INTERVIEW:Belinda Carlisle on her 1st English language album in 29 years 'Once Upon a Time in California': “I've always done what I wanted to do. If it makes me happy, that's the most important thing”
Interview: Jett Tattersall
Image: Josef Jasso
Published: 29 August 2025
If you take even the most cursory look back over the past 50 years of popular music, one of the names that will repeatedly stand out as an icon of the industry is Belinda Carlisle. Not just for the massive hits, huge fanbase and critical acclaim but also for her pioneering influence on women in music, laying the groundwork for every female artist that came after her.
Carlisle first came to prominence in 1981 when the Go-Go’s, the all female rock band she co-founded in 1978, released their debut album Beauty and the Beat. A slow burner, it eventually hit number 1 on the US album charts the following year, marking a unique moment in pop music: it was the first album performed by and written by an all female group to hit number 1 album on the US charts, a feat that has yet to be repeated. Their success, along with several other groundbreaking female artists of the time such as Debbie Harry and Chrissie Hynde, paved the way for the superstars of the 1980s such as Madonna, Janet Jackson and Cyndi Lauper, with later artists such as Hole, Nirvana and Green Day citing them as an influence.
After the band broke up in 1985, Carlisle went on to be one of the biggest pop stars of the 1980s and 1990s, with a string of hits including ‘Summer Rain’, ‘Leave A Light On’, ‘La Luna’, ‘In Too Deep’ and the enduring classic ‘Heaven Is A Place On Earth’.
In 1996 Carlisle released the album A Woman & a Man, which in hindsight marked an end of an era in her music career. In the coming years, the Go-Go’s recorded a new album and played a reunion concert in New York’s Central Park, and in 2007, she released the French album Voila. Ten years later the album Wilder Shores, a collection of Sikh chants, was released, but despite a number of stand alone singles, no brand new pop music from Carlisle emerged.
That all changed in 2023, when she dropped the EP Kismet, which saw her working with pop music maestro Diane Warren. The EP was a critical success, and today the new era of Belinda Carlisle continues with the release of Once Upon a Time In California, her first English language album since A Woman & a Man was released 29 years ago, almost to the day.
The album is a love letter to Carlisle’s life of music, in particular the sounds of her childhood growing up in California that influenced the type of music she would go on to make. A fan of The Beach Boys, The Animals, Cat Stevens and the ‘California sound’ of the 1960s, Once Upon A Time In California features ten covers that represent exactly why Carlisle fell in love with music.
“I was born and raised in California at a time when music was an important part of Californian culture,” she said when the album was first announced. “I lived and breathed music, it was my great escape - a refuge of fantasy and imagination. This collection of songs is the best representation of what I loved back then that I could think of .”
Featuring classic hits as well as lesser known gems, the album is an incredibly warm collection of music that successfully recaptures a golden moment in time while still remaining contemporary and congruent with the time it is released in. Carlisle’s voice reflects not only the passion and emotion in the songs, but also her sheer love of the music. This is an album where it is obvious the artist is singing purely from the heart, which in turn brings an immense amount of joy and connection to the listener.
The album starts with perhaps the most well known song on the album ‘Anyone Who Ever Had A Heart’, originally made famous by Dionne Warwick. Carlisle brings in the brooding melancholy and 1960s flourishes of the original but makes the song her own with powerful vocals.
Perhaps the most magical moment on the album is ‘If You Could Read My Mind’. Originally released by Gordon Lightfoot in 1970, it is arguably the 1998 disco version by supergroup Stars on 54 that is more famous today. Carlisle’s version is more faithful to Lightfoot’s version, but she infuses it with a pensive beauty - sweeping strings, an emotive vocal where the occasional huskiness lends an extra slice of poignancy.
‘One’ brings in rock mixed with big band as well as an almost thoroughly modern blast of 1990s-house piano, with Carlisle’s vocals at her most impressive, while ‘Never My Love’ blends rock with some gorgeously delicate melodies.
