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Leiber And Stoller:
The Bluerailroad Interview
page 5
A lot of people have likened it to Brecht and Weill.
STOLLER: We were influenced by Brecht and Weill because we liked their work.
LEIBER: I was influenced by a long short story by Thomas Mann. Called -
STOLLER: "Disillusionment."
LEIBER: "Disillusionment." And I decided - all of these decisions came at about the same time - both Mike and myself were getting tired of writing for the market. And also the market was changing to a point where a lot of stuff that we liked to write was not going down, was not happening. A lot of the groups from England were happening, a lot of that other stuff was happening, Kennedy got killed. And the stuff we were doing was kind of fading from the scene. And we both wanted to write some material that was more adult and more theatrical.
So I was reading this story by Mann, and the thread in it was this kind of terrible, negative thing. But it had, at the same time, a parallel line that was very Germanic and very funny. So I felt I'd like to try to translate this material. At least the feel of it, the sense of it. And I wondered if it would work. And I did a lot of work on the lyric, and I gave Mike the material. And we usually always, as you know, worked together, on whatever we were doing, simultaneously, and on this piece I just handed him a lyric -
STOLLER: The original, the vignettes, you handed me on a piece of paper.
LEIBER: I gave him the song, and he took it home. And he had written, on his own, without lyrics, a refrain. And I came in the next day, and we hassled over who would play it first.
I said, "Let me play it first, because then lyrics come first before the music."
He said something like, "Not in this case," and it was another argument.
Then he played the melody. And I was in shock. [Sings refrain]
STOLLER: I wanted to play it first, because I thought he would love it. And I wanted to play it so he would be inclined to adjust his lyric to it, rather than me having to tear my beautiful new tune apart to his lyrics. I wanted to get there first for that reason. But fortunately, neither of us had to adjust.
The lyric is so beautifully constructed -, with the repeating refrain tying together disparate subjects: first a fire, then the circus, then love, and then life --
LEIBER: That last one is suicide. "If that's the way she feels about it, why doesn't she just end it all? Oh, no, not me." Oh, you want another secret about that? In Peggy Lee's version she sings, "If that's the way she feels about it, why doesn't she just end it all? Oh no, not me, I'm not ready for that final disappointment." Which is wrong. And which changes to some degree the meaning of the song which was intended. By one word. And that's a great lesson in writing anything. One word can change it quite a bit. And that is, "If that's the way she feels about it. Oh no, not me, I'm in no hurry for that final disappointment." Which is the joke. I'm not ready for that final disappointment - is not a joke.
But she insisted on singing 'ready,' because I think she felt that it founded more natural. And she missed the point.
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Interesting you started the song with a description of a fire, which can be both beautiful and disastrous -
LEIBER: It can be very dangerous and uncontrollable.
What brought you to start there?
LEIBER: I never know what brings me to think of anything. I'm not one of those writers who gets an idea from looking at something. The words, the ideas, I don't know where they come from.
STOLLER: We made a demo of it, and Jerry brought it to Peggy. She said, "This is my life story." She said, "I was in a fire like that."
LEIBER: She said, "You wrote this for me. I know it. And if you give it to anyone else, I don't know what I'm gonna do." And she was convinced, on some mystical level, she wasn't joking, she thought that was true.
It is a perfect song for her.
LEIBER: But we really wrote it for Lotte Lenye.
STOLLER: Oh, that's a lotta Lenya… [Laughter]
LEIBER: I like that.
STOLLER: You got it. [Laughs]
LEIBER: Leslie Uggams recorded it first. Mike wanted to test the arrangement out, really, that's the truth. We both knew that she wasn't really appropriate. But we couldn't get anybody -
STOLLER: But we didn't have anybody ready to record it.
LEIBER: Yeah, some record. I would have done it with Mae West. In fact, she made a record for us. She did the Elvis Presley Christmas song that we told you about.
STOLLER: "Santa Claus Is Back In Town."
LEIBER: And it's pretty good.
STOLLER: It's funny. [Imitates her] "Christmas, oh… Christmas, oh…" That's the way it starts. [Laughs]
LEIBER: I love the record. That's one of my favorites. And of all the "Kansas City" records, out of all those great stars - Little Richard, Joe Williams, you name it. I think the best take is Little Milton. You've got to hear it.
