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Cher’s first Christmas album dropped today. Judging from different articles and the album cover itself, I’m not completely sure if it’s called Christmas and her name is there as the artist, or if it’s supposed to be Cher Christmas. Whichever it is, I love that she made her four-letter name about ten-times the size of the word ‘Christmas.’ But wait, there’s more merriment afoot! Cher also has a 25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Believe coming out November 3. Cher spoke to The Guardian to tout both releases, and honestly I could write about seven different posts to dissect everything she says. But I’ve somehow reined myself in (no really, I have!) and settled on the following, life-enriching highlights:
Her comments on aging involve iffy math: Cher thinks she may have just made history. “My life seems to be longer than any other human being ever,” she said. “I feel like I should be in the Guinness Book of World Records for this. And I’m still going!” … Her mother got to the age of 96, underscoring the longevity in her daughter’s genes. “My great-aunts were 101 and 104!” Cher said. Which makes her, at 77, a relative toddler. Small wonder, she feels like she still has a lot more to accomplish. “I never thought about getting this old and still having a job!” she said. “Barbra Streisand once asked me, ‘Why are you still working?’ And I said, ‘Because some day I won’t be able to.’ So, for as long as I can work, I will.”
Phil Spector was a creep, in any language: By that time Spector’s weirder side was starting to show. Yet even a teenage Cher was well-equipped to handle it. “Phil asked me, in French, if I would have sex with him,” she said. “And I said, in French, ‘Yes – for money.’ He almost fell off his chair. He didn’t expect that from anyone.” Her tart response put him on notice to watch himself around her, though he still asked her to do sketchy things. “I was supposed to watch Ronnie, Nedra and Estelle [the Ronettes] and report back to him. I said, ‘No f—ing way!’ I wasn’t going to nark on these girls. They were my friends.” Ronnie got it the worst. “Phil was a pig when it came to her,” Cher said.
How her first single got buried: Spector wound up producing Cher’s first solo song, a Beatles exploitation piece called Ringo, I Love You, which she cut under the name Bonnie Joe Mason. Radio stations refused to play it because, due to her low, contralto voice, they thought she was a guy singing a love song to the Beatles’ drummer.
She uses only negative adjectives to describe her and Sonny’s singing: “We were such a bizarre combination,” Cher said. “I was a terrible singer at first and Sonny was a frightening singer. But he was a good songwriter.” He proved it after they became Sonny & Cher and he wrote I Got You Babe. “He brought it to me in the middle of the night and, with him singing it, it sounded horrible,” she said. “When I first sang it, it didn’t sound that much better. But Sonny didn’t care. He knew what he had.”
A girl can’t be sad in two verses: It was Cher’s idea to change the original lyric in Believe to make the character more assertive. “I thought, ‘A girl can be sad in one verse, but she can’t be sad in two verses,’” she said. “I just won’t have it. So, then I thought of the lines, ‘I’ve had time to think it through / and maybe I’m too good for you.’ I should have asked for a writing credit. I was so stupid!”
Cher on Cher: “I used to not like Cher, but I’m much more used to her now,” she said. “I think she’s improved.”
On having a much younger boyfriend: The album’s most surprising guest star is Tyga who raps on Drop Top Sleigh Ride. He was brought in by his producer, Alexander Edwards, who Cher has been dating for the last year. At 37, he’s 40 years her junior, which inspired her to tell him early on, “‘Dude, put this on paper. It doesn’t look good.’ Alexander told me, ‘Well, it couldn’t do any harm.’ I don’t know what happened, but we’re together.”
[From The Guardian]
If and when I ever get married I am totally stealing “I don’t know what happened, but we’re together,” for my wedding vows. I mean come on, it’s perfect! We get so many different sides of Cher in this interview and I love each and every one of them — especially when they contradict themselves. Like her going from “my life is longer than anyone else in history!” (she’s 77) to “my great-aunts lived past 100!” Honey, do you not see… the second statement disproves the… you know what nevermind, it’s perfect. And sidenote: allow me to stir up trouble and ask if Barbra’s question was possibly shady? “Why are you still working?” can be read so many ways.
Cher doesn’t break any news here about Phil Spector’s character except for the French detail (at least to me). Good for her for being a teenager willing to sass him right back. And the story about her first single going nowhere because the producers thought she was a man and suspected homoerotic messaging, that’s a gem. But of course the pièce de résistance (more French!) is Cher giving a quote on herself, in the third person. Not to mention the content of said quote. It’s completely ridiculous, and I’m trying to figure out why it’s fabulous coming from Cher but would be cringeworthy from Gwyneth Paltrow. Anyway, Happy Chermas!!
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photos credit Vegan/Backgrid and via Instagram
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