Tim Rice

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 four, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Tim Rice0:29

My castaway this week is a lyricist, Jesus Christ Superstar, Don't Cry for Me, Argentina, I Know Him So Well, they're some of the most famous and popular songs ever written for the musical theatre. His work with Andrew Lloyd Webber transformed the British musical, so it's startling to note that they produced only three shows together. After the split, his career as a lyricist fell away for a while, but re-emerged splendidly a decade ago as the author of the books for the award-winning Disney films Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, the latter written with Elton John.

Tim Rice1:01

In between all this songwriting, he's found time to run a record label, found a publishing house, and watch and play a lot of cricket. As he's happy to confess, he's never allowed his working career to dominate his life. He is Sir Tim Rice. The problem, of course, Tim being a lyricist, is everybody thinks it's easy,'cause if the lyrics are effective, they're kind of simple. You can latch on quickly and you can think, I could have done that.

Presenter1:26

But I think everybody can write lyrics because most people can read and most people can write.

Presenter1:32

But

Presenter1:33

It's a question really of can everybody do it well. I think composers are slightly fortunate in that they have a kind of mystique because not everybody can write music. But it's very hard for a prodigy to turn out great literature until he or she is seventeen or eighteen. It's very rare that anybody writes anything other than a sort of curiosity like young visitors. But composers, because composition is abstract and lyrics are much more definite.

Speaker 41:50

Okay.

Speaker 41:53

What about the

Presenter2:00

then it's possible for a composer to hit the jackpot really very young.

Tim Rice2:04

But can you define, then, what it takes to be a good lyricist? Is it possible to define it?

Presenter2:10

I think I'm quite good at at getting a situation into song, into lyrics, but that's because I can imagine a character. I can imagine a lady on a balcony talking to 20,000 workers at a demonstration, and I can write a song about that. Or I can imagine a warthog with wind problems. These are things which you have a real character, and you can therefore write something that works for that character.

Tim Rice2:34

But does it help as well if it's something that you feel yourself? I mean, if it's written from the heart, as it were?

Presenter2:40

Yes.

Presenter2:41

I think that helps. I don't think it's essential. I mean, I I've I've written several songs which I do not believe in what the character's sang, and that's obviously going to happen because in in most musicals you're going to have opposite points of view. You're going to have characters at odds with each other. I certainly think my favorite lyrics are the ones I've written.

Speaker 22:54

Each other.

Presenter2:58

would probably be ones that I actually agree with.

Speaker 23:01

Yeah.

Presenter3:03

I don't know, having asked me that. I mean, I was about to say that most of my most successful ones seem to have been written from the point of view of women. And I obviously haven't been in exactly those situations. I mean, I don't know how to love him.

Tim Rice3:14

But one thinks of I know him so well, of course.

Presenter3:16

Yes, uh that was a situation which I had been involved in in real life watching it from the sides as it were. So I think a lot of it I mean chess, the musical chess from which that song comes was the only one really written around a lot of experiences I'd had. I mean obviously Jesus Christ Superstar wasn't and um neither was Avita. But there was there were certainly great tracts of Avita which I agreed with what the characters were saying and there were great tracts when I violently disagreed with what the characters were.

Tim Rice3:39

No no.

Tim Rice3:41

But what is brilliant is that the public suddenly will elevate something that maybe you didn't see coming. And Don't Cry for Me, Argentina, is the most extraordinarily unusual line. You can't have said, Here's a really catchy line, this is gonna get him between the eyes.

Presenter3:58

No, well we it was written not as a pop song. I mean a lot of people have said oh gosh that song is just a string of cliches. Well it's exactly what it's meant to be. It was written as a scene in a show with this dishonest woman addressing a public like many politicians do and not really saying anything. And we were rather surprised and in a way we thought well this has really almost been too successful because just as Ava Peron fooled a lot of people into the fact that she was saying great things so this song has kind of fooled people into thinking it's a great song. Having said that very arrogantly I think it is a great song but I'm not quite sure why. It's got a great tune perhaps.

Speaker 24:29

Very arrogantly I

Tim Rice4:34

Tell me about your first record.

Presenter4:36

Well the first record takes me back to my dim and distant past. My Auntie Gertie, she gave us a wind-up gramophone and a whole batch of 78s and one of them which has stuck in my memory even though I was only nine when I learnt it was a thing called Not Old Enough to Be Old and it's all about the problems a man has when he's fifty. Why that should appeal to me when I was nine, I'm not quite sure. But now that I have tragically got past the fifty mark it cuts me to the quick but it's it's it's a very funny record.