STOLLER: For me it's Joe Williams.
LEIBER: Well, I mean, it's Joe Williams for me, too.
What was it about the Joe Williams record that made it the best?
LEIBER: It's really what it oughta be.
STOLLER: The intention. It was, finally, the intention of a real kind of Kansas City blues-jazz feel.
LEIBER: It was stylistically perfect. A lot of people who did it before did it as kind of a country, semi-country version, semi-big city blues. Tiny Bradshaw.
STOLLER: Or dropped most of the tune and just shouted.
And that was what the Beatles did, in your opinion?
STOLLER: Well, the Beatles copied Little Richard's record. The Beatles' version is good, but it isn't what I wrote. It doesn't have the melody that I liked. The first record was Little Willie Littlefield in 1952. And the other weird thing about it, if you want to talk about something mystical, was that this one has a certain mysticism in my mind: Jerry and I were meeting at his townhouse in New York. We both lived on the east side, then. I lived on 17th Street, he lived on 72nd in brownstones. I went up to work with him, and I said, "Remember that old song 'Kansas City'? That would really be a great song for Joe Williams and Count Basie."
And he said, "Yeah, yeah, I can see that." He said, "I'll pick up the phone and call Teddy Reig at Roulette Records," because Teddy Reig produced all of the Basie stuff there at Roulette. So he placed a call - it was a Friday, I think - and left a message.
And Monday the trades came out, and they had a pick. And the pick was "Kansas City" by Wilbur Harrison. Plus three other cover records mentioned. And we had not had a cover in seven years. We were just thinking of the song [laughs] and on Monday, it came out as the big pick hit of the week. And this is after seven years.
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LEIBER: And that was a big hit. It went to Number One. I still can't figure it out.
STOLLER: He remembered the song, Little Willie's record. Which was originally called "K.C. Loving," though the lyrics were the same. And I always thought Ralph Bass screwed up the possibility of a hit by calling it "K.C. Loving" instead of "Kansas City" because he thought it was hip.
Of all the great writers of classic rock and roll songs, such as Little Richard and Chuck Berry, there's not one who also has written songs like "Is That All There Is?" Your stylistic range is amazing.
LEIBER: Well, it's obvious that we're just geniuses. [Laughs]
I know you're joking, but it's true.
STOLLER: He's not joking.
So you wrote the melody for the refrain of "Is That All There Is?" as just pure melody, with no lyric idea at all?
STOLLER: That's true. But I knew the subject matter from the vignettes. Each one of which ends with "Is that all there is…" And although I didn't specifically, consciously, write the melody as "Is that all there is" -
LEIBER: He wasn't writing to a lyric, he was just writing notes that obviously sounded -
STOLLER: That felt right to me.
LEIBER: And I came in with the lyric, syllable for syllable.
And it actually matched perfectly - you didn't have to change a single word?
LEIBER: Not at all.
That's amazing.
LEIBER: It is amazing.
On the song "Stand Be Me," Ben E. King has writing credit with you. Did he write it with you?
STOLLER: Yeah.
LEIBER: Yes.
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There's been countless instances of singers getting their name on a song without really writing it, a tradition that dates back to Jolson and certainly extends to modern times.
STOLLER: There has been, but not in this instance.
LEIBER: We were scheduled to have a rehearsal with Ben E. King, and Mike and I got there early, and a couple of other guys were in this rehearsal -
STOLLER: I have a totally different memory. Go ahead.
LEIBER: -- were in this rehearsal hall. We had a small auditorium in a junior high school with a piano. Ben E. came in and "Hi, hello," you know. And he said, "Hey man, guess what? I wrote a song." Ben E. was not a songwriter. A very good performer, but not a songwriter. And he went [sings softly, to the tune of "Stand By Me"], "When the night has come and the land is dark and the moon is the only light we'll see… I won't cry, I won't cry…" He said, "That's all I wrote."
I said, "That's pretty good. You want me to finish it for you? You want me and Mike to do it?"
