Labi Siffre, who inspired Madness and gave Eminem a killer sample, is ready for a comeback

Something delightful happened this week. Labi Siffre, the British singer-songwriter whose work is perhaps better known than his name, released a new single. It’s a prelude of what will be his first album of new work in almost three decades. Given that his last music collection was called The Last Songs, he clearly has more to say.

Far Away is a ballad about heartbreak and loss. Siffre, who has survived both of his husbands, might have drawn on those memories for a song that packs an emotional punch.

Siffre, who turned 80 last year, has been active in music for six decades, and has had some really remarkable moments.

I came to know him first through Madness, and did not know for a while that It Must Be Love was a cover. The song was a huge British hit in 1981 and is still a centrepiece for Madness, who are still performing.

Siffre makes a cameo, smiling and holding a violin near the end.

Siffre released his own version of It Must Be Love nine years earlier. It was no doubt influenced by his longtime partner Peter Lloyd, whom he met in the mid-Sixties. Siffre lived openly as a gay man, even when British law still made homosexuality illegal.

The strum of the guitar in his recording is magic.

One of Siffre’s best known songs is Crying Laughing Loving Lying, from the same early Seventies period.

It reached a new audience with its superb use in The Holdovers, Alexander Payne’s 2023 bittersweet comedy-drama about a repressed college professor who goes through all of the words in the title, especially the last, as he lies at considerable personal risk in order to protect a damaged young man.

Siffre’s music has been sampled numerous times, by artists like Kanye West, Jay-Z and most notoriously in Eminem’s My Name Is.

Siffre cleared the use of the funky break from his recording I Got The …, with the requirement that Eminem clean up homophobic and sexist lyrics. Eminem did … but only for the “clean” version. The explicit version was not changed, and Siffre felt betrayed.

More recently, Siffre’s 1971 song Bless The Telephone became a viral meme recently on TikTok. It was such a thing that the song is, by far, Siffre’s most-streamed song on Spotify. Here’s a live performance from 1971:

Now, Labi Siffre is back, with new music of his own. I am looking forward to the full album.

Earlier this week, to mark the release of the single, the BBC released this live recording of Far Away with a live orchestra.

Bring it on!

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I also have made a playlist of songs mentioned on Dot Dot Dot: