Billy Connolly

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and one, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My castaway this week is an entertainer. Seeing him in one of his more recent performances as Queen Victoria's protective Gilly in the film Mrs. Brown, it's hard to believe that the actor is also one of our most outrageous comedians. But then he's a man who's come a long way, from a deprived, often brutal upbringing on Clydeside through a hard apprenticeship as a club and pub entertainer and a long battle with alcohol, to a hugely successful career on stage and small screen, a happy marriage, and finally distinguished performances in well-received feature films. The man who persuaded the British public to laugh at vomit, sex, and bad language has become, in the way of enfrance Théribe, a respectable performer. Or has he? If your knickers are down, you're funny, he says. I love life with my knickers down. He is Billy Connolly.

Speaker 21:20

The situation.

Presenter1:21

Yeah.

Speaker 21:21

Yeah.

Presenter1:22

That's a good one. But it it's true, is it? You're still a hellraiser at heart, aren't you? Absolutely, yeah. You've still got that appetite for danger.

Billy Connolly1:27

Uh

Billy Connolly1:29

I seem to think that way. You know, I don't set out to be a hell raiser, but things I think are normal seem to raise a bit of hell with the beige crowd, you know.

Presenter1:39

You're not in the bees, cardigans yet.

Billy Connolly1:40

No, I'm not a beach cardio and I upset them terribly, extremely easily.

Presenter1:45

But I read you like housework, you like cooking. I mean this is quite beige of you.

Billy Connolly1:48

Yes, I do. I love to cook. No, beiges don't do that.

Presenter1:53

But are they?

Billy Connolly1:54

No, a Beiji would be reading the magazine while his wife made horrible food, you know. Grey B

Presenter2:00

Talking about life with you, Nicholas, that makes it sound quite benign, really. I and of course that's not what it was like or has been like. I don't know what it is. I haven't seen you recently on the stage. I mean, doing the stand up. It was very, very dangerous. It was shocking. It was frightening. It was worrying. Is it still?

Billy Connolly2:14

It was fine.

Billy Connolly2:17

Yeah.

Billy Connolly2:18

It's more angry now than anything. Anger I I get great solace in anger. Like if people are dropping bombs and food on the same night, I just that you can't control your well, I can't control my rage at the impossible stupidity of it. So I get angry and I go

Presenter2:35

But you've always been angry. I mean, there's nothing different about that. The the kind of anger in you is what's always been there. It's always fueled me, yeah. Yeah, and the psychology of that is and we're allowed to do this'cause your wife passed away. Oh, absolutely. There's little you can do.

Billy Connolly2:41

That's always f

Billy Connolly2:42

But yeah.

Billy Connolly2:47

Oh, absolutely.

Presenter2:49

Is that that when you're in the spotlight, she says you're gaining mastery, you're triumphing over your father and your mother and your aunt and all those vicious school teachers, and that's the analysis. I mean, do you buy that? Do you buy that?

Billy Connolly2:56

According to this

Billy Connolly2:58

Sometimes the worthless stupid is you you buy into it at the time and it's very comfortable. You say, Well, that's where I sit on the scale of things. I'm one of the stupid guys. I'm on well, I was kind of stupid but savable. That was there's four rows in the class, the clever and then not quite so clever, stupid but savable and stupid. And I I was the stupid but savable mob really, you know, because I could write and stuff like that. So I I was okay because the guys in that row were quite fun, I quite liked them.

Presenter3:30

But what she's saying is that you're now truly happy and only truly happy when you're in the spotlight, raging in that way because you're having another chance to get out of that row of labor.

Billy Connolly3:36

Okay.

Billy Connolly3:39

Well, if if the truth be known, I actually live in there.

Billy Connolly3:44

No, really. I say and do things, and my body moves.

Billy Connolly3:49

In a way up there that's quite foreign. Sometimes when I'm doing it, I think, why are you doing this? You know, you c you can split your personality a wee bit and have a look at yourself. When I'm charging across the stage doing something. Aye. You're driven. That's right. It's like being possessed.

Presenter4:00

You'll possess

Presenter4:05

But you're going to have a terrible time on this desert island because there's nobody to laugh at you. I mean, you probably.

Billy Connolly4:09

What on

Presenter4:10

Don't you? No. You can make yourself laugh.

Billy Connolly4:11

You can make yourself laugh.