He said, "Oh, yeah, man, that would be great." So Mike and I finished it. And Mike put that incredible bass line on it. And when I heard that bass pattern, I said, "That's it. That's a hit." And I didn't do much predicting of hits. But I knew that was in there. I also knew "Hound Dog" by Big Mama Thornton was a hit. And "Kansas City" by Wilbur Harrison. Which I wasn't crazy about, but I knew it was a hit.
And we started writing "Stand By Me." And it became what it became.
Did the two of you take it away from Ben E. and work on it on your own?
LEIBER: No, we finished it right there. Like we did most of the stuff. We did it there. I mean, these were not assignments that you took home and worried over for a week or two or three or a month. These were hot off the griddle, and we always felt that way, that when they were hot they were more effective and more attractive.
So he had a melody and lyrics.
LEIBER: He had the first few lines and the beginning of a melody.
Did he have the chorus?
LEIBER: Yeah, I think he did have it. Because it was only one phrase, one line. But he said he couldn't get the rest of the lyrics. He's not a songwriter, but he came up with something pretty good. A couple of sentences and a hunk of the refrain, or maybe all of the refrain.
STOLLER: As I remember, it was in our own office. We had an office on 57th Street. And Jerry and Ben E. were fooling around with the lyric on "Stand By Me."
LEIBER: And then you came up with the bass pattern.
STOLLER: And I came in. Ben E. was singing it in the key of A. And I sat down at the piano and I just felt this bass pattern, and I started working on a bass pattern, and within five minutes I had the bass pattern, which is the bass pattern of the song, and is a big part of it. And in the orchestration, it starts with bass and guitar, and it goes into strings playing it, and it builds up, and this pattern is from beginning to end. But Jerry was working with Ben E. on it, and I think most of the melody of the tune is Ben E.'s. I wrote the bottom part. Which is kind of a signature of the song.
LEIBER: The bass pattern.
STOLLER: [Sings bass line]. "Boom-boom, boom-boom-boom, boom, boom-boom-boom, boom…"
It's in A, and has that beautiful shift of chords to the VI chord, the F#minor - did you invent that, or -
STOLLER: It's kind of implied. I thought it, to me, it was implied. I think the melody may have shifted a little with the chords I was using. But it's basically his.
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And he was just singing it a cappella?
STOLLER: Yeah.
John Lennon, years later, made a famous record of it. Also in the key of A. Did you like his version?
STOLLER: Yeah. It was a different kind. But it still had the bass pattern. It wasn't like the difference between Big Mama and Elvis. It was the same song, it just had a very different feel. But it was legitimate. It felt right. It felt good, also.
LEIBER: It was too fast.
Lennon's was too fast?
LEIBER: Yeah. It felt too fast.
STOLLER: It was stiffer. It was definitely a stiffer feel.
LEIBER: Ben E.'s was more syncopated.
LEIBER & STOLLER: [Sing rhythmic bass patterns of both in unison, in which Lennon's is straight-time, and Ben E.'s is more fluid and syncopated.]
STOLLER: That's really the difference.
LEIBER: Unison! Did you hear that unison?
STOLLER: It felt good, I like it.
LEIBER: It felt white. That's what we're trying to say. And as Mike said, it's somewhat stiffer. It doesn't really have that loop in it.
"Stand By Me" is a phenomenal song. It's got a beautiful melody but it's also visceral. It's a rock song but it's a ballad. It's got everything.
STOLLER: But, you know, it was a hit when it came out. But when it came to be this wedding song and this everything song is when Rob Reiner made this movie.
I met Rob at a party, and he insisted on singing all of the Leiber & Stoller songs. And he insisted I go to the piano while he sang. And he called me up months later and said, "I have this movie. It's called The Body. And it's been in the can for a while, and I like it. The Body is the right title for it. But it's not good, because it's based on a short-story by Stephen King, and people will think it's a horror film. It's really a coming-of-age movie. So I want to call it `Stand By Me.'"
I said, "Great! Be my guest."
And then I thought about it and I called him back. This was 1986. The record came out in '61. And I said, "Hey, who do you think we can get to record it and put it into your film?"
And he said, "We talked about that. But I view this movie as a period film. So I'd like to go with the original record."
