in here.
“If you get the Live at the Point version, at the beginning he says that he’d heard this beautiful song by this guy and at the end he’s ‘gimme that song!’ He wants it and I love that, that’s so cute - that’s what this is about, it’s sharing stories. Christy Moore heard this guy sing this beautiful song and he’s ‘Come on, give it to me, I want to play that tune, I want people to feel that way’ and how beautiful is that?
“I’m Irish, so folk is my origin, sharing songs, telling stories and someone else passing on that story. I’ve been really looking into folklore in the past year, that’s one of the reasons that I really wanted to go to Ireland because I was ‘I need to find a record that’s related to this, this is my culture and this is where I grew up.’ As a kid I played the tin whistle and the Bodhrán. I was winning trophies for Irish dancing, I spent my holidays there and I went around playing in fucking fields with cows. And yeah, I’ve been researching fairies and mythology, I love it so much.
“There’s so much ancient, beautiful, really respected and protected traditional stuff in Ireland. The traditional aspect can be so cool, there’s so many amazing musicians that just go down to the pub and play and it’s like breathing to them. I stayed in this little hotel with eight rooms in a town called Kilkee, it was in a bay, it was so cute and there was a family playing music in the pub. There was an eight year old boy just staring off, he was playing the accordion and it was so natural - just a bored eight year old that is a fucking genius and has no idea. And then if someone sang an old traditional song a cappella, everyone in the pub would go silent. It was like a movie or something.”
Yesterday Was Forever is out now via Girl Gang Records
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