The first single ‘The Air That I Breathe’ is a stirring interpretation of The Hollies’ classic that builds into a roof raising epic, with a deeper, richer feel than the original, before utilising the classic fade out closer common in the 1960s, a technique Carlisle employs across the album.
The whimsical ‘Time In a Bottle’ also builds on the original, bringing in layers and depth absent from the Jim Croce recording, while Carlisle’s take on Harry Nilsson’s classic ‘Everybody’s Talking’ is a worthy remake which also lifts the song to another level. While the original is a sparse, bare song Carlisle brings a rollicking beat and an undeniable charm and glow to the track and, once again, showcasing her incredible vocal range which has not always been obvious from her traditional pop releases.
The album, perhaps appropriately for an album inspired by cherished memories, ends with ‘Reflections Of My Life’ , a song that looks back at the joys of life and a yearning for the past - “Take me back to my own home” - but also a determination to never give up.
Once Upon A Time In California is an intensely personal album for Carlisle and its brilliance is in how she succeeds in making it personal for everyone who experiences it. Beautiful, empowering, heartbreaking and everything in between, Carlisle pulls together a disparate group of songs made famous by very different artists and successfully unifies them in one coherent, powerful story. With her unmistakeable voice and charisma, Once Upon A Time In California is a beautiful album that will find its way into your heart no matter your previous relationship with the songs, and is a stunning reminder of just why Belinda Carlisle is such an important and special artist.
Jett Tattersall for Women In Pop recently sat down with Carlisle to chat more about the creation of and story behind the album.
Hi Belinda, thank you so much for your time, it's a huge pleasure to speak to you. Let's start by talking about ‘Anyone Who Had a Heart’ which opens this beautiful album Once Upon A Time In California. It's such a heavy weight of a song, what was it about your rendition of that song that made you want it as the opening track?
I picked that song because, as with all the songs in the album, because it meant a lot to me as I was growing up in Southern California, that's where I was born and raised. It was on this list of like 100 songs that we whittled down. I initially wasn't sure about it, I've never sang that style before, [writer] Burt Bacharach songs are not easy to sing. I picked that song to open the album, because it's like, bam, you just get right into it. There's no easy way into it, it just starts. For me that was the obvious first track of of the album, the way it is just in your face immediately.
I love that you said it is not an easy song to sing. I think Dionne Warwick actually had this delivery that makes everyone think, ‘oh, I can do that’, and then when you hit it at the karaoke bar, for us who aren't singers, it’s like ‘oh, shit, no’.
Yeah, it's not an easy song, Bacharach was a whole different style. There are plenty of songs that didn't make it on the album that I tried out, I was like, ‘oh my god, this is horrible!’ I’ve always loved ‘Holiday’ by the Bee Gees and I thought it would be great to do, but I just couldn't crack it. There's certain songs that were just impossible to do. But thankfully ‘Anyone Who Had A Heart’ worked, I really wasn't sure whether it was going to work, but it did.
You've got some incredible songs on the album, and what I found interesting is there are songs that are loved and known from their era, but there are also songs that have kept coming back through generations, like ‘Superstar’ and ‘If You Could Read My Mind’. Was there initially any kind of reservation or possible fear tackling some of those songs that are just so iconic?
Yeah, there is, but I just thought if I can keep the integrity of the song and just change it a little bit, then I’m happy, and I think I have a good ear for that. When I did my French album [Voila], they were iconic songs and the French were like, ‘oh no, no, no, no’, you know some American shit coming along and singing our songs. So I've had that experience of when you touch something that's so well known. But it's something that I wanted to do. Some people aren't going to like it, some people are going to like it. I like it, and that's really what counts at the end of the day. That's pretty much been my attitude for the past few albums that I've done.
