Interview With: Tim Freedman - The Whitlams

Below is a partial transcript of the interview.

EN. In your songs, is that you or a character?

TF. It depends which song you're talking about. I couldn't possibly generalise.

EN. You tend to be a bloke who thinks about being a bloke... there's women in your life, you're going in and out of relationships, but you think about what's going on.

TF. Well, I do find the drama for most of my songs in my own life. And then I probably to differing degrees in different songs romanticise it or hide the ugly bits. If you look at a song like "Up Against The Wall Now" from 'Eternal Nightcap' it's a dark dirty lyric about a guy who feels like he's nothing but a monkey, the way he can't keep a relationship together. He's saying "I'm a man and that's just the way it is so get away from me". And then I'll get really romantic in the next song and be really hurt by the fact that she's left me. They're all true because we're all many men. We'd have to talk about specific songs. Some of it's me on the line. "Charlie No. 1" and "Charlie No. 2", that's completely and absolutely 100% heartfelt from writing late at night, upset with friends. Whereas in "Pretty As You" or "Hamburgers" I'm just trying to be fun, trying to make the night more interesting for people when they go out on a Friday night.

EN. And at the same time you're a collaborator. A lot of those songs are written with other people and you've involved a lot of friends in those last three albums. Was it because you needed them?

TF. I needed stronger songs to fill the album. I was used to writing only half an album with Stevie. On 'Eternal Nightcap' there are only two other people I think. On 'Love This City' I hadn't written enough good stuff and I knew it had to be a great album. So I borrowed my friend Chris's song "Unreliable", borrowed Bernie's song "Made Me Hard', I wrote a song with my friend Greta Gertler about the pokies, and I borrowed a lyric from a friend around the corner and put music to it. I needed their help and I was glad it was there because it probably would have bneen a weaker album without them....

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