Date: 1 January 1986
Originally published in: Flair (Belgium)
Written by: Rob Oostelbos
Kim Wilde. A lovely face, two bright blue eyes, blonde hair, sympathetic and and a great voice. The 26 year old singer hadn’t changed much when I saw her last summer for the first time in a long time during the NCRV Lost Vast-Kuipspektakel. Kim, who shot into the charts in the early eighties with singles like ‘Kids in America’, ‘Chequered love’ and ‘Cambodia’, had only gained a little weight. When you see her on October 30 in Hof ter Lo in Borgerhout live, you can conclude it yourself. Kim isn’t worried about it herself. She is more worried that her single ‘Schoolgirl’ wasn’t a real hit.
I wrote the song just after the disaster with the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl. The girl in ‘Schoolgirl’ is my six year old sister Roxanne. All adult people are responsible for the future of the children. Me too and I feel very guilty that we have made such a mess of it all. I am not gloomy, but it’s good to hold up a mirror up to yourself every once in a while.
That sounds like maturity in the making.
I can’t keep the schoolgirl image myself forever. There has to be some development in the music and lyrics. I force myself to better my creative arts, just like I force myself to learn how to operate the recording equipment in my little studio. Despite the fact that I’m not technically minded. Until recently my brother Ricky wrote the lyrics and my father the music. On my new album there are songs I wrote. I want to be in control more.
In the beginning of your career you were made out to be a dumb blonde and you were called a sex symbol. Did it anger you as a woman?
No, because I know I’m more than that. Also, I’m not bothered with being a sex symbol. I enjoy the attention I get from men and I like to be beautiful in pictures. A woman isn’t telling the truth when she says she doesn’t like it when men find her sexy. I don’t cherish the illusion that every man is attracted to me, of course. The prejudice of the dumb blonde will always stick with me, but I can only take care of my exterior to be taken seriously! As if the two exclude one another. I’m not angry about it anymore. I know what I can do.
