I Am What I Am by John Barrowman

Author:John Barrowman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-84317-512-4
Publisher: Michael O' Mara Books

When Sony BMG approached me a few years ago to record my album Another Side, I was ecstatic. Over the course of one month, I chose all the songs, and with the album’s producer, Graham Stack, recorded the album in London and Cardiff (while I was also filming the second series of Torchwood during the week, and being a talent-show judge on the BBC at the weekends).17

Another Side was my first real studio album. Since it was my first major release, I didn’t have much scope for pushing or pulling away from what Sony or my producers wanted. I had to sit back a little18 and go with their melody because I was a newbie and I wanted to learn.

Another Side sold well, going gold relatively fast. This album and Music Music Music, my second one, are full of songs with special meaning for me. And all my albums have thirteen tracks on them because my mum was born on Friday the 13th of July; in our family it’s a really lucky number for us.

Here’s a related piece of trivia that might net you the big money if you’re ever on the game show How Geeky Are You? or the one I’d be a big winner on, Are You Smarter Than a Person Who Doesn’t Watch TV Endlessly? In the scene in ‘Children of Earth’ where Gwen is being directed through lines of covered bodies to identify Jack and Ianto, the officer in charge says, ‘Thirteen and fourteen.’ I requested that Jack’s body be number thirteen.

When it came to making Another Side, it was important to me that this first studio album reflected who I was as a person. Happily, there was, as I’ve said, great personal significance behind the selection of many of the tracks. For example, I recorded ‘Time After Time’ for a friend in LA who had HIV. His family was incredibly supportive of him, but his dad couldn’t quite put his feelings into words, and so he quoted parts of this song to his son in a letter.

The Police’s song ‘Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic’, meanwhile, was for Clare, whom I adore, but who did get a little less ‘magical’ between the ages of twelve and fourteen.19 I sang ‘Please Remember Me’ for Sandie, Scott’s sister, who died of brain cancer in 2005; and ‘Heaven’ was for Scott and me. ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’, which appears on Music Music Music, was picked because … well, like Frankie Valli, the Pet Shop Boys and Andy Williams, who have all recorded it before me,20 I just like the song.

One of the first things I learned about Scott after we met21 was that he loves to sing along to an eclectic mix of music and to musical soundtracks while he works. He especially loves Dusty Springfield. Sometimes, when you’ve lived with someone for a long time, it’s easy to take that person for granted and not always say aloud the things you should. Believe me.

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