• Portuguese Translation

The song “Music,” the hook of the song — “Music makes people come together, and music makes the bourgeoisie and the rebel” — do you know where I got that idea? At a Sting concert. Weird, isn’t it? OK. I went to see him in New York at the Beacon Theater. He has a pretty mixed audience — I always look at audiences when I go to concerts. I’m obsessed with checking out the audience and seeing how they react. And people were pretty well-behaved and enthusiastically polite for stuff that he was doing off of his new album. But then, when he did the old Police songs — and it was just him and a guitar, and the lights came down — somehow the energy in the room changed. It ignited the room, and it brought everybody closer to the stage. And suddenly, people lost their inhibition and their politeness,and everyone was singing the songs and practically holding hands — you know what I mean? I mean, it really moved me. And I thought, “That’s what music does to people.” It really does bring people together, and it erases so much. And so that’s how I came to the hook of that song.

–via RollingStone (2000)

The thing is, at first I tried just doing it with some girls that they were gonna cast, and I didn’t feel comfortable. All the pretty, model-type girls were too stiff, and none of ’em had any personality. So I said, “OK, I’m gonna call my girls.” I literally called them on the day of the shoot, and I said, “What are you guys doing? Please save me!” Five and a half. Yeah, you can. As you can see, I’ve got my coat shut half the time. And that was the idea. It’s like, “Where could I be sitting all the time? OK, I’m in a limo [laughs]. And you can’t not have fun with Ali G. around, ’cause he’s such a troublemaker. And he’s always goofing on everybody, in character. He just had us rolling the entire time we were shooting. The whole thing was a spoof, anyway, so there was not too much seriousness going on on the set. I mean, the outtakes of me going up to the window and knocking on the window — I couldn’t keep a straight face. Have you seen his show in England? You have to see it. You will die. He has a talk show, and he interviews people in that character. He interviews really conservative, older, established-like members of Parliament. And it’s outrageous.

–via RollingStone (2000)