The Selector, our global weekly radio show for new UK music, has teamed up with The Crypt Sessions to bring you ‘Amped’, a monthly video series with UK artists. The transcript below is of the latest ‘Amped’ video, in which The Selector’s DJ Goldierocks interviews 19-year-old singer-songwriter Misty Miller.
Scroll down to read the lyrics for ‘Next to You’. You can also watch the session, including Misty Miller’s performance of ‘Next to You'.
Misty Miller: Hello!
DJG: .. and band! You’re quite young but you’ve been recording for a long time and writing for a long time.
MM: I started writing when I was 14, 13, and then did the first album when I was 15 and since then I started playing guitar and I’m now 19 and ready to record the next album with these guys.
DJG: You started with the ukulele, right?
MM: Yeah, my dad got it for me, and I didn’t actually know what a ukulele was so it’s not like I thought I’m going to play the ukulele, that’s going to be a great idea – it was just in my room and so I wanted to write songs and so I just used it as a tool, just to write songs really and then I moved on to the guitar quite quickly after recording the first album.
DJG: Growing up in such an artistic family, do you think that’s really influenced the genre of music you’re making?
MM: I don’t know, it’s just kind of natural, I think it’s gotten me used to the kind of characters you meet in the industry and just being comfortable in studios, or at gigs or on tour or whatever but I think it was loads of things that inspired the music I’m making – not really my family so much – but more the people I’m with, my friends.
I left college and the only people I was hanging out with were musicians and I realised they were doing what they were enjoying, and at the time I was doing stuff I wasn’t really enjoying so it made me realise I don’t care, I’ll do what I want – which was difficult with the label at first but you know a year and a half later it’s worked out for me.
One thing I made sure was I didn’t just want to be like another girl with an acoustic guitar, and that’s what my label really wanted to put me in, and the whole folky scene – that whole Laura Marling thing, all that which I was never into and so I did make sure I just wasn’t categorised as that because it’s not what I do.
DJG: Anywhere in the world, anywhere – if you could play live where would you play?
MM: Ooh, I don’t know, [to her band] don’t you guys have an answer to that – you don’t want to say it … where would you play, Dan?
Dan (Lyons) – I’d play in Karachi!
Jack (Everett) – I don’t know, France?
MM: I’d like to go to Mexico. Yeah, Mexico! I’ve always wanted to go to Mexico, so that is my answer.
Next to You
I washed my hair
I washed my hair for you
I shaved my legs
I shaved my legs for you too
I made my bed
I made my bed for you
I broke my egg
I broke my egg for you too
You wouldn’t care if I moved
You wouldn’t care if I moved
I’m just a body to you
No, you wouldn’t care if I was lying there dead next to you
I fixed my shirt
I fixed my shirt for you
I let it hurt
I let it hurt for you too
I walked your dog
I walked your dog in the park
Lay like a log
Lay like a log when you’d ask
You wouldn’t care if I moved
You wouldn’t care if I moved
If I was battered and blue
No, you wouldn’t care if I was lying there dead next to you
You used to love it when I’d sing
Now it’s like you don’t hear anything
You used to listen to every word that I’d say
But now it’s like, the only way to get through you is if I kneel down and pray
You wouldn’t care if I moved
Listen to The Selector, the British Council’s weekly radio show for new UK music.
View more videos in the ‘Amped’ series by The Crypt Sessions and The Selector.