Warren Ellis
Bonjour, Jean-Baptiste! Ça va?
Jean-Baptiste Dubois
Salut! I’ve been hearing a lot of Nina Simone from your place lately, what’s that about?
Warren Ellis
Oh! I have her on repeat for a project I’m working on. Nina is incredible—I saw her in London in ‘99. At the start she was struggling—the first song was terrible. I was a bit worried about it, she just looked… frail. She walked slowly, painfully. And then something happened. She’d taken this piece of gum from her mouth, stuck it on top of a towel on the piano, and she just… transformed. She was dancing. Singing. So much attitude and power. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. It was transcendent.
Jean-Baptiste
Oh?
Warren Ellis
At the end of the concert, I felt like a different person. I was there with Nick Cave, and we were just standing there, taking in what happened. It was that intense, we needed a moment to recover. And then I glanced over at the stage and saw the towel was still there. So… I crawled up on the stage, walked to the Steinway, and eh… I took the gum.
Jean-Baptiste
…You took it?
Warren Ellis
I folded it into the towel and took it with me, walking backstage. It called to me, I had to take it. It was precious to me straight away. I put it into a yellow Tower Records bag and just sort of… carried it with me, without telling anyone about it.
Jean-Baptiste
That day?
Warren Ellis
For a couple of years, actually. It wasn’t just a piece of gum anymore.
Jean-Baptiste
It wasn’t?
Warren Ellis
This gum, it was something different. It was precious to me. Have you ever thought about how sometimes, objects take on extra meaning? Two pieces of wood joined at right angles make a cross, right? But a cross isn’t just some pieces of joined wood, it’s faith. It’s the heart of one of the biggest religions in the world. It comes down to semiotics. Symbolism.
Jean-Baptiste
Hmm. I can see how a book is about wisdom. And that olive branch over there might be about goodwill. But merde… the gum?
Warren Ellis
It’s kind of absurd, isn’t it? But I think most people have stuff they keep that means so much to them and absolutely nothing to anyone else. Some people dry their wedding flowers or keep their baby’s teeth. I kept Nina Simone’s chewing gum. It’s almost sacred, definitely spiritual. You might say that at the end of the day, it’s something that belongs in the bin, but for everyone who has been in contact with it, it’s brought out love and care. And that love and care has carried the most humble thing imaginable and elevated it to the status of a holy relic.
Jean-Baptiste
Look, I’m not going to say it’s not crazy. But I think I see what you mean. Un petit peu.
Warren Ellis
Yeah?
Jean-Baptiste
It’s taken on a life of itself, non? It’s inspiration, and it’s a story. And you’re saying that with the right treatment, anything can become meaningful.
Warren Ellis
That’s it. It went on a journey. It became jewellery! Then I wrote a book about it… It was a feature in Nick’s ‘Stranger than Kindness” exhibition, insured and everything. And if that doesn’t prove that anything can be—or become—meaningful, I don’t know what will! There’s a piece Nick wrote, for the introduction to the book. It’s the perfect summary. Let me read it to you:
Twenty-one years have passed. The piece of chewing gum […] is being placed on a marble pedestal in a velvet-lined, temperature-controlled viewing box. […] As the chief conservator places the little piece of grey gum on the plinth like a hallowed relic, we are all silent, awed.
[…] It will sit there on its plinth in Copenhagen as thousands of visitors stand before it in wonder. They will marvel at the significance of this most ordinary and disposable of things–this humble chewing gum–how it could transform, through an infusion of love and attention, into an object of devotion, consecrated by Warren’s unrestrained worship, not just of the great Nina Simone, but of the transcendent power of music itself.’