Presenter4:13

Ah

Billy Connolly4:13

So happy when I'm alone.

Presenter4:16

Tell me about your first record.

Billy Connolly4:17

Oh, this is these are my heroes, Lester Flatt and Errol Scruggs. Earl Scruggs is the best banjo player in the world. He invented this style that he plays in, and Lester Flatt was the guitarist. When I found them, I found my my kind of purpose. I thought that's what I want to play.

Presenter5:03

Flattened scrugs and foggy mountain breakdowns. Sound of the banjo, which is what got you going on Clydes, but you heard it and you knew.

Billy Connolly5:10

I heard the first one I heard was Pete Seeger, and that's what made me go and buy a banjo.

Presenter5:15

So you ended up playing the banjo in front of people, but when did you actually discover that what you really did, although you went on playing the banjo, was make them laugh?

Billy Connolly5:22

Imagine.

Billy Connolly5:23

There was a fellow teaching me, a guy called Jim Steele, and he he was showing me bits and pieces. He liked the way I played, and he said, Listen, I've got a a gig on Sunday in Paisley in the attic, and that was a good club at the time, you know and he said, Do you want to come and do it with me?

Billy Connolly5:40

And I had learned this song St. Brendan's Isle.

Billy Connolly5:43

It's really about the journey of St Brendan, and he thought it was an island he found and he stood on it, and it was a whale and all that. And it was a smashing song. But I didn't know singing was so hard. Like talking when you're nervous is one thing, but saying when you're nervous. So I was making a kind of fool of it, and I was so nervous that it just blanked after about a verse and a half. And I said to them, Oh, listen, I've forgotten the words. And there was a kind of titter in the audience. So I said, But what I remember of the song is and I started to tell them the story of the song. I was just trying to survive. I said, So the guy finds an island and he gets off his boat and steps on it, and then he realizes his island is sailing along. And by this time

Presenter6:29

Is there a fraud and

Billy Connolly6:29

They're roaring, they can't believe it, you know? And I thought.

Presenter6:33

Ooh, you got it.

Billy Connolly6:35

I like the sound of that.

Presenter6:36

But you'd stood up in front of people, you'd worked in the shipyard, you'd you'd kind of been forced to perform there, haven't you?

Billy Connolly6:40

You kind of

Billy Connolly6:42

Well, there were lots of guys who were funny in the shipyard. You know, in Glasgow, they call it pattern merchant. It might be universal, I don't know. And there were some weird guys who actually performed at lunchtime. There was a guy called the Great Voltairen. He had a silver painted welder's helmet and electric light bulbs.

Billy Connolly7:04

But what was the person? He would s he would say to people, Think of a number and tell me your number. Seventeen, correct you know. And just say, The man was mentally ill.

Presenter7:14

But I thought this was where you developed your kind of drunken act, because you're drunk. It was never just singing drunk.

Billy Connolly7:20

I was a singin' drunk, they used to make me sing that hair hairy wall, you know. So I used to do this, and they called it gallus singin', and they would call me over Hair Billy.

Billy Connolly7:31

And at tea time, you're always sitting aside and used, give us one of them gallus songs. And I used to sing at them, and they loved it. Tell me about your next record.

Billy Connolly7:39

This is Over the Sea to Sky, the Skyboat song, which is the first song I remember liking.

Billy Connolly7:45

On the radio when I was a wee boy, it was the first song I remember made me jump out my chair and march around or dance, jump up and down.

Presenter8:53

The regimental band and the massed pipes of the Scots Guards playing the Skyboat song, and memories for you, Billy Connolly, of of being little in Scotland in wartime. You were born in'Forty, you were in. I was born in'forty two.

Billy Connolly9:03

I was born in 42.

Presenter9:04

I don't want to take you through the terrible details of this awful unhappy childhood, but I mean just give give me a a a f why and how were you made to feel so worthless and so useful?

Billy Connolly9:08

But I mean just

Billy Connolly9:14

It was that was a my my aunt there was there was something wrong with my aunt. She was eventually found to be schizophrenic and stuff.

Billy Connolly9:22

But my mother left when I was four. It was the middle of the war, and I've never held it against her ever, you know. I can see it. I think I might have done the same. She was a teenager.

Billy Connolly9:35

Germans were bombing the town. My father was in India. And we lived in a slum place, Dover Street in Anderston in Glasgow. So she left with this guy.

