In Conversation with David Gray
Musician David Gray, known for his breakout 1998 album White Ladder, which sold 3 million copies in the UK alone and was one of the top-selling albums of the 2000s, talks with David Hill about the intersection of music and nature, and how his passion for nature has influenced his music.
David discusses how growing up in Pembrokeshire shaped his interest in nature, and his involvement with the charity Curlew Action. He also explains how music can be a powerful tool in the climate emergency.
How did your musical career start, and how has it taken you now to your keen interest in the natural environment?
The roots of my music have always partly been in the natural world. It's where I go to restore myself and where I’m most happy, ever since I was a child, that's just kind of carried on.
When I was young, I moved to Pembrokeshire with my family, and I was just playing out all the time in the woods, behind the house, on the shoreline, on the cliff, swimming in the sea. That sparked my passion for nature.
I live in Norfolk now and have made a real connection with the place - I was on the beach last night for a swim, there was nobody else there astonishingly, and I took just 10 or 15 minutes after I'd finished my swim to sit on the beach.
The more closely I notice these sort of rhythms, the richer the imagery and the metaphor that I can find in my music. In terms of how my music started, there was always an affinity for music, for rhythm and melody. I started to write songs when I was 17, and for me, art and music is how I process the emotion of being.
My latest record, coming out soon, reflects our connection to the natural world and the environment, the crisis that's engulfed both of those things, and the extinction event that's very evident to anyone who's paying attention.
Is there an example of a time when nature has moved you so much that it's impacted your music?
A lot of what happens to spark a song is accidental, and the accident becomes a real friend. When you're out walking you might see a butterfly that lands on a flower. Suddenly an idea comes into your head, and that’s definitely a part of the process.
I just need to be in nature and I'll notice something different, whether it's a flower, a sparrow in a bush, or the barn owls I see here regularly.
Water in the natural environment is amazing for the process too. Jumping in the sea, there’s an incredible relationship with nature there that frees you entirely. So that little dip I try and have every day gives a deeper perspective when it comes to writing songs.
You’re a patron of Curlew Action, the charity set up by our former podcast guest Mary Colwell. How did you get involved in Curlew Action?
The curlew is a bird that's as eloquent in its silences as it is in its speech. As humans we're beguiled by it, the magnetic quality of its presence.
I got a book for Christmas from my daughter one year, just after we’d built a house here in Norfolk, Mary Colwell's Curlew Moon. As I was reading the book, I was looking at a field of more than 200 curlews feeding away. And then as I read through the book, it sort of disabused me of this idea of their health as a species, and I began to see the fully complex picture of curlew movements and the different populations across the country.
It's a bird I've always really connected with because it's so memorable, so unique, so stately, a large wader with a huge, crazy curved bill and an amazing voice. The idea that something like that could disappear seems impossible, so I got in touch with Curlew Action and met Mary, who is really on the ground doing amazing work for this bird species.
What advice might you give to younger generations about the importance of the natural world?
I've introduced my children to wonderful places and wonderful things. I try and lead people towards the wonder that's there in nature, and my advice would be to not be complacent, not to think everything is going to be okay because we've got some nature reserves and diligent conservationists.
The fight for nature needs to be won, including in urban areas, including in agriculture, where we can introduce some natural wonder through things like regenerative farming, and tell the story of nature across generations.