Paul Simon Writes a Musical.

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: NOVEMBER 28, 1997
Time: 12:00
Tran: 112801NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Hal David
Sect: News; Domestic
Time: 12:06

TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

The songs of Burt Bacharach and my guest Hal David are showing up everywhere -- in movies like "My Best Friend's Wedding" and "Austin Powers;" in TV commercials; in reissues on tribute records by jazz, rock and avant garde musicians.

You probably know lots of Hal David lyrics by heart -- lyrics to songs such as "The Look of Love," "What the World Needs Now," "You'll Never Get To Heaven," "Close to You," "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?," "I'll Never Fall In Love Again," "I Say a Little Prayer," "Walk on By," "This Guy's in Love With You," and "What's New Pussycat?"

Bacharach and David's collaboration lasted from the late '50s to the mid-'70s. The leading interpreter of their music is Dionne Warwick. Let's listen to her first recording of a Bacharach-David song.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, SINGER DIONNE WARWICK PERFORMING "DON'T MAKE ME OVER")

DIONNE WARWICK, SINGER, SINGING: Don't make me over
Now that I'd do anything for you
Don't make me over
Now that you know how I adore you

Don't pick on the things I say
The things I do
Just love me with all my faults
The way that I love you

I'm begging you

Don't make me over
Now that I can't make it without you
Don't make me over
I wouldn't change one thing about you

Just take me inside your arms
And hold me tight
And always be by my side
If I am wrong or right

I'm begging you

GROSS: Hal David, welcome to FRESH AIR.

Tell me the story of how you first met Dionne Warwick.

HAL DAVID, SONG LYRICIST: Dionne Warwick was a background singer with her mother and various relatives on recording sessions in New York -- the Drifters and so on and so forth. And she had come over to us to ask if -- "us" being Burt Bacharach and myself -- to ask if she could do some demonstration records for us. And we invited her to our office in New York City, and she sang for us, and she just blew us away.

And we thought we ought -- we should record her.

GROSS: Now, she says that this song was written for her after a little argument. What was the argument about?

DAVID: Well, we were making demonstration records, one of them being "Make It Easy On Yourself." And the publisher, which was Famous Music, an arm of Paramount Pictures, took the song to Jerry Butler (ph), who recorded it and it became a hit. And she was very upset, thinking that she should have been the one to record it. And she had just made the demonstration record.

And so she said, you know, "don't make me over" -- I mean, let me record my own songs once you write them. And so we went in the studio and we wrote this song, "Don't Make Me Over" and recorded it with Dionne, which was her first recording commercially and it was a hit.

GROSS: You and Burt Bacharach have each said that "Alfie" is your favorite song, or at least right on top there. Why is Alfie your favorite?

DAVID: Well, in writing songs, we -- we're always trying to be as good as we can be -- try to be at our very best. We're not always at our very best. I think that's an impossibility for anyone. And then there are time constraints when there are recording sessions to go into; films where the song has got to be produced in a given amount of time; and then the theater piece where it's gotta go in very quickly.

So consequently, you let go of songs sometimes before it's every bit as good as you hoped it would be. I think with Alfie, in my case at least, that song came as close to being the way I wanted that -- a song to be.

GROSS: Now, in the bridge -- does it really rhyme? You know, "as sure as I believe there's a heaven above, Alfie, I know there's something much more -- something even non-believers can believe in." Tell me about doing that without a rhyme?

DAVID: Well, now that you ask the question, I hadn't even thought of it, and I don't think I even thought that it didn't have a rhyme. You bring it to my attention. That's just exactly how I heard the lyric going. I wrote that lyric for the most part first, and Burt wrote the music afterwards -- he wrote brilliant melody. I just heard those lines and it -- the structure of the lines was the way I thought it should fall in the bridge of the song.

And I now know I didn't have a rhyme in the bridge, and that's interesting for me.

GROSS: If I were a lyricist, this is an assignment I don't think I would have wanted: write a title theme for a movie called "Alfie" about a womanizer who, you know, really mistreats the women in his life.