Speaker 45:03

When a man reaches forty, then how time flies, gee-wiz. He's forty-two, forty-four, forty-six, forty-eight, before he knows where he is.

Speaker 45:14

Then when he reaches fifty, he has his jubilee Though why that should call for jubilation Is a thing that I never could see For he's not old enough to be old poor fellow And he's not young enough

Tim Rice5:33

Not Old Enough to Be Old, sung by WH Berry with the Palace Theatre Orchestra conducted by Percy Fletcher. Do we know what WH's name is?

Presenter5:41

I don't. I think he was um I mean, he he sang under the name W H Berry. His friends probably called him W. I mean he was he also sang with Henry Hall's orchestra and he was a very well known music hall comedian and an actor and made some films.

Tim Rice5:54

But fascinating that you should have been attracted by that. Obviously you were spotting lyrics as a child. Wh when would you say you were?

Presenter6:02

I think I was. I always liked pop records with great lyrics, although I didn't realize that was why I liked them. I mean, I I loved people like Eddie Cochrane's Summertime Blues and and all the early Lieber Stoller songs and and that one, even pre-rock and roll.

Tim Rice6:14

What about Gilbert and Sullivan?

Presenter6:15

Yes, I was very fond of Gilbert and Sullivan. My headmaster at prep school was was a Gilbert and Sullivan fanatic in the nicest possible way, and he used to uh take us all to see GNS shows. I lo loved it all.

Tim Rice6:26

Mm. And your parents were wordsmiths as well, yes they were.

Presenter6:29

Yes, they were both writers. My father edited um an aviation magazine with great skill, and my mother was a freelance writer who was quite successful. She wrote lots of short stories, articles for The Times, did broadcasts for the B B C. You know, she was just a clever writer, I think. And and we weren't a very musical house, but we were a very literary house.

Tim Rice6:47

You wrote lists, I got

Presenter6:49

I wrote lots of lists. I used to love lists and charts, and I think that's really got me into.

Tim Rice6:49

So you select

Presenter6:53

Both cricket and astronomy and pop music, all these things which are not obviously connected, were all linked by statistics and lists. And of course, the statistics from the world of astronomy, I was very hooked on that in an early age when I read a book that my father left lying around the house on the solar system. And I still remember all the names of the planets and all their satellites. It's rather sad, really, but I can still recite them. Trouble is they've now, I mean, Saturn had nine moons when I was a kid. It's now got about 67.

Presenter7:23

And as far as I'm concerned, it's still got nine.

Tim Rice7:23

And

Tim Rice7:25

And I gather that you would sort of write lists of the longest rivers in the world and give it to your mother for a birthday.

Presenter7:31

Yeah, it's got a lot of money.

Tim Rice7:32

Yeah.

Presenter7:32

Lucky she allowed me to stay at home really, but um let schoolboys' diaries and all that be stirred by

Tim Rice7:38

But it's interesting, of course, shots miscellany today, you know, cells are realised I could have made them you were a boy before your time.

Speaker 47:45

Yeah.

Tim Rice7:46

I mean, is it not true that you in fact ha had an idea for the Guinness Book of Hit Singles, which you took to somebody and they poo-pooed it and said, No, nobody's n interested in lists?

Presenter7:55

Yes, that was true. That was Desmond Elliott, a very distinguished publisher. I took this idea for the Guinness Book of Fit singles, which would have been a short book in those days because the charts hadn't been going very long. But he didn't like the idea, but he did say, Well, what else do you do? and I said, Well, I'm trying to be a songwriter. I was actually trying to be a pop singer, but that seemed a bit embarrassing to admit. And I played him a song I'd written which had been recorded amazingly. And he didn't like that either. But he said, Well, I know a young man called Andrew Lloyd Webber, who I'm sort of looking after, and maybe you should get together with him, because he's another songwriter. And that was how we met.

Tim Rice8:27

And you wrote to Andrew, and can I quote this, I understand you're looking for a with it writer.

Presenter8:33

Yeah.

Tim Rice8:34

There's not a lot

Presenter8:35

There's not a lot. I mean, the expression with it is about as unwithered as you can get.

Tim Rice8:39

Think about it.

Presenter8:39

I think my mother uses it.

