Dionne Warwick refuses to listen to her own music.
The iconic singer – whose songs ‘Walk On By’, ‘Alfie’ and ‘Don’t Make Me Over’ are all in the Grammy Hall of Fame – insisted while she would be happy to watch herself ‘live’ in an ABBA-style hologram avatar show, she doesn’t enjoy listening to her own tunes in her day to day life.
She told the Metro newspaper’s 60 Seconds column: “Oh, yeah. I’d love to see me. But I don’t listen to my music. I listened to it one time when I recorded it.
“I am so critical I will say things to myself like, ‘Why didn’t you sing this other note?’ or ‘Why didn’t you do it this way?’
“So I refrain from listening to me. I listen to my peers.”
The 83-year-old star admitted she would rather listen to the likes of Johnny Mathis, Tina Turner and “a lot of Brazilian music” instead.
She “fell completely in love” with Brazil when she first toured there in the 1960s, and feels “a mutual love affair” with the people and their music.
When it was suggested that there is a big difference between Brazilian music and her own, she replied: “I describe it as happy music. Music that makes you smile, makes you move.”
And while some of her own material may seem quite sad, she thinks of it in a different way.
Dionne explained: “I think the songs are basically songs of reality. Hal David wrote lyrics [to Burt Bacharach’s music] that he felt were needed to be heard.
“‘Walk On By’ is a song specifically about the way most people don’t want things to turn out.
“But if things don’t work out the way you want then, ‘Bye bye!’ So there are different phases of life that I sing about.”
And while some people may try to label her sound, Dionne is keen to point out that music should simply be enjoyed for what it is.
She added: “I don’t categorise music. Music is music. They try to put you into a box all the time. But you can’t put me into a box.”