DAVID: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: Seems like a tough assignment. You did good.

LAUGHTER

What did you think when you got this assignment?

DAVID: Well, I thought to myself: my God, why do they keep giving me these terrible assignments?

LAUGHTER

It seemed such an odd phrase, "Alfie." It was not a name that spelled any sort of romance whatsoever. It sounded almost like a music hall -- a British music hall kind of song. And it took me a while to find my way into the song, which was the opening line -- "What's it all about?" -- then suddenly, I had a sense of where I should go.

GROSS: Well, let's bring by Dionne Warwick again and this is Alfie, music by Burt Bacharach, lyric by my guest Hal David.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "ALFIE")

WARWICK SINGING: What's it all about, Alfie?
It is just for the moment we live?
What's it all about, when you sort it out, Alfie?
Are we meant to take more than we give?
Or are we meant to be kind?

And if only fools are kind, Alfie
Then I guess it is wise to be cruel
And if life belongs only to the strong, Alfie
What will you lend on an old Golden Rule?

As sure as I believe there's a heaven above, Alfie
I know there's something much more
Something even non-believers can believe in

I believe in love, Alfie

GROSS: We'll talk more with lyricist Hal David after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

My guest is lyricist Hal David, and right now we're talking about his long collaboration with Burt Bacharach.

One of your songs that I really love is "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence." I'm just a -- I'm a real sucker for these big western themes. I've always really loved this, you know, big Gene Pitney (ph) vocal. And this is not -- this song is not used in the movie "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence," it was just inspired by the film.

How -- why did you decide to write a lyric inspired by the story of a movie?

DAVID: Well, the -- we were asked to write it for Paramount. There was a movie called "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence" -- a John Ford movie.

GROSS: Great movie.

DAVID: Great movie. And it -- they were called "exploitation" songs in those days. And the film companies had you do those songs to have a song come out and perhaps become a hit and exploit the film. Every time the title song was played, people would hear the title and think of the film.

The song turned out to be a rather good song, and the Paramount Publishing Company and we made every effort to try to get the song into the film. John Ford resisted it because he didn't conceive of a song being in the film at that point. And as much as Paramount pressed him to put it in, they were not successful and we were not successful.

So, the song came out. Gene Pitney recorded it -- did a very good record, and became a big hit. And I suspect Mr. Ford may -- might have been a little regretful that he didn't have it in the film.

GROSS: OK. One of the lines that I really like in the lyric -- "'cause the point of a gun was the only law that Liberty understood. When it came to shootin' straight and fast, he was mighty good."

LAUGHTER

It's such a different style, then, like your sophisticated love songs. Tell me about finding the language for this, you know, western anthem.

DAVID: Well, let's see. How did I do that, you know? Over the years, I found myself writing hit songs that became big country hits, and I had never been down South in the country. Now -- I have since, been to Nashville. I do know -- I seem to hear those things and I find it kind of natural for me to do. I've never had a problem writing western songs, country songs.

You know, most of the work we do as songwriters or any kind of creative person is really done in the imagination. And you can do almost anything that you can imagine, and I guess I imagine things like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence.

GROSS: Well, here's Gene Pitney to sing The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, music by Burt Bacharach, lyric by my guest Hal David.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALENCE")

GENE PITNEY, SINGER, SINGING: When Liberty Valence rode to town
The women folk would hide
They'd hide
When Liberty Valence walked around
The men would step aside

Because the point of a gun was the only law
That Liberty understood
When it came to shootin' straight and fast
He was mighty good

From out of the East a stranger came
A lawbook in his hand
A man -- a kind of man the West would need
To tame a troubled land

'Cause the point of a gun
Was the only law that Liberty understood
When it came to shootin' straight and fast
He was mighty good

Many a man would face his gun
And many a man would fall
The man who shot Liberty Valence
He shot Liberty Valence
He was the bravest of them all

GROSS: That's Gene Pitney, singing The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, with a lyric by my guest Hal David.

I want to hear a little bit about your background. I know that your parents were from Eastern Europe, I believe.