Speaking of the Voila French album, Once Upon A Time In California is your first English language album in a while and I'm loving that it’s come off the back of this Go-Go’s resurgence with your recent performance at Coachella. Of course, the Go-Go’s were very much like we don't give a fuck, we're just going to do what we want to do. Do you think that was, even subconsciously, a little bit of a driver with making this album - I’m going to do exactly what I want to do no matter what anyone thinks?
I’ve always been like that. I was born a contrarian. A lot of people say ‘how can she be a punk rocker and then do this kind of music?’ or vice versa. I like it all. I love punk rock, I still listen to it, but I also love these romantic, lushly produced tracks.
In my career, I've always done what I've wanted to do. I've been very, very lucky in that way. If it makes me happy, that's the most important thing. If I like it and put my heart into it, I think that my fans can hear that and they respond to it. Like the Voila album, they didn't understand, they weren't quite sure about why it was in French - there was a whole other story behind that - but they could hear the heart and the sincerity behind it.
I think it's wonderful, and it quite often takes people a hell of a lot of time to get to that place, particularly in this industry. As you get older I imagine it can get quite scary because you are surrounded by years of so many opinions. How have you navigated that with what is clearly your creative confidence?
I've always been very, very lucky from the very beginning with the Go-Go's, we've always had artistic control. And through my solo career, I’ve always had a very good sense of what I was doing and what I was about at that time. With the exception of one album when I was struggling personally and people were jumping in because they had to, and I will always regret that because there were decisions made that in retrospect, I really wish I hadn't made. But besides that one album, I've always been really, really fortunate. Of course, people give their opinions and stuff, but I've always had a really good sense of what I'm doing.
Looking back to the Voila album and Wilder Shores, they felt love letters to somewhere else, to this sense of stillness. Once Upon A Time In California also feels very much like a love letter to the music that inspired you when you were younger. Is that the case?
It's a love letter to the California that doesn't really exist anymore, and to my childhood. Growing up in California at that time [the 1960s], music was a big part of the culture. All those songs were songs that I connected with as a little girl and as a teenage girl. Recording those songs brought back a lot of memories, a lot of sweet things to me. It was melancholy at times, but most of the time, it was just so cheerful and happy.
Do you feel like that space just doesn't exist anymore?
That California was an idea. California is an idea. And no, it doesn't exist anymore. It's still great, there's pockets of it that are still there. If you go north of Malibu, it has that California magic. And it is a magic, you can't really even put it into words. It's the way it smells, it's the way the sun shines. There's also a part of Northern California where it's just so majestic, and so like Old West California. It was less complicated, a time that was more innocent. I feel very fortunate to have been able to grow up there for sure.
You paired up again with Diane Warren for your last EP Kismet. How has that relationship developed over the years? I feel like both your careers developed in parallel.
Totally. Diane has been in my life for almost 40 years. She's eccentric, really eccentric and I remember when I first met her she had this little office in a building with floor to ceiling cassette tapes that she was writing songs on, and now she owns the building! She’s a total kook and extremely talented.
She was always on the peripheral of my life, but she came back into my life again through my son, who ran into her at a coffee shop that she never goes to, and he never goes to! And she was like, get your mom on the phone. I want to talk to her. So I get this Facetime out of the blue, and it's her face and she goes, ‘get to the studio. I have some hits for you’ in her Diane way. So what are you going to say? I wasn't in that head space, I thought I was going to retire, have a nice life, and I'm not going to do another English speaking pop album, because it's really labour intensive for an artist my age. I'm just so picky too. But I went to the studio and she had these songs, and I immediately said yes. She's so passionate and so real and sincere, and, of course, extremely talented. But I loved having her in my life again.
As we touched on before, the Go-Go’s have been having a moment lately, performing at Coachella, Cruel World, these incredible shows. What surprised you about reuniting not just with the Go-Go's, but with that world and particularly how this modern audience has responded?