Presenter9:44

But she'd been pretty neglect.

Presenter9:47

I

Billy Connolly9:51

I think

Billy Connolly9:52

Most of my childhood I was the victim of of children who looked like adults. But she, this Auntie Mona, she liked to humiliate me.

Billy Connolly10:02

She just she loved to humiliate me and every day she would tell me that I was stupid and worthless and and she would like she would like to do it in front of people and stuff. And then we'd go to school and I'd get this monster.

Billy Connolly10:14

Of a teacher, you know, big Rosie MacDonald. And she got such joy from whacking people with this leather belt. She would do a sort of back-heeled kick when she did it and she kicked a big hole in the desk.

Presenter10:24

I gather somebody came up to you quite recently and said.

Billy Connolly10:26

I'm sorry for the guy. It was her brother or something.

Billy Connolly10:31

And when my daughter was graduating, we were in this wee place at Glasgow University, this wee garden with strawberry tarts and all trying to be terribly civilized.

Billy Connolly10:39

And this man came over with his family behind him, and he said, I believe a relative of mine taught you at school.

Billy Connolly10:48

And I said, Oh, really? Who's that? And he said, Rosie MacDonald I said, She was a psychopath. She wasn't a teacher. And he said, Oh, well, she was a bit peculiar. He said, No, no, don't get it wrong. She was a and I I went for it and I told him, like it is. And I kind of regret it because it he had nothing to do with it, but it j it just clicked something in me that

Presenter11:07

Me too.

Billy Connolly11:08

Because she's the only

Presenter11:09

So, for all your understanding now, which is what you're displaying, all your understanding of it, and I know that you've talked about it a lot to Pamela, who's now a a psychoanalyst, isn't she? It's all in there, isn't it? Just that little trigger. You hear the name and then off you go.

Billy Connolly11:14

Do not

Billy Connolly11:16

Uh

Billy Connolly11:19

It's it's because to humiliate someone is a desperate, desperately bad and wrong thing. It's it's worse than hitting somebody.

Billy Connolly11:32

Humiliation is forever. It takes you so long to get over it. It takes your whole life. Confidence is not your strong suit, then. Not my big thing.

Presenter11:39

Not my big thing.

Billy Connolly11:42

Yeah.

Presenter11:42

Uh

Billy Connolly11:43

Yeah.

Billy Connolly11:45

I do indeed, yeah.

Presenter11:47

Ah.

Presenter11:48

But when you were very little, you know, when you were just a small boy at school and so on, what what saved you'cause you know, we talked about m physical abuse and we've talked about humiliation. It got worse than that. There were darker bits than that for the father and so on, weren't there.

Billy Connolly11:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Billy Connolly12:04

My sister. Yeah, Flo was my guardian. She looked after me all my life. She used to hit people for me, bullies and stuff. Big girls who were picking on me, she'd belt them around. And at night Flo would sing. We we used to lie in bed and sing, I see the moon, the moon sees me. And there's a pawn shop round the corner in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and

Billy Connolly12:27

Songs like that. Does she mind you talking about?

Presenter12:29

About it all.

Billy Connolly12:29

Well, I told my sister about the sexual abuse right after my father died, and I told Pamela as well, and I had told a couple of people.

Billy Connolly12:39

Very secretively as I grew up. The trouble was I've never confronted my father. But I learned later that very, very few people do. And as a matter of fact, Flo is more hurt by what happened to me than I am.

Billy Connolly12:52

She's much, much more wounded than me because she thinks she should have protected me from that.

Billy Connolly12:58

And she wasn't there.

Billy Connolly13:00

Record number three.

Billy Connolly13:02

Oh, gri this is this is my lifestyle hero, Hank Williams. On the back of his albums, he had a wee man called Luke the Drifter. He was just a little drawing with a guitar over his shoulder, walking into the sunset, and I thought that's who I'd like to be.

Speaker 113:18

And when I find me that river

Speaker 113:20

Lord, I'm gonna pay the price, oh Lord.

Speaker 113:26

I'm going down in it three times, but Lord, I'm only coming up twice.

Speaker 113:34

Uh

Speaker 213:34

She's alone, on, on, gone, on, on and out.

Presenter13:39

Oh.

