During the 1980s, Paul Young was one of the most famous artists to emerge from the British music scene. With international hits such as “Every Time You Go Away” and “Come Back and Stay,” his soaring, emotive voice became one of the most instantly recognizable of that decade. Forty years later, Young is still going strong: to date, he’s released nine studio albums, and he’s currently in the midst of the North American “I Want My ’80s” tour with Rick Springfield, Wang Chung, and John Waite. Talking with The Big Takeover just before he hit the stage for the tour’s Newark, New Jersey show, Young reveals how he continues to interpret his famous songs, what drew him to becoming a singer in the first place, and how he has always tried to push boundaries.
How’s the tour been going so far?
PAUL YOUNG: Really well. It’s fantastic. I did [a tour] with Rick in 2023, and it works well for us. We’ve got a lot in common. Although he’s Australian, a lot of his teenage years were in England, so we’ve kind of watched the same TV shows and stuff like that, so I’ve got on very well with Rick. And he’s got a great band. They back me, so I just fly over [to North America] on my own. The only difficulty there is, if I wanted to change the set, there’s no time, because it’s not my band so they don’t know any other songs, other than the ones that they learnt to do this tour. So I just chose the songs carefully. But it’s a lot of fun.
If you have to play certain songs at every show, how do you keep that interesting for yourself?
PAUL YOUNG: You tend to look at people in the crowd, so you sing to certain people in the crowd. That’s something that you can do that keeps your attention up and excited. I do change the melody a little bit, as well, from time to time, on songs. Or phrase it slightly differently. I might even change the words a little bit, like Frank Sinatra used to do. I think you’re allowed a certain amount of artistic license.
Your singing has always seemed more challenging than it is for most vocalists. How do you keep up your form?
PAUL YOUNG: It has been hard over the years. But in the end, you have to accept that someone who’s approaching seventy can’t sing the same as they did when they were twenty-five, so you drop the keys a little bit. And also now, I tend to practice a lot more, whether I’m on or off duty. And that’s good. I think most people, the longer we’re in the [music] business, they just never seem to want to come off the road because it gets in your blood. It becomes a part of your life. And I know that I’d be driving my wife up the wall if I was at home for more than a couple of weeks. [laughs] There’s got to be something else. So after I get back from this tour, I’ve got ten days [off], I think, and then I’m going away with my other band, Los Pacaminos, which is a Tex Max group I started over thirty years ago. The Pacaminos aren’t that well known, so we play small theaters. And most theaters tend to sell their best at weekends, so I can have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday sometimes [at home], and then come to shows at the weekend. So it’s a bit more civilized than life on the road is.
Where are you based when you’re not on the road?
PAUL YOUNG: I live in Bedfordshire. I lived in London for forty years. I just recently moved a little bit further out. So I’m back closer to where I was born. And I’m still only forty minutes away from London, so that’s fine.
What made you want to become a musician in the first place? Because it is such a hard business…
PAUL YOUNG: Yeah, I didn’t know that! [laughs]
So, one of those, “If I knew then what I know now” things?
PAUL YOUNG: No, I still think I would have done it, because I love it. And after you get to a certain point, you go, “There’s no way I could go back and do anything else.”
When did you realize that you have this exceptional voice?
PAUL YOUNG: I started off playing bass. I did want to be a singer, but I had a friend that looked much more like a lead rock singer than I did. He got the job as the singer, so I played bass [in that band]. And I thought, “No, I’m not satisfied just playing bass.” So I asked if I could sing two or three songs in the middle of the show. And then when I did that, that made up my mind. I thought, “That’s what I want to do.” I felt like I could express myself a lot better through voice than I could with my hands.
How did you come up with your distinctive singing style?
PAUL YOUNG: It developed over the years. It started off being just blues stuff. Then I got into soul. Soul is a little bit more challenging, in terms of melodies and things like that. And then I was in a soul band for three years, and then I thought, “Right, it’s not being that successful, so maybe I need to take that soul approach, keep that in my voice, and change the music that goes on around me.” So in the end, I wasn’t singing out and out like a soul singer, like Otis Redding or anything like that. But it was there. It’s in my voice, and people can listen to me and go, “Oh yeah, he listens to Sam Cooke.”
It’s interesting that you arrived at a distinctive thing that’s all your own out of all that.
PAUL YOUNG: Yeah, I guess that comes with time. It’s funny because I love the same records that John Waite does. We talk about the same bands all the time. And yet he’s the bluesy guy I’d like to be, in a way. But then I found a melodic part of my voice. I think when I started to use a bit of a falsetto more, then I found an area that was in the middle, that I became obsessed with. And I ended up doing all those songs like “Softly Whispering I Love You” and “Oh Girl” – things where it was more mellow.
Why do you think your work has connected with listeners so strongly?
PAUL YOUNG: I think it’s because when I do the song, I let the song take over. I let the lyrics take over, and so I’m really thinking about what the words are saying when I do it. So I never really sing it straight – I never sing a straight blues line exactly as it should be. I’m always going to give it a few twists then turns. And I think because I do that, I really think about what the words are saying. I think that helps to make the connection when the listener is listening.
Is it easier or harder when you’re singing something that you’ve written, compared to when you’re interpreting someone else’s song?
PAUL YOUNG: It’s strange; I do find it more interesting to interpret. Once I knew I was going to take a solo deal, I thought of Rod Stewart. He writes his own songs, but he covers songs, as well. He was always known for doing a good cover, as well as being a good writer. And by this point, I was getting into Tony Bennett and things like that. And I thought all these people, they didn’t write much material – their job is interpretation of the good lyric writers, and just beautifully written words. I thought, “If I’m striving to do great music, then the lyrics should be off the wall great, too.”
Is that the first thing you look at when you consider covering a song, the lyrics? More than the melody?
PAUL YOUNG: No, I think I’m drawn in by the melody. But then if the words are a little bit simple, then it puts me off a little bit. They don’t have to be overly clever, but there’s a middle ground.
Is there anything else that you’d like to tell people?
PAUL YOUNG: I suppose we should mention that the last album I made was just a couple of years back [2023’s Behind the Lens]. The people that heard it absolutely loved it and said, “That’s what Paul Young should be doing now.” I’m moving on all the time. And once again, it was a mixture of songs. And in the end, it worked quite well.
What do you think about the legacy that you’ve created so far?
PAUL YOUNG: I think that I always try and push. I want people to know that for all the hits I had, there were some much wilder, off the wall chances that I took, and made records that were completely not what people expected of me – to the point where the record company would refuse to put them out. But I never forgot that I did them. And so when they did a box set, I said, “I want these on the box set,” and I made sure that they were on there.
A cool thing about being a musician is that everything you release is like a snapshot of that part of your life.
PAUL YOUNG: It is, very much. A lot of bands, they stay the same, they do the same thing, one album to the other. But I let my circumstances change what I do.
