Tracey Thorn

2 weeks ago | newstatesman.com | Tracey Thorn

Infirmity is a great test of love. I don’t want to go on and on about my bad back – which is thankfully now on the mend after some intensive physio – but God the last few weeks have been hard. And not just on me. It’s a reminder of how quickly the dynamic of a relationship can change; how delicate is the balancing act which keeps things smooth or rocky. Like many households, we have a division of labour, and it suits both of us. Ben’s the driver, I’m the cook. He does the bills, I do the garden.

1 month ago | newstatesman.com | Tracey Thorn

I’ve been a bit cooped up at home this week with a bad back, and it’s all my own fault. I’d recovered well from the slight injury I suffered just before our gigs at the start of April, and so over the Easter weekend I decided to have a spring-cleaning blitz on the upstairs landing. Yes, I know, I know – moving heavy furniture, and then hoovering in a ridiculous position, and arching my back to reach up into high corners – all extremely bad news for someone with a vulnerable back.

1 month ago | newstatesman.com | Tracey Thorn

I ended my last column on a bit of a cliffhanger, heading towards performing a gig for the first time in 25 years, at the Moth Club in east London, and not sure how it would go. I was full of determination, and anxiety, and the two were held in an extremely precarious balance. The morning of the first show I was on the verge of a panic attack, wondering if I’d made the biggest mistake of my life, when Ben calmed me down by playing the piano and getting me to sing with him.

2 months ago | newstatesman.com | Tracey Thorn

As I sit down to write this I note that it’s the five-year anniversary of the start of lockdown, and I’m reminded of the miserable day when Ben had to cancel all his touring, and how it marked such an abrupt end to that period of his work. In the interim, a couple of years ago, he and I made a return to recording as Everything But the Girl, and I’ve written here about the experience of reuniting after a long period to make an album together.

2 months ago | newstatesman.com | Tracey Thorn

The other night Ben and I watched the new Sly Stone documentary, Sly Lives! (AKA The Burden of Black Genius). Directed by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, it’s an exploration and celebration of Stone’s prodigious talent, but also an attempt to understand his downfall, and to place it in the wider context of being a black artist in America, with all the obstacles and traps that are placed in the way.