DAVID: Eastern Europe -- from Austria.

GROSS: And your father opened up a deli in, what, Brooklyn or Manhattan?

DAVID: In Brooklyn, a delicatessen and restaurant.

GROSS: And you -- you and the family lived upstairs from the deli. What was the best part and worst part about living upstairs from your parents' deli?

DAVID: Well, the best part of living upstairs, it was easy to go home from the store. And we did tend to have our meals upstairs, rather than in the store, as a family. And the store in our home is about two to three streets away from elementary school, where the four of us -- we were four children, three brothers and one sister -- went -- all went to the same grade school; all went to the same high school.

And everyone knew us. It was kind of a lower middle class area; lower middle class, maybe to poor. And -- but it was kind of a very nice and friendly atmosphere to grow up in.

GROSS: Do you think that you paid a lot of attention to lyrics when you were a kid listening to music?

DAVID: Well, my oldest brother, Mack David (ph), was a songwriter.

GROSS: I'm going to stop you right there, and name some of the songs that he wrote the lyrics to -- the -- this -- he wrote the lyrics to "Blue and Sentimental," "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White," "Lili Marlene" -- is that right?

DAVID: Correct.

GROSS: "It Must Be Him" -- that Vikki Carr hit -- "let it please be him, it must be him"...

DAVID: Right.

GROSS: "I'm Just A Lucky So and So," and the lyrics for the TV theme "77 Sunset Strip," "Hawaiian Eye," and "Surfside Six."

DAVID: And "Candy" (ph) and "I Don't Care If The Sun Don't Shine."

GROSS: So when did you start thinking that you wanted to do that, too?

DAVID: Well, I don't know. It seems to me always. I was always interested in writing -- more lyrics than music. I -- we all studied music. We all played the violin. When I say "all," the three brothers. I had a little band. I don't recall if my brothers did or not, but I had a band that used to play for weddings and barmitzvahs and things of that nature, in Brooklyn.

And used to work in the Borscht Circuit in the Catskill Mountains during summers. And finally got a job writing advertising copy for the New York Post, which is where I thought I was going to wind up being a newspaper person.

GROSS: I think when you were in the Army, you ended up writing songs for the USO?

DAVID: No, not the USO -- the Central Pacific Entertainment Section, which was an Army special service unit which was based in Hawaii, in Honolulu, at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu.

GROSS: So, you basically had a show-biz job in the Army?

DAVID: Oh, that's what I did.

GROSS: That's -- that's great.

DAVID: I was very lucky.

GROSS: Yeah.

DAVID: I think the Army was very lucky to have me away from guns, too.

LAUGHTER

And that's what I did for about three years. I worked writing shows, musical shows, songs, sketches. And it changed my life because when I came out of that, I knew that's what I wanted to do.

GROSS: So, remember any of the lyrics that you wrote for the Army?

DAVID: Well, my famous lyric -- the one I'm most proud of -- and it was a hit in the Pacific, though I'm sure it's not known by your audience, was called: "send the salami to your boy in the Army. It's the patriotic thing that everyone should do. Send the salami to your boy in the Army. Don't just send him things to wear. Send him something he can chew."

GROSS: Oh, this is written by the son of a deli man.

DAVID: That's written by the son of a deli man, and it was a hit. And I remember being with my wife at some function, and somebody came over to our table and said: "did you write 'Send the salami to your boy in the Army'?" -- 'cause he had been in the Pacific. And I said I had. And he just wanted to shake my hand.

GROSS: So, it really was well-known during the war.

DAVID: Well-known in the Pacific.

GROSS: Hal David is my guest. I would like to give you the chance to choose the music that we're going to close with, since I've been kind of hogging all the choosing during the program.

Do you have a song that you'd particularly like to have us play? One of your favorites?

DAVID: Yes, I would. I'm sitting here right next to my wife Eunice, who's listening to this interview. And I know the song that she loves so much is "To All The Girls I've Loved Before" with Julio and Willie. So, that's the one I choose.