Speaker 213:40

Uh

Presenter13:40

I'm lonesome blue

Presenter13:44

Hank Williams singing Long Gone Lonesome Blues. That's a Yodel, huh?

Billy Connolly13:47

Oh, that's a lovely yoga. The cowboy's the only one.

Presenter13:50

That's it.

Billy Connolly13:51

Oh, I kinda taught myself when I was a wee boy from that record.

Presenter13:54

But going back to the act and and where the the humor comes from, of course all of that stuff we've just been talking about in your childhood, you used a lot really in your act. I mean kids being walloped round their head with wet towels and

Billy Connolly14:07

Yes, I I basically have told the story of my life on stage.

Presenter14:11

Yeah, but we never knew that's what it was. A lot of people didn't know. I mean I suppose all the clues were there all along.

Billy Connolly14:13

A lot of people didn't know.

Billy Connolly14:16

Yeah, well I wasn't aware that I was doing it either. When I was picking out things to laugh at, and I knew there were observations of mine from my life around me, but I didn't see the big game. It's much healthier when you don't realize and you're just digging around and I'm not sure.

Presenter14:33

But what does it say about humour? What it says is that you are funny when you're vulnerable, because that's really what you're saying.

Billy Connolly14:38

You are all you that's that's the basis, I think, of of my kind of humor anyway, when someone is is vulnerable, you know, and and that's what I said about when your knickers are down. I used to do a thing.

Speaker 114:48

Uh

Billy Connolly14:49

When when people are in the bathroom, they forget their name.

Billy Connolly14:52

Because if if someone shoves the door and you panic, you're sitting in the bathroom and the door goes, people in they'll say, There's somebody in, even in their own house, there's somebody in here They don't say, It's me, Elizabeth, or John or there's somebody in.

Presenter15:07

Why do we do that?

Billy Connolly15:08

Because you're you're incredibly vulnerable.

Presenter15:12

So you dealt all that time, you know, for years into your very successful career with your vulnerability by using it, as we say in your act without quite knowing.

Billy Connolly15:20

Yes.

Presenter15:21

But eventually you sit down with Pamela and you tell her all about it. I mean, was she the catalyst?

Billy Connolly15:27

Uh

Presenter15:27

Yes, to to the la well I don't know, perhaps you made her laugh while you told her the real thing.

Billy Connolly15:32

Oh, no, it didn't much. I did sometimes, you know, other bits and pieces. But the darker side was quite hard.

Presenter15:39

But has it better confronting yourself with the real facts, the true facts, you've been sort of gliding over and using all these things? Does it make you feel better or worse?

Billy Connolly15:44

Yeah.

Billy Connolly15:47

It's not difficult.

Billy Connolly15:49

That makes you feel much better.

Presenter15:51

Does it?

Billy Connolly15:51

Yeah, because you're carrying it around like a rucksack full of bricks for your whole life. And the more you do it, the more you feel you've got something to hide, that there's y you've got a big b boil in the back of your neck, but you wear this big scarf all the time. And so you get a guilt from it that you really shouldn't have because you were the victim of something. And uh it's not pleasant when you're doing it.

Billy Connolly16:17

Because it's very painful to revisit things and to to remember the details so as you can write about it properly. And y and you have to tell the truth.

Billy Connolly16:28

Because it's completely worthless otherwise.

Presenter16:31

So, how has it changed you then? So, you've you've dumped the rucksack, you've launched the pucks.

Billy Connolly16:35

I've dumped it, but it isn't so long since I've dumped it, but I feel as if I'm out of jail.

Presenter16:39

Tear.

Billy Connolly16:39

Yeah.

Billy Connolly16:41

It's it's a lovely feeling, yeah.

Billy Connolly16:43

There was a kin of film over me and it's gone.

Billy Connolly16:46

But

Presenter16:48

Next piece of music, number four.

Billy Connolly16:49

Uh Oh, now talk about getting out of jail.

Billy Connolly16:53

This is little Richard Tooty Frutti. Now, when this happened in around 1957.

Billy Connolly16:59

I was at the Brownies' dance and one of the big girl guides had had this. Well, it was an Elvis record she had, but this was there as well, and this is the one that blew me. Up until then it had been truly, truly fair and all that. And then this came along and I thought, oh, life begins here.

