‘Young Americans’: The one song Tracey Emin couldn’t live without
Within the world of popular art, Tracey Emin is likely one of the most diverse figures of recent times. On one hand, the mixed-media master has created some of the most stunningly original and subversive works of the past 50 years, but on the other, much of her work is also responsible for a wave of dads walking around art galleries muttering “I could have done that”. Regardless, her impact on the world, art and culture is undeniable.
As potentially the most widespread and accessible art form, music has always been an important part of Emin’s existence. Rising to prominence during the 1980s, a time during which pop music was incredibly diverse, with a distinct importance placed on artistic integrity, it is perhaps unsurprising that music would have an impact on the young artist. In something of a full-circle moment, Emin herself is now fairly influential on many musicians, finding herself name-dropped in tracks by Pet Needs and Idles in recent years.
Back in 2004, shortly after a fire in an east London Momart storage warehouse destroyed various examples of Emin’s work, the artist appeared on the long-running BBC Radio Four programme Desert Island Discs to give an account of her life thus far, storied by eight tracks she would take with her to a desert island.
Despite Joe Talbot’s fantasy image of “Tracey Emin in her unmade bed listening to The Fall”, the signature tones of Mark E. Smith are disappointingly absent from Emin’s eight tracks. In actual fact, the artist’s choices are, as she states, “unpretentious”. Starting off with the glorious reggae and ska sounds of John Holt and his track ‘Riding for a Fall’, Emin then takes the listener on a journey through the music of her life.
Among her picks, which include the likes of Elvis Presley and The Beach Boys, come an apparent appreciation for the radicalism of the punk rock movement, an atmosphere comparable to the artwork created by Emin herself. Selecting The Clash’s ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go?’, Emin revealed the curious fact that “I’m godmother to Mick Jones’ daughter Stella”.
As is tradition on Desert Island Discs, guests are asked to pick one track out of their chosen eight that they could not live without. For her pick, Emin goes for the seminal David Bowie number ‘Young Americans’. Explaining her choice, the artist said, “Because I can dance to it, I can sing along to it, I could try and remember all the lyrics to it.”
Continuing, she added: “I could write the lyrics down and then cut them up, do what David Bowie does and make some other kinds of collages and poems out of them.”
It is fitting that Emin shared a love for Bowie on the programme, as the glam rock icon had been a childhood inspiration for the young artist. In later life, the pair even forged something of a friendship, with Bowie once giving Emin the ultimate compliment of being, “William Blake as a woman, written by Mike Leigh”.