GROSS: And maybe Eunice would like to say what she loves about the song?

DAVID: Let's put her on. She's going to come right over here to my microphone and do that.

EUNICE DAVID, WIFE OF LYRICIST HAL DAVID: Hi.

GROSS: Hi. How are you?

EUNICE DAVID: First of all, I think you have a great voice.

GROSS: Oh, thank you.

EUNICE DAVID: I think what I like about that song is the rhythm and the happiness of it. I've never looked at it as a sexist song. I know some women have objected to it. But I think it's just got great verve and energy to it. And I love the fact that the two men who are singing it -- Julio and Willie -- are so different, and yet they go together so well in that duet. I just think it's a super song.

GROSS: Well, I hope when you hear it, you don't think of your husband thinking of all the girls he's ever loved.

EUNICE DAVID: Yes, but that's in the past, don't forget.

GROSS: True. All right.

LAUGHTER

EUNICE DAVID: Bye.

GROSS: Bye-bye. Thank you for telling us why you love the song. And Hal David?

DAVID: Yes.

GROSS: Are you back with us?

DAVID: I'm back.

GROSS: I want to say thank you so much for sharing some of the stories behind the songs, and some of the stories of your life. It's been a complete pleasure. Thank you for giving us so many great songs. That's what I really want to thank you for.

DAVID: Thank you, Terry.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "TO ALL THE GIRLS I'VE LOVED BEFORE")

WILLIE NELSON, SINGER, SINGING: To all the girls I've loved before
Who traveled in and out my door
I'm glad they came along
I dedicate this song
To all the girls I've loved before

JULIO IGLESIAS, SINGER, SINGING: To all the girls I once caressed
And may I say I've had the best
For helping to
(Unintelligible) I know
To all the girls I've loved before

NELSON AND IGLESIAS SINGING: The winds of change are always blowing
Every time I try to stay
The winds of change continue blowing
And they just carry me away

NELSON: To all the girls who shared my life
Who now are someone else's wife

GROSS: Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias. We heard from lyricist Hal David, who is also the former president of ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers.

This is FRESH AIR.

Dateline: Terry Gross, Philadelphia
Guest: Hal David
High: Lyricist Hal David. For years he's collaborated with music writer Burt Bacharach. Between them they've written such famous songs as "Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head," "Close to You," "What's New, Pussycat?," and "That's What Friends Are For." David has received every major music industry award in addition to 20 gold records, awards such as an Academy Award, a Grammy, and induction into the Songwriters' Hall of Fame.
Spec: Music Industry; Songwriters; Hal David
Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright 1997 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1997 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: Hal David
Show: FRESH AIR
Date: NOVEMBER 28, 1997
Time: 12:00
Tran: 112802NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Songs from The Capeman
Sect: News; Domestic
Time: 12:55

TERRY GROSS, HOST: Paul Simon has created his first Broadway musical. Set to open January 8, it's called The Capeman, a collaboration with Nobel Prize-winning poet Derek Walcott (ph); directed by choreographer Mark Morris (ph).

Simon has written 38 songs for the production and has recorded 13 of them for his new album -- his first in six years. It's called "Songs from The Capeman."

Rock critic Ken Tucker has a review.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "SONGS FROM THE CAPEMAN")

PAUL SIMON, SINGER, SINGING: It was the morning of October 6, 1960
I was wearing my brown suit
Preparing to leave the house again
Shook some hands, then adios Brooklyn amigos

Maybe some of my folks will see me again...

KEN TUCKER, FRESH AIR COMMENTATOR: The story Paul Simon tells in Capeman is rooted in truth. In 1959, a teenager named Salvador Egron (ph) put a knife into two innocent young men in New York. His excuse was that he believed they were members of a rival gang. Egron himself was a member of the Vampires, a Puerto Rican gang, and was known for wearing a black silk cape -- thus his nickname, "The Capeman."

Convicted of murder, Egron spent most of his life in jail. He was paroled in 1979 and died of a heart attack at the age of just 42. Paul Simon, working with Derek Walcott, tells Egron's story with no small sympathy for The Capeman, who apparently showed great talent as a writer, repented of his crime, and sought to go to college.