Billy Connolly17:23

Oh rude, to the food, oh rude

Billy Connolly17:27

Rooty rooted, oh rude

Billy Connolly17:30

Oh my baby bomb bomb I got a girl name Sue

Billy Connolly17:35

To know just what to do.

Billy Connolly17:37

I got a girl named Su

Billy Connolly17:40

To know that's what to do.

Billy Connolly17:43

She rock to the east, she walked to the west, but she's the girl that I love her.

Presenter17:48

Little Richard and Tooty Fruity. So so that that sort of felt as if it was the beginning of of stuff that belonged to you.'Cause before that you'd have been listening to what, Perry Como or Pac Boone or

Billy Connolly17:54

Before that you just

Billy Connolly17:57

Yeah pamp boon and all of those guys

Presenter17:59

Yeah.

Billy Connolly18:00

Oh Kenneth, oh Kenneth is great you see. And Johnny Rae cry back.

Presenter18:05

Crying in the ray.

Billy Connolly18:07

Gettin' soaking wet.

Presenter18:09

Wait a minute.

Presenter18:10

But they were all in suits and collars and ties.

Billy Connolly18:13

And they also

Presenter18:14

THAT

Billy Connolly18:14

Bangalore.

Presenter18:14

Uh

Billy Connolly18:14

Wait.

Presenter18:14

Uh Married. That's right. But I mean, when you hit the stage, well, I know it was the folks stuff as well, but nevertheless, you were, it seems to me, ahead of your time, weren't you?

Presenter18:23

If that's what you call it. Well, you the drain pipes, I suppose, with the teddy boy influence. But nevertheless, you were kind of there before a lot of people. I was indeed kind of gear.

Billy Connolly18:26

Yeah.

Billy Connolly18:30

I was indeed Well, I the trouble was I was too hairy and wild for the the cabaret circuit, the clubs, and they hated what I did, you know. They they thought I was dirty and weird.

Presenter18:40

Hmm.

Billy Connolly18:45

Which is very strange. Well, no, well I never I still don't see it as dirty and weird. I call a spade a spade when I'm on stage and I and if I talk about sex, I'm talking about sex and bits of the body that are funny. But they they on the other hand, the guys who were doing cabaret were talking about Pakistani neighbours and how stupid the Irish were and how thick mother-in-laws are and how this and how and I I found them deeply offensive, those guys. But they found me offensive too. They thought, well, that's dirty. And and I've had that all along from dirty people. I embarrass dirty people.

Presenter18:46

Well, no one

Presenter19:23

But at some point you gave up the day job, you stopped the well day and it got better and better actually,'cause it you wrote a rock musical in the end.

Billy Connolly19:29

Ah, yeah, I did. I wrote a musical, The Great Northern Welly Boots Show. Me and Tom Buchan, a poet from Edinburgh, and it blew the fringe away. It was lovely.

Presenter19:37

Exactly. That transferred, I think, into The Young Vic, didn't you? That's right. Very, very successful. And then you appeared on The Parkinson Show. Then I appeared. 1972. Saturday night, huh?

Billy Connolly19:39

That's right. Yes.

Billy Connolly19:44

Then I was in the nineteen seventy two.

Billy Connolly19:47

I was doing quite well until then. I was playing in England and half filling halls, two-thirds. Every time I did it, I got more and more and more.

Billy Connolly19:55

And then I did the parkie, and the whole thing went haywire.

Presenter19:58

Because you told a dirty joke.

Billy Connolly19:59

No, because I told a good joke.

Billy Connolly20:02

Not a dirty but bums and bicycles.

Presenter20:04

No, no, no, I don't mean dirty in the pejorative sense, but it was a dirty joke, which your manager, I think, had told you not to be. Which you tell.

Billy Connolly20:09

It's only by whatever you do, he said.

Billy Connolly20:13

If you do nothing else.

Presenter20:15

Uh

Billy Connolly20:15

Don't tell that bloody joke.

Billy Connolly20:18

And uh

Presenter20:18

So what is it, you know, in that ma it's a kind of instinctive naughtiness, isn't it?

Billy Connolly20:22

Just

Billy Connolly20:23

Do it, you know, do it. There's a wee devil in you. It goes, do it. Come on, come on, come on. And the Americans call it pushing the envelope. I don't know why. You just shove it a wee bit forward all the time. You know, take it somewhere it's never been, somewhere you've never been, because it's great. And sometimes when I'm on stage and it's getting boring, I'm doing the same thing every night. I'll change the position of two stories so as I have to link them a different way.

