What are three books you'd recommend to

the audience?

>> Okay, so this was a very hard question.

Three is not very many books and I

thought quite hard about them. So one of

the books, it's called printing and the

mind of man. It was the catalog really

of an exhibition that was at the British

Museum in 1963 and it was about the

history of printing. But actually the

book is about the most important books

in the western cannon and the impact

that they had when they were released.

Um starts with the Goodutenberg Bible.

But it's such a fascinating book because

you really start to understand where the

big fundamental ideas that made Western

culture. It doesn't have any Arabic

books or any Indian books or any Chinese

books. So, it's it's really about the

last 500 years in Western culture. And

it's probably the most fascinating book

about intellectual history that that

I've ever read. And it's a very

beautiful book because it was put

together by a great printer

um who used lots of beautiful types and

so on. It's a wonderful book. So the

second book I think I'm going to suggest

is a book by the architect Christopher

Alexander called a pattern language.

And it's really a book about habitat

about what makes spaces welcoming and

fruitful

or hostile and barren. Um and it's the

most beautiful book. Uh so it talks

about things at the biggest scale

possible, you know, countrywide,

nationwide scale down to the scale of

the molding of a banister or something

like that and tries to understand why

some of those things work and why they

don't. And it's it's such a lovely book

to read. over over the course of my

life, I've bought I would say 60 copies

of that book now because I I always give

it to anyone who is about to renovate a

house or about to build a house. So

that's that's my second one. It's a

great read and you would love it. My

third one is um Naples 44 by Norman

Lewis. Norman Lewis was a British

intelligence officer who was sent to

Naples when the uh Germans had been

beaten out of there and he was sent

there to find out whether there were

nent fascist groups still working in

Naples

and he kept a diary and this is the most

fabulous diary you'll ever read. It's

just both hilariously funny, deeply

moving, and totally confusing. And that

you realize that Naples was like another

planet. It's like reading sci-fi, some

of it. the strangeness of that that

little world of Naples with its

intertwining of deep religiosity,

deep criminality,

deep love of the senses,

incredible attention to food,

weird decaying aristocracies all woven

in with crooks and priests and so on. So

there's three books. And I just want to

suggest one other thing which is a

subscription to the London Review of

Books.

Probably the best intellectual reading

in the English language. I I think it's

it's amazing. Comes out every two weeks

and it's

if you're if you're interested in books,

the London Review of Books for me beats

the New York Review of Books or the

Times Literary Supplement or any of

those things. Well, let me let me try to

do this because I've loved these

recommendations so much and I didn't

offer this to you before, so maybe it's

too hard given all that'll flood into

your mind, but how about three albums?

Three albums that have influenced you

that that they sort of form part of your

base layers.

>> Okay, I can respond to that. One that

really made a huge impression on me was

a a folkways record called the Rural

Folk Blues. And they were sort of

semifield recordings. Some of them were

actually records that had been made, but

they all dated from the 20s, 30s, and

40s. Um, and they were black American

music.

[music]

I'll make you happy morning

as any woman can be.

[music]

>> Now, I'd been listening to a lot of

black American music because of where I

grew up in in Suffukk, which had a lot

of American air bases, but it was it was

pop music, doo-op and stuff like that. I

loved it. When I heard those recordings,

I thought, "Okay, this is the soil that

that stuff grew out of." And I loved it.

It was such such rich soil.

Um, I think the second one that I have

to name because it still remains as one

of the most moving records to me is the

Velvet Underground's third album

which had the [music] song Pale Blue

Eyes.

linger on

[music] your pale blue eyes.

Beautifully

controversial in many ways because in

fact I think it was probably without

that record I wouldn't have been a pop

musician. I don't I don't know what I

would have done. I've probably been an

art teacher or something.

That record made me think this is

something I could do. And I think it

made a lot of other people think that. I

know so many musicians who say that was

the record that really

made things happen for me. Um, now I've

got to do number three. That means I've

only got one choice left. [laughter]

This is very difficult.

See, so much of the music that has

really affected me is religious music,

which is funny because I'm sort of an

atheist. Um, but the the thing about

religious music, I think, that is so

special is that it's made by people and

it's made by people for other reasons

than I want to pull a chick, I want to

make a lot of money, or I want to dance.

Now, all of those things are fine. I

have no problem with them. But the

majority of popular music comes out of

those kinds of feelings. I think

>> I am very moved by the old conception of

beauty that when we recognize beauty, it

is recognizing in nearness to God.

>> That's Yep. Well, I I'd take that. Yeah.

Even an atheist like me would say it

depends how big the word God is for you.

And if it's big enough, I can

accommodate ideas like that. Um, so I'm

going to choose a gospel record

and it's a strange one. It's the

consolers. The consolers were a couple,

Sullivan and Iola Pew. P U G H. Um, you

know, I asked myself the question after

going to this museum I mentioned in

Loausanne, the Museum of Outsider Art. I

thought, what's outsider music? I

wondered.

And then I thought, well actually the

whole of pop music is really outsider of

music in that it didn't come out ofmies

or institutions. It's just people doing

stuff together. Um and I I think as

outsider artists, the consolers Sullivan

and I stand absolutely unmatched.

My Lord. [music]

>> Oh yes.

>> He is bringing [singing] me down.