On '21' and the man who inspired it, her ex-boyfriend: "I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for not making my relationship with my ex on 21 work, because he's the love of my life," she says, before adding that she would have been willing to give up everything for him. Everything? "Well, I would still be singing in the shower, of course, but yeah -- my career, my friendships, my hobbies. I would have given up trying to be the best. He made me really weak, but at the same time really fearless, so I managed to channel that. I don’t know if I’ll ever beat this album in terms of how people connect to it.”
"He was my soul mate. We had everything -- on every level we were totally right. We'd finish each other's sentences, and he could just pick up how I was feeling by the look in my eye, down to a T, and we loved the same things, and hated the same things, and we were brave when the other was brave and weak when the other one was weak -- almost like twins, you know--and I think that's rare when you find the full circle in one person, and I think that's what I'll always be looking for in other men."
On how she defines herself as an artist: “I always say I’m a singing lady, rather than a singer. Singer is a big word for me. My interpretation of a singer is Etta James and Carole King and Aretha Franklin.”
On her gift for writing: She thinks it may have something to do with the way she learned to express her feelings as a child. “I don’t know if it’s because I’m an only child, but I was never, ever good at saying how I felt about things,” she says. “From the age of about 5, if I was told off for not sharing, or I didn’t tidy my room, or I spoke back to my mom, I’d always write a note as my apology.”
On some of the artists that inspired her: Adele was 3 years old when she saw her first concert, accompanying her mom, to see The Cure. One of their numbers, “Lovesong” -- a hit for the band in 1989, the year Adele was born -- would end up as a cover on 21, a tribute to the mother whose musical enthusiasms have done so much to instruct and inspire her daughter. Growing up in the London borough of Tottenham, one of the most impoverished communities in England, was not easy, and mother and daughter struggled alongside everyone else. Music was a way to escape the grind. “Even when I was 10 and 11, I knew my mom had brilliant taste in music -- I just wasn’t ready to embrace it,” says Adele. “Now they’re my favorite artists.” She has thought about recording a cover of “Troy,” by Sinéad O’Connor, the first song that ever made her cry, and another favorite of her mom’s, but doubts her ability to deliver it. “As an artist she is everything I would like to be—it’s all about the song,” says Adele. “She moves me when I hear her.”
Courtesy of OUT magazine