Tim Rice8:40

My mother uses it.

Presenter8:42

Well, he responded. He rang me and I went round to his parents' flat in South Kensington. And I mean, he was terrific. I mean, I was barely through the door when he said, oh, I've written eight musicals and he'd sat down at the piano and played me tunes that he'd written from these shows he'd done at school. He'd just left school and I was a struggling law student. And it was clear to me after about half an hour that this was a chap who was going to go a very long way because A, he was very talented and B, he was very confident.

Tim Rice9:09

Make code number two.

Presenter9:11

Well record number two is David Essex and I'm a great fan of David's and a great friend of David's and he made a wonderful record which wasn't a big hit, it was a sort of small hit, part of a project by Mike Reid, not the actor Mike Reed but the disc jockey and television presenter Mike Reid, who'd set a lot of John Betcherman's poems to music and got a lot of good singers to sing them and I just loved.

Presenter9:37

David Essex singing Mavanwee.

Speaker 49:39

Kind o' the kinderback leans my mother than me White for the plape and the sheen of her dress

Speaker 49:49

Fresh from the bathroom and soft in the nursery Soap-scented fingers I long to caress

Speaker 49:58

Were you a prefect and head of your dormitory? Were you a hockey girl, tennis or gym?

Tim Rice10:08

David Essex Singing Mavanway written by John Betchman music by Mike Reed.

Tim Rice10:12

David Essex, of course, was the narrator, the Che Gravara figure in Nevita. Great voice for rock music with that lovely horse thing. Is that the kind of pop singer that you would have fancied being had you become one?

Presenter10:26

I would have liked to have just been a a good pop singer. I mean, I would have settled for anything, really. In my dreams, I would like to have been.

Presenter10:33

A blues singer, sort of Rolling Stones type.

Tim Rice10:36

But you ha were in a band at school.

Presenter10:38

We had a band at school called the Aardvarks who

Presenter10:40

Weren't that great, but we weren't bad, and we used to do all the Cliff Richard and Shadows numbers. This is pre-Beatles.

Tim Rice10:46

You were Cliff at that point, weren't you?

Presenter10:47

I was a kind of cliff, yes. Traveling light was was one of my big numbers.

Tim Rice10:50

Living doll, I can imagine.

Presenter10:51

I didn't do living doll for some reason. Traveling light. I was quite good at that one.

Tim Rice10:53

Yeah.

Tim Rice10:55

This was early sixties at Lancaster, yes. Um and you were obviously very bright, but for some reason, academically you didn't particularly distinguish yourself. Why not?

Presenter11:05

I just never really quite fulfilled perhaps early expectations when I seemed quite bright when I was very young.

Tim Rice11:11

I'll control those lists.

Presenter11:12

Yes. I didn't really want to go to university. I don't know why. I can't remember thinking I don't want to go. I just was rather indolent and and didn't really make any strong decision about anything and and I kind of felt I wanted to write or do something like that or or sing, which in a way half of me thought I wanted to do that, the other half thought this is ludicrous. People f you know, in my situation don't do that. And anyway I'm not quite good enough. So if I had pursued

Presenter11:38

You know, incredibly enthusiastically the path of being a pop singer as soon as I left school. I mean, I might have made a record or two, who knows?

Tim Rice11:44

But you did make one, didn't you?

Presenter11:46

Well, yes, but that was only as a result really of having some success as a writer. I mean, I had a song recorded by a group. I was trying to sell my own voice and

Presenter11:55

Ironically, it was the songs people liked, not me.

Tim Rice11:58

So fate was pushing you towards being a lyricist, but you didn't spot it at the time.

Presenter12:03

Well, I was writing the tunes as well at that stage, amazingly. I mean, they weren't very sophisticated tunes, but actually when I when I met Andrew, I'd actually had a tune out and recorded. It was a flop, but I'd actually had a record released.

Tim Rice12:13

Was he impressed?

Presenter12:14

No.

Presenter12:15

Well, you might have to. Not with the tune. No. He said it was a nick of something, which was very annoying. He's probably right. There's only three chords. But he.

Tim Rice12:16

Not with the tune.

Tim Rice12:22

But but he he was writing, I think, a a the life of a musical based on the life of Dr. Card at the time, which was surely a Nick of Oliver.

Presenter12:27

Yeah.

