Lulu dreams of singing To Sir With Love to former US president Barack Obama

South Wales Guardian

24-05-2025

Lulu, 76, was asked on BBC Breakfast who she thought was the most charismatic politician. She said Obama, despite having never met him.
She said: 'As soon as anyone mentions politics, it's Barack Obama, I'm sorry, there has never been a prime minister here that has that kind of charisma.
'I never met him, but my dream is to sing To Sir With Love to him, he's great isn't he?'
Released in 1967, To Sir With Love is Lulu's theme to the James Clavell-directed film of the same name, which deals with social and racial issues at a British secondary school.
It stars the singer and Sidney Poitier, Judy Geeson and Patricia Routledge.
The singer, whose real name is Lulu Kennedy-Cairns, also warned young people about the pitfalls of becoming famous.
She added: 'Today it's so crazy to me that so many kids want to be famous, and I think, 'you have no idea what that entails', and it's quite hard, and a lot of my peers couldn't handle it because it was difficult, and they became addicts.
'Drugs were involved, or they just backed off because they couldn't deal with it.
'One of my favourite guitarists, Peter Green, I got angry that he stopped playing, but he couldn't deal with the whole success.'
The Shout singer, who will release her memoir If Only You Knew in September, said she thought today's world was 'more open', and that people used to keep mental health issues to themselves.
She explained: 'I think it's healthy, because if you keep things to yourself, like me, what was difficult about writing this book, when I decided to actually be as vulnerable as I possibly could and tell everything, I had things that I kept down, so they get lodged in your whole being, and to unlock them, this can be painful.
'It can be hard, but ultimately it's healthy, because they say that you're only as sick as your secrets, that's a phrase that goes around, or if you keep things hidden, they will pop out at the wrong moment.
'If you don't express that you're feeling angry, it will come out at a very inappropriate moment.'
From the beginning of her career in 1964, Lulu has achieved 10 UK top 10 singles and a UK top 10 album.
She is best known for songs such as Shout, I'm A Tiger and Boom Bang-A-Bang, which was a joint Eurovision winner in 1969 with the Spanish, Dutch and French entries, who all tied on 18 points.