Presenter20:50

I want to talk to you about that because I know you never write anything down, do you? No, no, no. I want to talk to you about it. But let's pause for some more music. Number five.

Billy Connolly20:53

Never

Billy Connolly20:56

Oh, this is the most beautiful thing. And it remi it's across the universe by the Beatles, but it reminds me so much of John Lennon. I just love the chorus. We'll hear it when it comes.

Speaker 221:10

It broke.

Speaker 221:11

Uh

Presenter21:11

Like a road day.

Speaker 221:17

Uh Uh

Speaker 221:17

I'm not

Presenter21:20

Uh

Speaker 221:20

Uh

Presenter21:20

Nothing's gonna change my world

Presenter21:26

Nothing's gonna change my world

Presenter21:32

Nothing's gonna change my world.

Presenter21:37

Across the Universe, sung by the Beatles. Your wife Pam talks about arriving with you backstage when there's a huge great audience out the front and you saying, what am I going to talk to them about?

Speaker 121:46

And you s

Presenter21:49

I are you just teasing her then or is that when you have your nerves or

Billy Connolly21:54

No. What I do is ev every tour I intend to go on with the stuff that I ended the last tour with and take it somewhere else. But I can't remember it.

Billy Connolly22:06

I've got this weird kind of memory thing.

Billy Connolly22:09

that I don't I don't hold information for very long.

Billy Connolly22:12

But when I go out and talk about it, it all comes back.

Billy Connolly22:16

But sometimes it doesn't come back in order.

Billy Connolly22:20

You know.

Presenter22:21

This kind of memory dyslexia.

Billy Connolly22:21

Uh

Billy Connolly22:23

Aye. So it comes back p which makes it much more interesting. Let's let somebody giving you a big pile of letters, like a mountain on a table, and saying, Well, that's the Bible.

Billy Connolly22:35

But you could put it together yourself.

Presenter22:36

So did

Billy Connolly22:36

Yeah.

Presenter22:36

Yeah.

Billy Connolly22:36

Yeah.

Presenter22:37

Uh

Billy Connolly22:37

Let's see.

Presenter22:37

And what you do when you get out there is is unpredictable in every way, including in length. You never quite know how long. No, I don't know. And sometimes you can be out there for I don't know how long.

Billy Connolly22:43

No, I don't know.

Billy Connolly22:46

Three hours. Really? Two and a half usually, but but it got to three hours at the end of the two and a half.

Presenter22:51

What what do you do then after that when you go I can't imagine you have a nice glass of hot milk and go to bed.

Billy Connolly22:57

Well, I u what I used to get the drunk I used to get gin and tonics and and well, it depended on the tour, I would have a brandy tour and a whisky tour and a gin tour. Because that way when you drink and all that, you stay high and you can go till three, four in the morning. But when I stopped all that stuff, I I find I come down really quick.

Billy Connolly23:17

I sit with Steve, my manager, backstage, and we don't talk, we just sit there. He reads sometimes, and I look at the table and have a cup of tea.

Presenter23:25

Because that was something else you got from your dad, of course, wasn't it? Alcoholism.

Billy Connolly23:28

I think so. Well, yeah, I come from a long line of drunk people, yeah. And it's it's it's good fun. And how long have you been off it?

Billy Connolly23:36

17 years, I think. Not touched a drop. No, not a sausage. I did once. Somebody gave me vodka instead of water as a joke. And he didn't know, you know, that I was off the booze and all that. And another time, a woman gave me whiskey and my porridge once on the Isle of Arran. I asked for porridge, and she said, How about porridge royale? And I said, What the hell's that? But I just had a big mouthful, and it was whiskey in it.

Presenter23:38

Not touch the

Billy Connolly24:04

And the funniest thing happens, it's it's like alarm bells go off because your body says now you're talking.

Billy Connolly24:12

Right. That's the one Come on, let's go And my fingers tingle and my stomach goes all butterfly And it lasts all day. Yippee Now you're talking, here we go

Presenter24:25

So how do you find I mean enormous amount of willpower if you have to

Billy Connolly24:27

You have to you you have to really be strong and because the the the you try and flick back quickly to to to what it did to you before.

Billy Connolly24:39

You know, you have to you have to have a picture in your mind of what it did to you before.

