‘You’ve got to see this girl!’ Tanita Tikaram on making Twist in My Sobriety

‘People tell me it helped them with their rehab. I have to explain: Sorry, it’s not about alcohol – I was just a kid singing about injustice’

I wrote the lyrics on the floor of my bedroom in Basingstoke when I was 16 or 17, as a way of decompressing from studying for my A-levels. I had the idea for “Twist in my …” something, but didn’t know what else to put in there. I tried “Twist in my gravity” before ending up with “sobriety”, but it’s not a song about alcohol. It’s about feeling that things aren’t right in the world, and that adults can do terrible or immoral things – but none of it will change you. Fundamentally, it’s a song by an alienated teenager who feels there’s a lot of injustice. There’s something lovely about how intensely you feel things as a teenager.