Robert Wyatt: “I’m so somewhere else now…”
From Uncut’s March 2020 issue (Take 272). As Robert Wyatt celebrated his 75th birthday, he invited Uncut round for a chat. Over carrot cake, we heard tales of the Soft Machine, Pink Floyd and Wyatt’s own wide-ranging musical appetites. But will he ever make new music again..? “Occasionally, I hit the piano and go, ‘Ah, that would be good. I must remember that’…” Advertisement The tea is made, the carrot cake is ready to be sliced and Robert Wyatt has just slid his electric wheelchair under the edge of the dining table, when he realises he’s forgotten the cake knife. Uncut offers to fetch it from the kitchen. “No, it’s alright,” Wyatt says, reversing his chair. “I can get it without standing up, mate.” He returns with a huge knife – “It’s a bit Agatha Christie” – and proceeds to slice the cake. “It’s great, I can sit anywhere in town,” he adds, detailing one of the advantages of being wheelchair-bound, “while everyone else has to sit on a bench. It’s a bit toytown round here, like one of those imaginary places in train sets, but that’s no bad thing.” The town in question is Louth in the Lincolnshire Wolds,… Read More →
