James Morrison: 'I Fucked About Too Long In Pop Music I Forgot What I Was Doing'

When we get singer-songwriter James Morrison on the phone, he's soaking up as much English sun as he can before he heads to Australia on tour in September. “I’m hoping I won’t be so pasty white!” he jokes. 

His excitement is carried by a strong cockney accent, a voice more confident now than it has been in recent years. A self-imposed hiatus was the result of being in a pretty dark place, something he has channelled into his recent release You're Stronger Than You Know. He's since toured the record around the UK and Europe. “People are singing along to the words and that’s a good feeling – that they’re learning the songs," he shares. "The gigs have been some of the best I’ve ever done!

“Going on how I feel about it in the moment, yeah, it’s definitely the most enjoyable album I’ve recorded and played live, because I’ve got more choice. The shows are darker and lighter, the high points are more sort of euphoric, and I suppose I fucked about too long in production and pop music that I forgot why I was doing this in the first place – to make tunes that make you feel something. Soulful, well-sung tunes played live that are just good."

What really drives Morrison is audience connection. “When I meet people, sometimes they cry,” Morrison begins shyly.

“A girl said to me yesterday, ‘You saved my life,’ about three times. She wasn’t even joking. I have moments where I feel like people listen to it, and feel it, and are with me in the songs, yeah. That’s the whole point, that’s what I want. I suppose as the singer, you’re the voice for the people who can’t speak or don’t know how to articulate. I’m just trying to push myself to go further, deeper, and be more honest every time I write a new song.”

Rather than a burden, sharing the weight of emotions through music is something Morrison sees as a duty. “I love it,” he says. “I just feel like it’s a duty to help, really, in a subconscious way – that’s what music did for me growing up. I’d listen to a tune and it would take me away from whatever I was in, and singing along and being in the music always helped me deal with stuff – it still does. It’s like therapy, innit?”

The singer giggles self-consciously when asked about the feeling of returning to specific moments of his life when performing certain songs. “I suppose the thing I notice more than anything is the weakness in my songwriting,” he says. “There’s only a few songs really that get me emotionally, that get me back in the same place; Too Late For Lullabies is one, In My Dreams is another. More the old ones are happy memories of playing gigs, of me starting out.

“I still feel really good about playing the old songs and the naivety in the writing is good in that way, but some are not as good as they could be. I feel like I notice what I haven’t done yet and what I need to do. I’m more focused on that rather than feeling like I’m burdened with the emotion that stuck in a song that I have to play again.”