Inspired #342 - Ali MacQueen
London-based songwriter Ali MacQueen recently returned with his new single ‘One of These Days’. He took a minute to talk us through what inspired him, and how he hopes to inspire people.
Who are your top three musical inspirations and why?
Observations – looking at the little or underseen details from everyday life,
Is there a certain film that inspires you and why?
I’d love to say it’s Francois Truffaut’s Les Quatre Cents Coup, but really it’s Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused. In a way the two films are linked - they’re both about adolescence and making sense of a very confusing, adult world where other people have expectations of you and have decided your future without your input. But Dazed and Confused has a killer soundtrack and is all about getting out of the place where you are, and the adventures you could have if you could just escape.
What city do you find the most inspiring and why?
I used to find San Francisco really inspiring but that’s because it was so unknown. London’s pretty inspiring too, but really I think LA is inspiring for me. A lot of my songs are influenced by Laurel Canyon artists and Beck, and I just have these imagined scenes of what it must be like. Obviously downtown LA is full of traffic and glass buildings, so it’s more the northern parts with silhouettes of powerlines, slightly dusty apartments looking out to the Pacific, dispersed rows of shops with laundrettes, bottle shops, taco shacks… all in my mind of course, it’s just a romantic view.
Who is the most inspiring person to you and why?
I think it has to be Beck… he’s just a great songwriter with the ability to switch between different styles and yet still retain a core sense of himself. He can go from slacker lofi to full-on disco, melancholy weirdness to fuzzrock, tex-mex bossanova to dreamy acoustic and never really lose his way to a good song.
What were your inspirations when writing ‘One of These Days’?
Initially I was going for something a bit trippy and 60s psych-sounding, but then it just changed to a Tim Hardin chord sequence that morphed into dissonant rock with a guitar outro influenced by the end of Radiohead’s ‘Pearly’. It was obviously a bit reflective of events going on in the pandemic as well - it seems a lot of people woke up to how much inequality there is in our supposedly free, equal and tolerant society. We had BLM protests and the UK government trying to limit the numbers and action of peaceful, democratic protesters, as a lot of people were demanding change.
Plus my mum was dying around the time I was writing it, so that kind of shit makes you naturally more reflective, and makes you feel like if you want to change things, you should do them now.
How would you like to inspire people?
Just to remind them that if I can do it, you can do it too – don’t suppress that inner calling, talent, dream or passion you have. I’ve had two brain surgeries, so it’s taken me a bit of time to get my shit together, but I’m still determined to use my talents and insight that I’ve always had, as opposed to falling in line, getting a job and conforming to that kind of narrative.