Presenter12:30

Well

Presenter12:31

He'd written a musical with a school friend based on the life of Dr. Bernardo, and I wrote a kind of Lionel Bartish, Richard Rogers, or rather Oscar Hammerstein-ish type lyric to it, and they were okay, and some of them worked, particularly the funny ones. But I realized after a couple of years that the whole project was not really original enough. We both realized this. And it was the next thing we did together, which was really a bit of a come-down. We had these dreams of the West End and Broadway, and we actually even signed a contract for our Bernardo musical, which promised us first-class airfares to New York when we open. I mean, we would have been grateful for the tube fair. When that clearly wasn't going to work, we then wrote something for a school, which was a big come-down and not what we wanted to do. But we then broke all the rules and found our own style. And the thing we wrote for a school was Joseph, which gradually made it.

Speaker 413:14

Uh

Tim Rice13:22

Echo number three.

Presenter13:23

Well, this is Once in Roll David's City, sung by the uh King's College Choir. It's just a magnificent hymn. It takes me back to my school days, to my youth, to my children. I've got a young daughter now, and children aged, you know, five to ten. It's almost a perfect age as a father, I think.

Tim Rice14:38

Once in Royal David City with the choir of King's College, Cambridge conducted by Sir David Wilcox. So Joseph Hatton, 1968, you wrote it for Collett Court Boys' Prep School in Hammersmith and it it was revolutionary, wasn't it? It took off. I mean there you have a biblical story with kind of country and western rock ho-downs in it.

Presenter14:58

Well, it was very popular. Um it was immediately

Presenter15:01

done again by the school. I mean, literally we it was a twenty minute show and they went they we had to do the whole show again. Most parents want to get out of the door pretty quickly, having seen their darling do their bit, but and we did it again and then it gradually made it to other schools. Took a long time to get going.

Speaker 415:15

And then eventually

Presenter15:15

And then eventually it was, it was.

Tim Rice15:18

Again

Presenter15:19

It was different because we didn't think we were writing a show, therefore we didn't obey the rules that we thought the rules had to be obeyed. We weren't trying to do what Richard Rodgers would have done. We were just trying to do something that was fun for children. And the success we had in a very minor way, educationally almost, with Joseph inspired us to go back to the Bible for something a bit more ambitious, which was the story of the last seven days of the life of Jesus. And Superstar, which is what that became, turned out to be such a huge commercial success that that in turn kicked Joseph into the commercial area because Joseph was only a hit with schools until about 1970, 71. And then Frank Dunlop did a brilliant production, almost without asking us, at the Edinburgh Festival in nineteen seventy two, which got rave reviews, better reviews than Superstar Got. Consequently, we suddenly found we had two shows on our hands that were hits at the same time.

Tim Rice16:10

You were off. But the point about Super Sor, it was completely different. It was revolutionary. I know there'd been Hare before, so there'd been a rock musical, but it was through sound, wasn't it?

Presenter16:20

Yes, it was different. I mean, like it or loathe it, it was certainly new. And the reason really was that we couldn't sell it as a show. We had a very good agent manager at that time, David Land.

Presenter16:31

And he was trying to get all the big impresarios of the day, the Cameron Macintoshes of the day, to put on Superstar, and nobody wanted to know. Oh, religion's had it, the kids and the public don't want that and it's too rocky or whatever.

Tim Rice16:43

And hugely expensive.

Presenter16:45

And we were unknown and Joseph hadn't hadn't really made any money for us at that point. So we were kind of forced almost reluctantly to do it on record, which turned out to be a brilliant move. And it was shorter, we couldn't make it too long, we had to make it much more radio friendly, much more rocky, much more contemporary, and we made it truly operatic. And all these things conspired to make Superstar different from things that had gone before.

Tim Rice16:47

Um

Tim Rice17:09

And that whole idea of putting out the music before you put on the show was born, which turned out to be a terrific idea.

Presenter17:15

Yes, we were hailed as marketing geniuses. We were actually desperate guys who couldn't get a show on.

Tim Rice17:20

So as uh the sixties turned into the seventies anyway, Rice and Lloyd Webber were riding high towards their very last production together. Let's pause for record number four.

Presenter17:30

Well this is the Everly Brothers, Don and Phil, I think just consummately brilliant popular singers, still going strong. And the song is Memories Are Made of This, which is more associated with Dean Martin, and I was tempted to take the Dean Martin version. I love Dino, but I love the Everly's just that little bit more. And I haven't got room for both of them, so I've got the Everly Brothers doing a unique take on the great Dean Martin song.