Oh gosh. It was that the demographic, and the audience, was all over the place. There were lots of young kids and teenagers that knew the words to the songs and loved them. We were really surprised. I thought ‘no one's going to show up, we'll just play for ourselves’. On the first Coachella weekend, I was like maybe 1000 people will show up, but it ended up 20,000 people turned up on the first and second weekend. So what surprised me is that the Go-Go’s just live on, and people love that music, and they love that band. I mean, really love it. It made us all feel real good. We were sort of surprised that the music was still relevant.
I think people always need something to push against, and unfortunately, we live in a world now that there's a hell of a lot that we need to push against. And so these things need an anthem. You once collectively were one of the few groups that really kicked down the door for female fronted punk rock. How do you feel that legacy has continued on in similar groups today? When you see punk rock women or female fronted bands kicking ass, can you see a bit of yourselves in there?
Oh, I love and I follow L7, they're probably about 20 years younger than me and the other Go-Go’s. I love it, I think it's great. I never thought in terms of gender, and I don't think anybody in the band did. We didn't think of ourselves as a female band, we thought of ourselves as a good band. But I love seeing women misbehave. I love it!
I want to go back a little bit just to touch on your 2010 memoir Lips Unsealed. It was very, I felt, ahead of its time in that there was a real brutality to your words, it was very raw, and without the violins, which I thought was incredibly refreshing. In a world now where we are flooded with personal confessions on various platforms, how has that line between honesty and maybe over exposure shifted for you?
There's plenty that didn’t make the book, you know. I didn't want the book to be a dirty laundry book, and the theme of the book is you could teach an old dog new tricks because it focuses a lot on addiction. But I've always had a sense of some things you just don't reveal. Some things are just sacred, and there's no need to make them public. I don't get it. I really don't get it. I don't understand that way of thinking, why you have to broadcast everything. It's cringe worthy, you know? I've always had a little bit of a wall up as self protection, and also protecting other people too. Everything in the book I felt comfortable with revealing. I had no problem talking about everything that I talked about. Although it’s strange, after I wrote it, I never read it because I felt like I did it, it’s done, but I can't read it. It was a really, really hard thing to do, and it was like psychotherapy times a thousand. I made some pretty heavy duty realisations doing that. So I couldn't read it after it was done and out. I never picked it up.
That's so interesting, but I also understand it because, while this was a very well written book. there's nothing scarier than looking back over your old diary.
I know, completely! There's nothing in that book that I regret revealing, I think it worked well. People said why don’t you write a second book, because it gets interesting after the end of the first book. But it's like, no, I did it once. You know, they say have a baby, plant a tree, write a book. I've done all three!
You have a very clear wanderlust. You lived in LA, France, Thailand, Mexico. You're known for your curiosities and your spirituality. What has this wanderlust taught you about who you are, and also how, if at all, it has affected this album that is a love letter to home?
Oh, gosh. I've learned a lot about people, that everybody is basically the same, no matter what the culture is. I’ve lived in eight different countries, but there was a point about 10 years ago when I wanted to go back to California, there was something in me that wanted to go back. I was done with moving to different countries on a whim. So we went back, and I realised that it wasn't working, it wasn't going to work, but we stayed there for a few years, and then moved to Thailand, and now I'm in Mexico. But there’s something inside of me that is you could take the girl out of California, but you can't take California out of the girl, for sure. There’s a wistfulness that I have sometimes for that California that doesn't exist. But I think that we all have that wistfulness for simpler times and times that aren't as complicated.
I wanted to do the album, so I did it and like I said, it brought back a lot of memories, good and melancholy, but I came away from this whole recording experience feeling really lucky I was able to experience that time. I'm not so wistful and sad about it anymore.
Last question before I leave you, if there was one track on this beautiful collection to sum up your inspiration for the album, what would it be?
I think ‘The Air That I Breathe’ kind of sums up, because I feel like I made it like something that I would do, one of my own tracks. But that song brings back such a memory of the early 70s. It was just so wonderful, it was amazing. I love the 70s anyway,, but I think that kind of sums up the vibe of the album.
Once Upon A Time In California is out now. You can buy, download and stream here
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