Singer Alison Moyet tells how Elvis Costello blunder led to agoraphobia
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/may/18/alison-moyet-agoraphobia-decades Version 0 of 1. Alison Moyet, one of the biggest pop stars of the 1980s, has described how being accidentally rude to fellow singer Elvis Costello was the trigger that led to her being housebound for years with agoraphobia. The former Yazoo and solo singer has sold more than 20m records, including Only You, Don't Go, Situation and Nobody's Diary. She also revealed that she has smashed all of her gold discs and last year deliberately had everything wiped from her computer, including demos of new songs. Moyet returned to music last year with a new album called Minutes and is due to play several gigs around Britain this summer, including the Isle of Wight festival. Appearing on Desert Island Discs, due to be broadcast on Sunday on Radio 4, she described Costello as her "idol" and one of his songs – I'm Your Toy – is among her eight chosen discs. However, she told the programme's host, Kirsty Young: "I'd gone to see him play in Southend and he'd been brilliant. He'd sung this two-hour set and he was formidable. I absolutely loved it, and there was a party back at Dr Feelgood's house that he went to, and I'd been invited too, and there he was and he was lovely. He was charming and I wanted to say to him 'you were wonderful' and had all these wonderful descriptions of him. What came out of my mouth was, 'You dragged that out a bit, didn't you?' Once I did that, I just felt, I don't trust myself in polite society." The singer said she felt so bad about what she had said that, even though she went on buying all of Costello's records, she "couldn't listen to them". Moyet said her agoraphobia – a panic disorder that affects 1.5 million people in the UK and causes sufferers intense anxiety in certain environments – now feels like normality to her. "It's outside that feels odd. There were years I didn't go out beyond working," she said. Moyet says she has suffered throughout the past three decades with neurosis. "I was always an odd girl." She said the appeal of a desert island for her would be the chance to "get away from any kind of mail, any kind of inbox, any kind of correspondence". She added: "A year ago I took my computer to be mended and just told them to wipe everything without saving anything. That's my whole life – everything, my contacts, everything, my diary, everything gone, my songs, my demos, the lot – because I was really excited about having an empty inbox." The singer, who said much of her recovery was down to her second husband, David Ballard, opted for a bath as her luxury item, because she could sleep in it as well as use it for washing and collecting rainwater. Her other tracks included Cilla Black's version of Anyone Who Had A Heart, Cry Baby by Janis Joplin, X-Ray Spex's Identity and Chan Chan by Buena Vista Social Club. |