Loud And Quiet: Hello Anna. Let’s pretend you’re trying to impress me and I ask you what’s your favourite song. What would you typically say?

Anna B Savage: It depends how annoying I was feeling. I’d actually probably say something that wasn’t deemed cool, to test you, and then see if you’re going to shit on my parade. 

L&Q: Clever! So what is your favourite song?

ABS: ‘I Can’t Read You’ by Daniel Bedingfield. 

L&Q: You know what everyone’s asking right now, don’t you?

ABS: No, what’s that?

L&Q: I didn’t know Daniel Bedingfield had two songs. And why hasn’t Anna chosen ‘Gotta Get Thru This’?

ABS: I love that song as well. It just doesn’t make me fizz inside.

L&Q: When did you first discover this fizzy song?

ABS: I must have just found it online when I was at uni. My housemate was a grime DJ and he’d always slip in ‘Gotta Get Thru This’, and it was epic, and everyone would go mad. I must have come home from that one night and thought, ‘I don’t know anything else by Daniel Bedingfield’, and downloaded the album. I heard this song and straight away it was going on every playlist ever.   

L&Q: I’ve listened to this song and it reminds me of the sort of music they played on The OC.

ABS: Do you want to hear something really wanky that I was thinking about this song?

L&Q: Yes please.

ABS: Part of me was thinking that the reason I like it so much is that there’s so much angst in it. It’s that moment of not being able to cross the precipice – that thing of needing to reach out to you, to explain this thing, but I can’t. And it makes me think of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by TS Eliot. That poem is all about that… I’m obsessed with J. Alfred Prufrock. My birthday when I was 21 was Prufrock and The Grinch themed, blended into one. And I was looking at the lyrics listening to this song, and I think there’s something in that angst that speaks to me. It’s present in the lyrics and the music, and it’s also super present in The OC. So that’s my wanky theory. 

L&Q: It’s a good wanky theory, but let’s go back to this themed party with The Grinch. What did that involve?

ABS: I regularly say that my personality is based on Jim Carrey in The Grinch, Jack Black and my sister…

L&Q: Jack Black?

ABS: Yeah. Tenacious D, putting your leg up and playing the guitar. Fucking love that. And I watched The Grinch every day when revising for my A Levels. And for my birthday, my sister, my brother and some of my friends rewrote the The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock mixed in with the poem that’s The Grinch… This is another thing I want to reiterate – none of these are cool things. 

L&Q: There’s a line in ‘I Can’t Read You’ where Bedingfield sings: “I like you so much, I’m acting stupid.” 

ABS: “… I can’t play the game, I’m all intense and alive.” ARGH! I LOVE IT!

L&Q: What’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done for love?

ABS: Err… Moved into my ex’s family home for three years?

L&Q: Did it go well?

ABS: No, no. Absolutely not.

L&Q: That is quite stupid.

ABS: Well, I was young. But when he sings that line, “I’m all intense and alive”, he does this growl! This song sounds like it’s from a fucking musical. It’s so extra. It’s so dramatic. And that’s why I love it so much. And, again, musical theatre, as we all know, is the coolest thing. 

L&Q: Have you ever performed this song at karaoke?

ABS: I’ve only done karaoke once and I sang Shania Twain. Either ‘Man, I Feel Like A Woman’ or ‘That Don’t Impress Me Much’. I loved those songs when I was little.

L&Q: How did it go down in the room?

ABS: Exceptionally well. Whichever one it was, we hadn’t quite got the system worked out, so it came on three times in a row, so I just sang it three times in a row. And the person I was with there, who I had a crush on, ended up kissing me at the end of the night. Safe to say it was a big win.

L&Q: Do you think it was the third time that did it?

ABS: Oh yeah. ‘This is a feat of endurance and beauty, and I want everything to do with this person.’