Speaker 417:57

Follow it lightly with a dream.

Speaker 418:05

Your lips.

Speaker 418:08

And mine.

Speaker 418:10

Two sieves

Speaker 418:12

The wine.

Speaker 418:14

Memories are made of this.

Tim Rice18:20

Evaluibr's version of memories are made of this. So you moved towards your third and final collaboration, Tim Tim Rice, which was to be Evita.

Tim Rice18:30

A strange subject, an unusual subject. How much did it how much persuasion did it take to get Andrew to go along with Eva Perron as the subject of a musical?

Presenter18:42

But I think he was always intrigued by it, but I I don't think he was that confident about it as a subject. I heard this programme on the radio about Eva Perron, about whom I knew very little. And I then spent about a year working out how it could be done, because the character immediately intrigued me. And I thought this is a great melodramatic subject which will suit our style.

Tim Rice18:59

Yeah.

Tim Rice19:01

But my point in asking the question is: really, I get the distinct impression you were the ideas man in that sense.

Presenter19:07

Well, I was in the sense that I came up with that particular idea, but.

Tim Rice19:11

But and superstar, and you just really were your

Presenter19:12

Yes, but they were yours.

Tim Rice19:13

Yeah.

Presenter19:13

In a way, but I wouldn't have come up with them if I hadn't had a reason to come up with them, if you see what I mean.

Tim Rice19:17

No. But was Andrew already moving more towards the business end as well as the music?

Presenter19:22

I think he was always more interested in the business end than I was. I think he was a bit reluctant to.

Presenter19:28

totally commit to a Vita in the first instance. But once he saw what a great story it was, and once he'd written a couple of tunes and I said, These tunes are fantastic and I think it in many ways it's perhaps I'm biased because I was involved, but I I still think it's his best score.

Tim Rice19:41

Do you think it's your best?

Presenter19:43

I think it's the best show we did together. There's two graphs in a creator's life. There's the graph of youthful enthusiasm, which sort of goes downwards, obviously, and there's the graph of expertise which goes upwards. And when they cross, when you're about thirty one, that's when you're at your peak, and that was the Vita.

Tim Rice19:57

Created

Presenter19:58

You're creative, Pete.

Tim Rice19:59

Which was what, 1977, I think. 1977.

Presenter20:01

1977. I mean, we've both done a few things since then.

Tim Rice20:03

Both kind of

Tim Rice20:04

Just a few. However, there you are with your you know, the best thing you've done together, and then you part. Now, you know, people I know have asked you a million times. I hesitate before asking you again, but it must mean you've never given a satisfactory answer.

Presenter20:14

Did you

Presenter20:18

Well, I there wasn't there isn't a satisfactory answer. We kind of drifted apart. I mean, we were firstly, I didn't have another idea that really appealed to me that quickly. Andrew wanted to do some things on his own. He did a very successful album, Variations on a Theme of Paganini. And then he got this idea for cats, which I thought, like he wasn't that wild about a Vita to begin with. I thought this is clearly a bad idea. And apart from that, it didn't need a lyricist because the poems were there already.

Tim Rice20:41

Because the poems were there ready.

Presenter20:42

So

Tim Rice20:43

But there was, let me just interrupt you one second. There was a song cycle called Tell Me on a Sunday, which he did then with Don Black and Marty West.

Presenter20:48

It was too.

Presenter20:50

Yes, I don't know how that came about. I mean that was very successful and indeed very good.

Tim Rice20:53

Yes, but people say that your fingerprints were on that.

Presenter20:56

Oh, I don't think so. No. I mean, we discussed the possibility of doing something along those lines, but and I did write one lyric, but it it never got anywhere. I I don't know. I I guess I perhaps I wasn't enthusiastic enough about it.

Tim Rice21:07

To to feature Elaine Page.

Presenter21:09

Yes, well I I don't know what it was. I mean maybe Andrew didn't want to work at that point with me and Elaine. I don't know. But I mean it never happened. But to be fair, we never really got beyond doing a couple of songs and suddenly I heard he was doing something with Marty Webb and Dom Black and it was hugely successful.

Tim Rice21:24

Are you a bit miffed?

Presenter21:25

I'm oh, of course.

Presenter21:29

Absolutely. But I mean, I w I was miffed in s in one sense, but I was miffed rather like Dog in the Manger. I didn't really want to do it, but I was annoyed that he was doing it with somebody else. But Don is a good friend of mine and he's a brilliant lyricist. So I mean, the work was a great success.

