3 December 2020 Beth Ditto My size has helped make me an amazing performer too. The cliche of the Funny Fat Friend: I absolutely was that character – I am that character… It’s a complicated bag of tools I acquired, and I’ve put them all to work onstage.
3 December 2020 Beth Ditto I’m constantly thinking about what I’ll do next. I never count on music being a career of longevity. I mean, longevity is key, and I hope that it lasts, but you just don’t know, because it’s not in your hands, you don’t make the decision.
3 December 2020 Beth Ditto A few years back, when my style was ‘punk grandma,’ I picked up an amazing pair of sandals – orthopaedic ones, with really thick soles. I’ve given them away to a friend now, because these days my look is more ‘1980s substitute teacher gone wild.’
3 December 2020 Beth Ditto Starting out really punk came from not knowing any better and listening to music like that, not knowing how to play music – well, still not knowing how to play music.
3 December 2020 Beth Ditto All this fashion stuff – who’s cool now – is just a bigger version of the cool kids versus the nerds.
3 December 2020 Beth Ditto When I am made fun of in the press I just remember those days when I’d come home to find that the water had been turned off because my mother couldn’t afford the bill. Suddenly, everything feels easier.
3 December 2020 Beth Ditto ‘Get a Job’ is about all the rich kids we knew when we were younger, kids who never had jobs but always had money for partying or getting their hair done.
3 December 2020 Beth Ditto I love sad songs. They say so much. I love country music but even the happy songs sound really sad.
3 December 2020 Beth Ditto I just like food too much, and I don’t want to change. I spent so much of childhood trying to change, and I just got sick of it… I don’t want to look like Britney Spears, I just don’t want to. She’s hideous.
3 December 2020 Beth Ditto As a kid, I was always mad – just noticing the women at Thanksgiving, running around the kitchen, while the men were watching football. For one, I don’t want to cook, and for two, I hate football. I was stuck in the middle.
3 December 2020 Beth Ditto When I moved out of my mom’s house at 18 I was almost as sad to leave her sewing machine behind as anything else.
3 December 2020 Beth Ditto I don’t feel famous and I didn’t want my autobiography to be like a Paris Hilton story.
3 December 2020 Beth Ditto I was given baby doll toys myself, and they proved a stark reminder that my life was expected to revolve around childbearing – just as my mom’s had before me, and her mom’s had before her.
3 December 2020 Beth Ditto You live in this shadow that you’re going to burn in Hell until you’re saved. And I still worry about it a little. I don’t believe in Heaven, but I do still fear Hell.
3 December 2020 Beth Ditto For my group of friends is Lady Gaga eye-opening? No. She’s a less dangerous version of what was so cool about pop culture in the ’80s. Back then it was so gay and so punk in so many ways.
3 December 2020 Beth Ditto We all seek approval, and our mother’s seal is usually the most important. The nitty gritty is that we have to accept ourselves, even if it is just to be ready for the next cut-down. Mom’s blessing or not.
3 December 2020 Beth Ditto When you see a fantastic colour or cut in a magazine, perched up on some famous so-and-so’s head, it’s tempting to ask your stylist for the same, but do not be fooled. The hair in those fancy photos can be very high maintenance.
3 December 2020 Beth Ditto Aretha Franklin was a teenage mom, a musician who came from an incredibly Christian background, but there was a lot of love, which is really inspiring in a feminist way.
3 December 2020 Beth Ditto I’ve had people ask me in interviews what it’s like to have money, but that’s not how it is. I have a middle-class life. I have a room in London but not a house, nor a BMW.
3 December 2020 Beth Ditto I have no control over what people think of me but I have 100% control of what I think of myself, and that is so important. And not just about your body, but so many ways of confidence. You’re constantly learning how to be confident, aren’t you?
3 December 2020 Beth Ditto My dad liked to boil a squirrel head and suck the brains out the nose. Smaller than a chicken, bigger than a rat.
3 December 2020 Beth Ditto As with most phobias, the fear of flying does make some sense, but if ever there was a fear worth quashing then this is it. After all, life is short, and there’s a great big world to explore out there.
