Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
British lyricist best known for the songs 'Born Free' and 'Diamonds Are Forever' and the musicals 'Sunset Boulevard' and 'Aspects of Love'.
On the island
Eight records
It's just lyric writing at its best. It's Oscar Hammerstein doing what you're supposed to do. Every word hugs the contours of the melody, it crackles, it fizzes, and Lena Horn doesn't miss a syllable.
Adagio in G minor for organ and stringsFavourite
I thought on this island I should keep myself busy with uh writing lyrics, so I thought I'd choose one instrumental so I could keep writing words to my heart's content.
I'll Only Miss Her When I Think of Her
If any would-be singers are listening, they should listen to Matt's breath control, because they can then tell me if he had three lungs or not.
He is so underrated. And in the business, people think Jake Thackeray is a brilliant poet. Some people have called him an old coward in his way. The words he chooses are so different to anyone else.
Some of the greatest times of my life has been watching Broadway shows and this song just sums up the excitement of an opening night on Broadway with Julie Stein at his best and Liza Manelli giving it all she's got.
This song is lovely because it's an unusual story. It's about a woman who's in love with someone she shouldn't be in love with.
I love country music and because as opposed to the lyric writing that goes on in Broadway, which is all to do with polished lyrics, it's very unpolished there. It's all about raw emotion. ... You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille.
Jussi Björling and Robert Merrill
Some songs and some music is written, but this one seems to be coming from the gods. It seems to be coming from some exalted arena. And it just just takes you to the sky.
In conversation
Presenter asks
9:22Tell me about your early life, because apparently you were born of a star-struck mother whose ambition was to be a cinema usherette, is that right?
It was close. I mean it was yes. Um we were very poor. We came from Hackney and uh happy, all happy, happy. I know it isn't fashionable to talk about happy childhoods particularly, but mine was bliss and uh my mother was uh singing all the time. ... And it was in Aladdin's cave. And she kept saying E. Donald ... look at those chandeliers ... And it was the same with the Regal Cinema. We would go to see the Jolson story. And I was immediately taken with all this glamour. ... And all these songs that had names, American names in them, like California, Here I Come, I Left My Heart in Avalon, Nothing Could Be Finer Than To Be In Carolina, Swannee, and here I was in Well Street, Hackney, you know.
Presenter asks
11:38What about at school there? Were you already a wordsmith? Did you enjoy all of that?
Um no, I remember my earliest recollection about words but really it was to do with songs. I remember listening to the radio and listening to that marvellous Larry Hart lyric, which is Ten Cents a Dance, and there's a wonderful internal rhyme in there. ... And at school I would go to my English teacher, mister King, and say, What does ubiquitous mean? And of course my brothers would say, There's something wrong with Donald. What's the matter with him? He's always asking about words. So I've always been interested in words and vocabulary. I have no idea why.
The keepsakes
The book
14,000 Things to Be Happy About
Barbara Ann Kipfer
it's just a list, really, and it's a reminder of the small pleasures in life we all take for granted.
The luxury
Whenever I play snooker for a couple of hours, it just I forget about everything. Just how do I get that white ball back here? You know, it's just a another small pleasure.
Presenter asks
14:19You had your first big hit with him, though, didn't you, Walk Away. How did that come about?
Well, it was Matt was in the Eurovision Song Contest and he loved a tune. He heard a tune called Varum noor Varum. And he said to me, You're always on about lyrics, he said, Why don't you have a go? If Lionel Bach can do it, you can. And that was his attitude to everything. And I took this home and I thought, I wrote the song Walk Away, and I thought, well, hang on a minute, this is very brave, Walk Away, because it's Walk Away, please go before you throw your life away. It's an older man and a younger girl. And I thought, you know, is it too deep and is it too... Anyway, it came out right in the middle of all the Beatles stuff, or just as that was early 60s. And it was a huge hit, it was a top five hit, and it was a kind of song that people noticed.
Presenter asks
20:09Tell me about that moment, though, that can't be lonely, when you actually sit down with somebody you regard as great, and he or she sings your song for the first time.
Well, it is thrilling. I mean, it's some things you can't put a price on. When you actually hear Barbara Streisand sing a song of yours, it's what you dream of all your life for a songwriter to have Streisand, who's one of the greatest interpreters of s of a song. ... I went to her house in Beverly Hills and spent a whole afternoon with her. Hours and hours, and we dismantled the songs together. She goes over every comma and crotchet. And she is a perfectionist, but she's a lovely, lovely lady. And in the mi in the middle of it all, she's making cups of tea and talking about her life and
Presenter asks
22:16It makes it all look and sound very easy. You know, you wrote a few songs and you went on and then you wrote a musical. It ain't that easy, is it? Because you've had some flops as well. Tell me about your flops.
Well, you haven't got time. ... Well, my flops. Let's talk about my flops. Right, the first flop I had was, I think, a musical called Dear Anyone. ... It wasn't terrible, and we had a big hit song from it called I'll Put You Together Again but Hot Chocolate. But it it was predictable. ... I did a musical Budgie with Adam Faith and Anita Dobson. That didn't work. ... It seemed very old-fashioned. It was a bit sleazy. It was strippers and I don't think people want that.
Presenter asks
27:25Can I ask you the impossible question? Which piece that you've written are you proudest of? Or is there one line or a whole song?
It's always a very difficult thing. I like odd bits and pieces. There's a song I wrote for Michael Jackson called Ben. I like the middle section of that, which Michael Jackson liked the best, because it says it in as few as words as you can. And it says um I used to say I and me, now it's us, now it's we, which says a lot in in as few notes as as possible.
“I know it isn't fashionable to talk about happy childhoods particularly, but mine was bliss”
“I saw like the Jolson story thirty-two times.”
“I used to say, What does plebeian mean?”
“When you actually hear Barbara Streisand sing a song of yours, it's what you dream of all your life”
“I would take the Albanoni Adaggio, because it will keep me busy, and I just keep writing words.”