Simon tells his story with an old-fashioned straightforwardness that's unusual in the post-Stephen Sondheim musical theater.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "SONGS FROM THE CAPEMAN")

SIMON SINGING: Killer wants to go to college
He wants to get his parole
So the Department of Corrections
Will release him in the fall

Killer wants to go on TV
Wants to talk about his book
Make my life into a movie
I got the style, I got the look

This boy used to be on death row
Will his violence return?
Will he call out to his mother?
"Mama, you can watch me burn"

Killer wants to go to college...

TUCKER: On Broadway, Simon himself will not perform. His music will be sung by a cast that includes Reuben Blades (ph) and Mark Anthony (ph), who is probably the most popular Latin dance music vocalist right now.

Here are Blades and Anthony dueting on "Time Is An Ocean."

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "TIME IS AN OCEAN")

RUBEN BLADES AND MARK ANTHONY, SINGERS, SINGING:
I speak to you in Jesus name
As Jesus speaks through me
The evil we do can't be blamed
Upon our destiny

I have walked through the valley of death row to the shore
I have stumbled through silvery waters to my savior
My Salvadore

It took me four years to learn I was in prison not in church
And two more to begin the book of my soul search

Time is an ocean of endless tears

TUCKER: Throughout The Capeman, Simon's most formally successful music is the material that combines '50s do-wop with Puerto Rican pop music rhythms. As was true of Simon's two previous recordings, "Graceland" and "Rhythm of the Saints," he transcends cultural carpetbagging when he invests it with his own heart and soul, in moments like this.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "SONGS FROM THE CAPEMAN)

SIMON SINGING: Oh, oh, oh, I got time on my hands tonight
You're the girl of my dreams
When I'm near you my future seems bright, ooh
I want you to be my girl
I want you to be my movie
I have Sal Mineo
And I need you so, sweet bird of death

Oh, oh, oh, oh, you got style from your hair to your heels

TUCKER: Listening to this CD makes you want to see the show to hear how successfully Simon will pull off a theatrical conceit like the one built into "Can I Forgive Him?" It's a song written from the contrasting points of view of the mothers of Egron and one of his victims. When Simon sings both women's parts here, the result is flat, as are a couple of other cuts whose characters can't be brought to life by Simon's compulsively low-key manner.

They weaken the record, but for all I know, they might prove show-stoppers when performed on Broadway. What I do know is that no theater-goer who grew up on Simon and Garfunkel is going to be able to resist classic Paul Simon pop like this meditative road song, "Trailways Bus."

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "TRAILWAYS BUS")

SIMON SINGING: A passenger traveling quietly conceals himself
With a magazine and a sleepless pillow
Over the crest of the mountain
The moon begins its climb
And he wakes to find
He's in rolling farmland

The farmer sleeps against his wife
He wonders what their life must be
A Trailways bus is headed South
Into Washington, DC

TUCKER: The Capeman is by no means a Broadway sure-thing. A tale of redemption and alienation, it sides with the killer -- something the aging matinee crowd may disapprove of.

And while its use of ethnic musics may put off the suburban audience that subsidizes the Great White Way, ethnic audiences, some still smarting from what they perceive as the Puerto Rican insult of "West Side Story" a quarter-century ago, may disdain Simon's experiment.

As a piece of popular art, The Capeman will succeed only if everyone who sees it feels its passion as sharply as a knife in the ribs.

GROSS: Ken Tucker is critic-at-large for Entertainment Weekly. He reviewed Paul Simon's new CD Songs from The Capeman."

Dateline: Ken Tucker; Terry Gross, Philadelphia
Guest:
High: Rock critic KEN TUCKER reviews Paul Simon's first CD in six years, "Songs From The Capeman." The Broadway musical opens in January.
Spec: Music Industry; Paul Simon; Songs from the Capeman;
Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright 1997 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1997 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: Songs from The Capeman
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.