Tim Rice21:40

I mean I

Tim Rice21:42

Of course. But you know what the theory is there, that Andrew was very driven and that you were sort of too laid back for your own good.

Presenter21:48

That's there's an element of truth in that, but I had to be enthusiastic about the subject and I think Andrew is one of these people. I mean he's he's a very talented, extraordinarily talented composer for the theatre and and and I think he's he only functions if he's got something that he's doing and he'd rather do anything than nothing. This is probably a very unfair

Tim Rice22:06

You you'd rather do nothing than anything.

Presenter22:07

I'd rather do nothing than something I don't want to do.

Tim Rice22:12

But essentially you and Andrew drifted apart.

Presenter22:14

It was adrift. It wasn't a major coming to blows. There was no fight.

Tim Rice22:17

There was no coming to blows, there was no fight.

Presenter22:20

So, um yeah, that's it.

Tim Rice22:22

Craig couldn't find.

Presenter22:22

Record number five. Record number five is Elvis. I I I have to have Elvis.

Presenter22:27

If if you know about Elvis, you'll know why I have to have him. If you don't, you'll never understand. And this is an early Elvis. I could have taken one of about ninety Elvis tracks, literally. And this is an early one, nineteen fifty five. I'm left, you're right, she's gone.

Speaker 222:31

Yeah.

Speaker 422:40

We're right, I've lost, she's a gun.

Speaker 422:45

You're right and left all alone.

Speaker 422:50

Why do you try to tell them so?

Speaker 422:53

What I was like to know

Speaker 422:55

Bye she was a mother one for me

Speaker 423:00

He didn't talk.

Speaker 423:02

They all love alone.

Speaker 423:06

You're right, I love to watch

Tim Rice23:10

Zelvis with I'm left, you're right, she's gone or You're right, I'm left, she's gone, which is what he sings, isn't it?

Presenter23:16

Yes, he seems a bit confused about which way round the title should be.

Tim Rice23:19

Good lyric, what?

Presenter23:21

Brilliant lyric, great lyric.

Tim Rice23:22

1955, he recorded that. So Andrew Lloyd Weber went on riding high through the 80s with Cat, Starlight, Phantom later on, and Sunset Boulevard. While you.

Tim Rice23:32

Floundered slightly.

Presenter23:33

Oh, absolutely. I I wasn't quite sure. I mean, I did have a good idea which came too late to get Andrew involved because he was already into cats and I think Phantom. And actually Andrew asked me to get involved with Phantom at one point. But it was like only do five songs and I think I was the nineteenth person he'd asked, so uh I passed on that. And anyway, by then I was already working on something with Bjorn and Benny from ABBA, which was an idea I had called Chess, which was about a

Presenter23:59

Love stories set in the time of the Cold War, America versus Russia on the chessboard, and I thoroughly enjoyed working with with Bjorn and Benny and putting the show together.

Tim Rice24:08

It's strange because it it ran here in London, didn't it, for two years, but it's gone down in sort of musical history as a bit of a flop.

Presenter24:15

Yes, I think it's slightly unfair. It was technically a hit in England. It got its money back, which is what the investors care about. It flopped horrendously on Broadway. I mean, that was the worst produced show of all time. And by produced, I mean organized. I mean, there were too many chiefs, not enough Indians. And when it got to Broadway, nobody quite knew who was in charge. It was a nightmare, and we hadn't got time to get investors, and those we did approach realized that it wasn't going that well, and we all lost a packet.

Tim Rice24:41

Did you lose confidence as well as Elizabeth?

Presenter24:42

I I think I did lose a bit of confidence and I thought, well, maybe I've had a good run, you know, just as is I I like it, not not enough people do. But I was I was kind of saved by getting involved with the great Walt Disney organization.

Tim Rice24:55

But there were quite a few years between the two. I mean, they were sort of wilderness years, if you will. You've talked yourself about coming back from the dead when Disney kind of had a contract with it.

Presenter24:58

Ooh.

Presenter25:00

Yeah.

Presenter25:03

Yes, I mean chess opened and closed very rapidly on Broadway in 1988 and I was working with Disney by 1990 so if anything it was only 1989 I wasn't doing a lot. And actually even then I was doing something. I translated a wonderful French musical called Star Megna. It didn't do a thing over here and we never got the show over here. But there were some great songs in it and that kept me off the streets in 1989.

