How Lionel Richie Mastered the Love Song

Listen and subscribe: Apple | Spotify | Google | Wherever you listen

Memoirs of celebrities are a form about which I am reflexively skeptical. Some books rely solely on the recognition of the name, not caring about the content inside. Others promise obscene details of life that people watched and spoke out at a distance, but never had valid Access to. Perhaps I am not a target audience even at best: I always preferred to work with a little removal from the artists that I like, knowing only as much as I need to know to gain access to the art that I consume.

Memories Lionel Richie, “Really“ In any case, fascinated me. Unlike most records in the genre, it is really vulnerable, heartbreaking and often very funny. His main attention is paid, of course, his extensive musical career, which began in 1968, when he joined the Commodores as a singer and saxophonist, providing his written, vocal and talents to talents to talents, such as “Brick House” and ballads, such as “light, such as Sunday morning”. Having left the group, in 1982, Richie released his debut, the solo album of the same name, which began the mileage of success in the chart within the eighties. First of all, he is one of my favorite architects of love about love, and, in the book, he openly writes about the relationship that inspired them, including those that ended painfully. Richie, who is now seventy -six, seems to have concluded peace with his failures; He is not afraid to evaluate them and allow the reader to witness these assessments. There is a fundamental obligation everywhere not to let go of the hook, but, also gently, with my younger self. For Resident radio communicationsI spoke with Richie about the craft, memory and the old shirt of Commodores, which I found many years ago. Our conversation was edited for length and clarity.

I collect vintage musical shirts – I have my whole adult life – and I think that I found someone, who, perhaps, worked for the Commodores road team, because they sold me all this from the tour of 81 years. I received this shirt of the tourist team for 81 years, and on my back she says: “They force her rock, we make her roll.”

NoThe field is cool. Oh my god, dude. Wow!

In the book you are talking about [the Commodores song] “Zoom” is the work of a dreamer and someone, who was idealist in relation to the world in which they were. This made me curious about how the songs came to you at an early age, even before you, perhaps, found out what they were, or before you played Piano and your grandmother, similar things.

This is interesting, because you never know – people have a chance to identify you, and you seem to be in accordance with the story that they are about you. The field by the field by the field of how they described me was “difficult to pay attention.” This is called ADHD today. But then. The field with the field was the answer: “Lionel, stop knocking on the table. Lionel, would you like to join the rest of the class? “

I continued to think Why can't I pay attention to what the guy speaks in the classroom? Why can't I pay attention to what is happening in the church? Because I always dreamed, somewhere on the other side of this thing. Over time, I began to listen more and more on the other side. And as I became older – especially, you know, lead to joining the Commodores – I began to meet with people, meet with other great artists and other great writers and realized, just sitting with them for a minute, why was their leg tapping while we are talking? Why is their head moving while we are talking? They have the same problem as me. Is Is this problem, or is it called creativity? I had to study, and the word that I am going to use is to “open” – if I had to change the name of this whole book and simply express it in realistic terms, this is “as I found Lionel Richie”. Because it was from all these moments listening to oneself and anxiety, Why can't I be like everyone else? I know the answer to this, but it does not care for me. What worries me: this is more exciting that I am listening. I mean, you are a poet. You understand. When you begin to listen to this voice and trust this voice, you become stronger and stronger on your own.

Right.

But Zoom was the song that I could express in the words what I really wanted to have as my mandate in the future.

At the beginning of the book, you say that you did not begin to treat until they became the author of the songs. And I was interested in if, thanks to the creation of this book, you found new processes for healing or things that you heal, and did not even know about it.

You hit the head. When I started in this book, I had wonderful stories that I was going to tell, preserving its real surface, you know, it's okay. I did not realize that it would take me on a trip – this is not this version of the mountain, but also this version of the mountain and this version of the mountain. It was this version of the mountain, and then the valley. The book about the valley. And then it reached the next top of the mountain, and then you need to return to the valley. Well, every time I went down to the valley, it hurt, because in this book there were things that I wanted to forget in life. But what created the real substance that entered into me is that I had to face my uncertainty. I was not this sports that played football, basketball. I was not the hottest guy in the campus. I was not “yo, yo”, a ladies' man. I was the most sacred child in the world, dude. Painfully shy, to such an extent that just agony – and so it was What that I had to open up. This actually made a book interconnected. Because what makes the record, if you want, when people come to me at the end of this song and say: “Lionel, I felt the same.”