I’m really inspired by everyday people,” he says. “I know it sounds corny, but I’m just naturally inquisitive about people. I like stopping and talking, especially to older people, because they often won’t know who I am. I find it interesting sharing stories.

For many people hitting the big six-o, like Heaton did in May this year, thoughts of mortality are omnipresent. But Paul clearly isn’t the sort to give into that kind of age-related gloom. Smith, Carl (14 October 2022). "Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott secure second Number 1 album as a duo with N.K-Pop". Official Charts Company . Retrieved 15 October 2022. Heaton It wouldn’t be a giggle for me and you can’t sing Flag Day and then reform for charity. We did reform for an interview 10 years ago, which was lovely. I love spending time with them and we’re all really good friends. The colours in his music are as vibrant and multi-hued as they were three decades ago and, despite confessing that sometimes he “bends down for something, but then can’t get up”, he seems genuinely unfazed by his newly sexagenarian status.

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Charlie Be Quiet brings the same comedy that has made Puth so endearing to his fans, giving himself a pep talk about coming on too strong: “You got to lower the noise a little bit now/ If she knows you're in love, she's gonna run away”. Throughout, his production is knowingly playful, too, from the light switch sound in Light Switch to the music panning from left to right speaker in Left and Right (Ft. Jung Kook of BTS). Abbott After we did The 8th [a Heaton show turned solo album with guest singers], Aaron Knight invited me to sing with him in Edinburgh, which was a lovely experience. I wasn’t in a covers band when I was younger. I kinda got prompted to sing by a friend when I was a bit drunk. When I joined the Beautiful South they told me not to worry, that we were doing a low-key warmup gig to just 650 people. I was like: “What? I’ve not even performed in front of my family!” Heaton I was about 30 and somebody passed a comment about my facial lines. I started writing about how each wrinkle was because of having fun, but then twisted it and made it about my mum and dad and their happiness as they aged together. Prettiest eyes … Heaton and Abbott in the Beautiful South, 1996. Photograph: Martyn Goodacre/Getty Images Heaton has written in foreign climes ever since he became famous. “It’s part of the adventure, going away,” he says. “You’ve got your folder out with all of your half-written lyrics and you’re finishing your song in a place where nobody knows you.

There’s laugh-out-loud moments and sometimes rage in the 12 songs here, with some oblique references to shamed ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson (“a clown on the box for which I did not vote”) and to some of the more splenetic tabloids and self-serving politicos (“​​Burn the Express and the Mail/ The key to real democracy/ Throw the Eton mob in jail”). Abbott I think that sort of commentary has moved to social media. You can say what you think without needing to write a song around it. Lastly, your 1989 No.2 single Song For Whoever contains the line: “I love the PRS cheques that you bring.” You must be the only songwriter to have worked ‘PRS’ into the lyrics of a hit song, right? The song There’s So Many People That Want To Be Loved contains the album’s thesis: that what we want most can be rendered impossible by our own inaction. Anywhere But Here charts the perils of miscommunication amid love, desire, and loss. Closing in on four full decades since his first hit, Heaton remains the go-to chronicler of the Everyman condition, but let’s not underplay Abbott’s vital contribution as both equal-billing foil and relatable conduit of female perspectives in these songs. Plays not just for today, but for weeks, months and years to come.I once saw the Beautiful South support Pere Ubu on Morecambe Bay. Any chance of playing live on sand again? LeeBirch Heaton That was Womad in 1989. We were quite a weird set of people and that was the first gig we played where we didn’t smash our gear up, so three of us rolled an enormous, 10ft wheel on stage during Pere Ubu’s set. They were screaming: “What are you doing?” We went “It’s part of the show!” Then suddenly we were ushered off [laughter]. I hadn’t liked them when they supported the Clash in 1978, so it was silent revenge. The British songwriting greatwas awarded Outstanding Song Collection at the 2022 Ivor Novello Awards for his work with The Housemartins through to The Beautiful South and his current collaboration with Abbott. Too Much For One is another example of a great conversational/argument songs between yourself and Jacqui. How would you define the chemistry the two of you have?

I can’t stand the idea of people knowing me or watching me. It’s quite a private thing, even though I do it in public.” a b c Murphy, John (4 October 2022). "Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott – N.K. Pop". musicOMH . Retrieved 12 October 2022. Great! I mean, I wouldn't say I'm outspoken, but certainly lyrically I've not reined it in much. There are never any editorial questions, they know what I'm like and I'm given an incredible amount of freedom. But then I suppose I've gained a little bit of the freedom through success. People don't really want to hear it - I think they want to paint the music industry as the devil, but everybody's all right from my experience.The Housemartins had been on the dole for two years. I think Hugh [Whitaker, drummer] had been on the dole for four years and we just wanted a wage and that's what we asked for. We didn't want big advances. I'm not making an album to buy a yacht, I'm making an album because I love music. And I've found gradually that more and more people I'm working with within the industry are doing the same.” Not a lot, really, but there’s quite often one scene in my mind and it spreads from there. On this one, I had a really vivid image of a pub with a fireplace, and I fleshed it out by having a conversation with myself. I thought about what might have happened there, and the landlord running the place on his own after his wife has gone. Sometimes I think of a song as an unfinished crossword puzzle and it’s my jobPaul, in the 1989 song Love Is … you estimated your life expectancy as 52. Given that you are still going strong, any reason why you envisaged such a short lifespan? BernardMunch across 60 pubs, a grand apiece. It was a typically magnanimous move from one of pop’s premier good guys.