Billy Connolly24:43

What's the

Presenter24:43

What's the what's the one picture you have then in that mirror?

Billy Connolly24:46

The one picture I have is it was an evening I spent i in a in a what do you call an undertaker's place? In an undertaker's place.

Billy Connolly24:57

I met him in a pub.

Billy Connolly24:58

And I was blitzed. I said, What are you doing? He said, I'm an undertaker.

Billy Connolly25:02

And I said, Oh, wow. And I said, I've never touched a dead guy since I was a little boy. I said, How do dead people feel? And so we ended up down there opening coffins.

Billy Connolly25:11

Touching the dead to see how they felt, and oh my god, you know, I thought I've got to change this is.

Billy Connolly25:18

You know, you let yourself go terribly, your standards plummet, and your taste in women doesn't have change.

Presenter25:26

Number six.

Billy Connolly25:27

Number six. Ooh ah, this is Bob Dylan. Now, I love him, I love his songs. I've been on television with him and I've met him and stuff and and he never knows me when he meets me and we always part, the best of friends. And this is a wee song my girls like. It's called Highlands or My Heart's in the Highlands, because he mentions Aberdeen and we've got a house in Aberdeenshire.

Billy Connolly25:50

Felt my heart in the highlands

Presenter25:56

Gentle and fair.

Presenter26:00

Panasaka Blue Men

Presenter26:03

And the

Speaker 126:03

So why would that

Speaker 126:08

Blue bass blazing

Speaker 126:12

Where the ever

Presenter26:13

Bedding waters flow

Speaker 126:15

Yeah.

Presenter26:20

Bob Dylan and Highlands. You live on the West Coast now, you and the family, and you've done for more than ten years. You went you went to kind of conquer America because you thought that's what you ought to do.

Speaker 226:25

Yeah.

Billy Connolly26:25

I do have done.

Billy Connolly26:30

I thought that's what I should be doing.

Presenter26:32

Well you then you did it.

Billy Connolly26:33

I am okay. I do rather well.

Presenter26:35

But she never came back.

Billy Connolly26:37

No, why do you

Presenter26:37

Why didn't you come back?

Billy Connolly26:38

Because I I was very comfortable where I was.

Billy Connolly26:42

I've always said home is where the mortgage is. You know, you just go home. Home is a place where you're allowed to be boring, basically, and sit in your bum and smoke your cigars and play your banjo.

Presenter26:53

And where you beige, Cardi.

Billy Connolly26:54

And wear your base. I've got two beige cats. I've got a sleeveless and a sleeve.

Presenter27:01

But do you wear them?

Billy Connolly27:02

I do. My girls fall about the house. And I I love California very much and I've got great pals there and I've I feel it's in this advanced stage of my life I have found that the the world is about people. I like places where there are people that I like and I I don't care about places where there's nobody that I like.

Presenter27:25

No, sure. But but you must, you know, when you're sitting there in the beige card or you're not sort of being boring and smoking the cigars, do you c you must and i you know, it's one of those standard questions, but in a way one has to ask it of you more than anyone else. You must pinch yourself. You must think, My God, I've come a long way. You know, I could still be a welder on Clyde.

Billy Connolly27:41

Indeed.

Billy Connolly27:43

Yeah, yeah. You know, I stand on my deck looking down San Fernando Valley. Or when we arrive in Scotland and we drive up the driveway of my place. It's a big long driveway with those stone mushrooms, you know, looking up. And then this big house at the end with turrets and flags and all and rolling like a lock in the garden. You're a laird. Yeah, I'm the laird, you know. I didn't know. Well, I'm not a laird in as much as it used to be the laird's house and and up there they call me the laird for a laugh, you know. But I got a letter the other day from one of the lairds and it was about for money for the local church. The roof has fallen in or something. And he said, It's up to yourself, but most of the lairds like I was in.

Presenter28:02

You're a nerd.

Billy Connolly28:24

I was included. I don't want to be alert. It's against everything I ever stood for in my life. I don't mind people kidding on, but give me a break. This is a grace. This is something very dear to my heart.

Speaker 228:35

This

Billy Connolly28:41

It's by Bob Devereaux and Clive Palmer. Now Clive is a wonderful banjo player and he was part of the incredible string band in the seventies that just blew me away. And this is a piece called The Morris Room written by Bob Devereaux, who's doing the talking on here.