Speaker 225:16

Oh, an action.

Tim Rice25:28

Sure, but Disney, put your name back there, Aladdin, Beauty and Peace and the Princess.

Presenter25:31

Yes, I've always loved the cinema. Really, the cinema, I grew up with a cinema much more than theatre. I never went to theatre as a child. They had this new project called King of the Jungle. It was all about a lion. It was like Hamlet with fur. It was, you know, evil uncle and father and son relationship. And it sounded great to me. And I said, yes, I'd love to do that. And they said, who would you like to write the music? And I said, well, Elton John.

Presenter25:53

thinking, You won't get him and they said We'll get him.

Presenter25:56

And they got him.

Tim Rice25:59

Record number six.

Presenter26:00

Well, this is actually I I I feel a bit embarrassed about this, but I've decided to give in and take a song I was involved with. Um and it's sung by Elaine and it's from chess. And it's just, I think, almost my favorite song of all the songs I've ever written, um certainly the favourite love song I've written and it's called Heaven Help My Heart.

Speaker 426:20

And help my heart.

Speaker 426:26

I love him too much.

Speaker 426:31

What a be so my whole existence.

Presenter26:33

Uh

Speaker 426:35

Turning around, the word has gone.

Presenter26:35

I know.

Speaker 426:40

Until

Tim Rice26:48

Heaven Help My Heart, sung by Elaine Page, and that was written by my castaway, sir, Tim Rice. It's um it's public knowledge, obviously, Tim, that you spent eleven years with Elaine Page. You left your wife Jane for her, but i in the end you you didn't stay with her and

Tim Rice27:02

So on I mean, you must have made a lot of people miserable, including yourself.

Presenter27:05

Oh, absolutely. Total disaster.

Presenter27:08

Could could not have gone wronger, really. But uh, you know, that's it. I mean, I I never agreed with the guy who wrote Jeuneau Regrette Rien. That is a really wrong lyric.

Tim Rice27:17

Hm. One can't help I mean, forgive me if I quote your own lyrics to you, if I quote from I Know Him So Well, you know, nothing is so good at lasts, eternally perfect situations must go wrong. I mean

Presenter27:27

Well, that is a lyric which I'm afraid I believe in, but but I wasn't wishing that, it's just an observation.

Tim Rice27:30

But it

Tim Rice27:33

It it goes on, of course. He needs his fantasy and freedom. I know him so well.

Presenter27:38

Well, that's one of the points of view expressed in that song. The other one says he needs security.

Presenter27:43

So it's a complicated song. I don't know whether that many people really analyse that song. I mean, some people do.

Tim Rice27:49

It is interesting though, this business of writing from the heart. I mean, I think it's been observed before that that Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote Phantom.

Presenter27:57

Yes, I

Tim Rice27:58

I think I

Presenter27:59

I think Phantom is is a great work because Andrew wrote it from the heart. He he was written for the right reason for Sarah Brightman.

Tim Rice28:06

So you'll sit on your desert island and play Heaven Help My Heart and uh sort of

Presenter28:10

And a bit of Elvis as well.

Tim Rice28:12

Pick over how it might have been or should have been or do you try to do that?

Presenter28:15

No, I'll try not to do that. No, I will I will go jogging up and down the beach.

Tim Rice28:19

You're not going to take any blame for everything that's happened to the women in your life.

Presenter28:23

Of course, of course, absolutely. But not all of it.

Presenter28:27

Yeah.

Tim Rice28:28

Like a massive.

Presenter28:29

Um right, record number seven is The Rolling Stones, or are the Rolling Stones? And uh I just you know think the Rolling Stones are

Presenter28:38

Brilliant. I think they should all united, not just Mute Jagger.

Speaker 428:42

Too much sorrow

Speaker 428:47

Come cause I hear the same tomorrow

Speaker 428:54

The last time, this could be the last time, maybe the last time, I don't know.

Tim Rice29:10

Rolling Stones with The Last Time. Uh there was a time a few years ago, Tim, when you had four shows, I think, running on Broadway, of which you were the official l uh lyricist. You still still got how many?

Presenter29:20

Um are there three still as we speak?

Tim Rice29:23

But Lion King has scooped the pool really hard.

Presenter29:25

Lion King is is the one that's going to be there for a long time.