Speaker 129:01

Placed on a large green cushion.

Speaker 129:05

In the Morris Room.

Speaker 129:09

True gallery.

Speaker 129:13

The lamp light on

Speaker 229:13

Yeah.

Speaker 129:16

The solver we make such A charming picture We should say this way

Presenter29:30

Morris Rum, sung by Bob DeRow and Clive Palmer on on the on the banjo, yeah?

Billy Connolly29:35

Yes, that was him just blonking away at the background there.

Presenter29:38

Now, Billy, you've got plenty of rules you live by. Let me read some to you.

Billy Connolly29:41

Oh yeah.

Presenter29:42

Clean your teeth and keep the company of people who'll tell you when you've got spinach in them. Sleep with somebody you like. If you haven't heard a good rumour by eleven in the morning, start one, and so on. None of these things can you do on a desert island.

Billy Connolly29:53

Yeah.

Presenter29:53

You can't do any of them. I mean, it's going to be. No. Well, forget about the rules on the desert island. You're going to enjoy it.

Billy Connolly29:54

But it's kind of like

Billy Connolly30:00

I am gonna love it.

Billy Connolly30:02

Well, I love Pam and the girls, and I love spending time with them. It makes me very happy.

Billy Connolly30:08

But when I have been alone, on tour, I've spent an awful lot of my life alone. And I like it very. I'm never, never lonely. I'm never lonely. Sometimes I think about Pam and the girls, and I wish they were there, and I wish they could see things that I'm seeing. And I call them most days, probably every day. But I love being alone. I like it.

Presenter30:30

But if you were there without you know, with no end, you're just stuck on this island, alone, left to your own device.

Billy Connolly30:35

So surely he can make a wee raft or something and go and visit somebody or you know, like Polynesian people go and discover New Zealand. I don't know if surely he could chop a tree down and and sail somewhere.

Billy Connolly30:48

I could fish. I fished really quite well. I wouldn't starve. And you could have nice long lions, which is what you like. I love lion long. Yeah. Look, Scarlett, my my youngest daughter, she wrote a wee poemette about me and she says.

Billy Connolly31:03

My daddy lies long in his bed He listens to the grateful dead

Billy Connolly31:09

That's the open night.

Presenter31:12

Tell me about your last record.

Billy Connolly31:13

Oh, now this is by Roy Orbison, and I had the great privilege of meeting him in an elevator in Sydney, Australia. This is Only the Lonely, and I love it. It was always the last record at the dancing. This was the cheek to cheek. And you moved her hands behind your neck, and you put your hands on a bum, and you were face to face. And I'll never forget the smell of makeup and the hair, and it was so sexy and wonderful.

Speaker 231:53

Yeah.

Speaker 231:54

Uh

Speaker 231:56

But that's the challenge.

Speaker 232:00

You got a day.

Speaker 232:05

Here's your only heartbreak.

Speaker 232:10

Only the

Presenter32:16

Roy Orbison and Only the Loneless Going Home Time. Which one of the eight would you take if you could only take one?

Billy Connolly32:23

I think it would be Hank Williams.

Presenter32:25

I don't know.

Billy Connolly32:26

Man.

Presenter32:26

Mm-hmm.

Billy Connolly32:26

Lonesome Blues. Longgoing Lonesome Blues. Yeah.

Presenter32:29

What about your book? You've got the Bible and you've got Shakespeare.

Billy Connolly32:32

Yeah, can I have a dictionary?

Presenter32:34

Mm.

Billy Connolly32:34

Could I have the Oxford Dictionary?

Presenter32:36

Mm. What you what you can do that?

Billy Connolly32:36

Mm-hmm.

Billy Connolly32:38

A gist of it would tip us everything, isn't it?

Billy Connolly32:41

Yeah. Any luxury?

Billy Connolly32:44

Could I have my banjo?

Billy Connolly32:45

Yeah, but that would be great. But does that does that work as a luxury? Because it's like a a toolbox to me, but

Presenter32:51

No as long as you're not gonna kinda float away on it.

Billy Connolly32:53

Oh no, I wouldn't float away on it. I would I would strum my banjo on the beach.

Presenter32:57

Billy Connolly, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island is.

Billy Connolly33:00

Thank you very much indeed. It's such a pleasure.

Speaker 233:10

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.