Tim Rice29:27

So now you can choose what you do. Now you're absolutely up there. What are you choosing to do?

Presenter29:31

Yes, I have to do it.

Presenter29:34

Well, I'm working on a couple of new things. I know everybody would say that, but I've I've got what I think is a good idea and I'm drafting out the story. And I have a lot of things.

Tim Rice29:41

So it's a show.

Presenter29:42

Oh yes, I think it's a show. I mean I suppose it could be something that one might say, well, maybe it should be a film. We've also had a serious film offer for chess, which would be great,'cause I think maybe that might be the way to go with chess, rather than keep trying to get it right on stage and not quite getting it right. Maybe it might, you know, be infinitely better as a movie.

Tim Rice29:42

Oh yeah.

Tim Rice29:59

Um what about doing a straight play? Are you talking about that?

Presenter30:01

If I thought of that, I'd like to give it a go sometime. I'm not sure if I could, but people always say the great thing about musical theatre, whenever you interview a musical theatre person, they say, The great thing about musical theatre is the collaboration. This for me is the worst. It's the one thing I hate about it. You know, it's you have to worry about the other people. I mean, obviously, if it all works out, it's great, but I think, wouldn't it be wonderful if I could do everything in a musical and didn't have to collaborate? And at least with a play, to a certain extent, you wouldn't have to worry about getting it right for the other writer.

Tim Rice30:30

What about the health of the British musical, the British musical today? I mean, what have we got? We've got We Will Rock You, we've got Bombay Dreams. Got a view?

Presenter30:39

Well, I don't think I mean, what's strange is there never been any consistently successful or even intermittently that for that matter new British writers come up for ages. It's a bit worrying. I mean, brand new musicals, they're terribly difficult to do and even us old hands find it hard enough. And

Presenter30:55

I just don't think people are really trying. And and they unless they try and imitate Sondyme, or they try and imitate the style that has already been done brilliantly by somebody else.

Tim Rice31:04

Hm. Would there be better stuff around if you and Lloyd Webber had stuck together?

Presenter31:08

Well, I don't know. I I there certainly wouldn't have been any more successful stuff. I mean, you couldn't have had a bigger show than Phantom. Or, for that matter, The Lion King, really.

Tim Rice31:16

But do you sometimes wish you had stuck together?

Presenter31:18

But

Presenter31:19

I certainly think often it would have been nice if we'd done a few more together. On the other hand.

Presenter31:25

It was a tough act to follow and we'd only if we'd had a couple of flops together, then that might have taken some of the luster away from the old ones. People would have said, Well, we knew they weren't any good, the early ones were flukes. And I think the fact we'd both done okay with other people proves that maybe they weren't flukes.

Tim Rice31:40

That was very good.

Presenter31:41

The last one is a sentimental choice. It's a it's a record about a father and his daughter. And it's one of my favorite American pop singers, Bobby Darin. It's called Eighteen Yellow Roses, and it's just it just reminds me of being a father.

Speaker 431:56

And find out if he's got plans to buy you a ring

Speaker 432:03

Twas eighteen yellow roses.

Speaker 432:07

Will Wilton die one day?

Speaker 432:12

But a father's love

Speaker 432:15

Will never fade away

Speaker 432:20

Will never fade away

Tim Rice32:26

Bobby Darin with eighteen yellow roses. I know how you've sweated over this list of eight, and I hate to ask you to choose but one, but you must.

Presenter32:34

Well, I think I'd probably go for Once in All David City.

Tim Rice32:37

Would you?

Presenter32:38

I don't know.

Presenter32:40

You know

Tim Rice32:41

But

Presenter32:42

So emotional.

Tim Rice32:43

What about your book as well as the Bible and Shakespeare?

Presenter32:46

Well, my book is um The Complete Molesworth by Geoffrey Willands, who wrote the words, and Ronald Searle, who did the marvellous cartoons, which is Nigel Molesworth, famous savant and philosopher, schoolboy, uh and his take on life as seen through

Presenter33:02

The terms of a prep school. It's just a brilliant book and very funny.

Tim Rice33:08

On that

Presenter33:08

I would enjoy reading that.

Tim Rice33:09

And your luxury.

Presenter33:10

I think I'd take a telescope because I could look at the stars and

Presenter33:14

try and teach myself something more about them, and also look for ships on the horizon.

Tim Rice33:18

Sir Tim Rice, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Presenter33:22

Thank you.

Speaker 233:29

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