I said, "We produced the original record." So it wasn't that I wasn't flattered, but it was that I thought that, well, this'll be an album cut, and if we got Tina Turner [laughs], or somebody else to do it, it might become a hit. And it did become a hit again. The same record. Nothing was done to it.
LEIBER: I couldn't make heads or tails out of that choice. I thought it had nothing to do with that movie at all. And I still think so. I think he was in love with the record and the song, and -
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STOLLER: Hey - listen -
LEIBER: - and he wanted it in his movie. And the movie was about a dead body in the woods. And what does "Stand By Me" have to do with that, with children in the movie, what -
STOLLER: Whatever it is, I am so grateful to him. Because it became -
LEIBER: Yeah. A monster hit.
STOLLER: I think people liked the song [when it first was released], but it didn't become that powerful. It became a much bigger hit 25 years later. Which is really great. I mean, five years, maybe. But 25 years?
Donald Fagen did a version of your song "Ruby Baby" -
STOLLER: Yeah, I love that arrangement.
He took your chords and extended them
LEIBER: Yeah. And he did a terrific job. The original "Ruby Baby" was - Dion.
STOLLER: No, Dion's wasn't first. The first was The Drifters. Nesuhi Ertugun recorded it in 1954. But I love Dion's record. And I love Donald Fagen's record. [Claps syncopated drum rhythm from the Dion record.]
I'd like to ask you about the song "Spanish Harlem." The story goes that Phil Spector wanted to write a song with you for a long time, and he came over and had a chord pattern which he played you --
LEIBER: No. He didn't have anything.
What happened is that Phil had bothered me for three months, four months, to write a song with him, and I didn't want to do it for a couple of reasons. And the main reason is that Mike and I had sort of a tacit understanding that we were exclusive partners. A number of people wanted to write with Mike and a number of people wanted to write with me, and we just didn't. And [Phil] wanted to write with me, and he was signed to us. Lester Sill [their music publisher] sent Phil Spector to us. For safe keeping. Did a bad job. Lester called me up one day, and said, "Jer, I got a kid out here who's really talented. And he's nuts about you guys, he worships the ground you walk on."
I said, "Well, be careful, watch out. That's usually dangerous. Why do you hate me so much? I never did anything to you."
He said, "He wants to come out and work for you guys."
I said, "Lester, that's like fattening frogs for snakes. Why should we take Phil Spector in and teach him everything we know so that he can go out and compete with us? Who the hell needs that? Let him go find out for himself."
He said, "Jer, you owe me real big. Do me a favor. Take him on for six months or a year. You don't have to sign him to five years or anything like that. And let him hang out with you, in the studio, and let him observe what you do."
So I said, "Okay. Will do."
He said, "By the way, will you send me the fare for a one-way ticket?"
And I went to Mike and told him what had happened, and he said, "Do it." So I did it. And [Spector] was with us for three or four or five or six months. And he wanted to come over and work on a song with us.
I was somewhat annoyed because he was supposed to come over at 6:30 and he came over at 5:00. Mike was supposed to come over at 6:30 to work with us. He came over while my kids were having dinner. They were just finishing up. They went, and we were sitting there talking, smoking, having a drink. I got a call from Mike, and he said, "I'm terribly sorry, but I can't make it."
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STOLLER: The problem was that we had been working on some other things, and some studio stuff, and I hadn't had dinner with my kids in weeks. And my wife said to me, "When are you going to see your children?" I cancelled out because I wanted to have dinner with my kids. So I called Jerry after dinner -
LEIBER: After your dinner?
STOLLER: After my dinner.
LEIBER: What time was that?
STOLLER: Well, it might have been 8:30.
LEIBER: That late? No, it couldn't be, not with children, it couldn't have been 8:30.
STOLLER: Oh, we ate later.
LEIBER: Really?
STOLLER: Or maybe it was not only after dinner, but after bedtime stories and all of that. I called and they said, "We finished writing the song." And I said, "Fine."
LEIBER: Both versions could use some examining. But that's of no consequence. As far as I was concerned, I waited and waited for Mike to come over, and he didn't and then he finally called. And in that time I wrote "Spanish Harlem" with Phil.
What actually happened was that I had this collection of LPs that were related to Spanish themes. I had Segovia and I had Rhapsody Espanol. I had one by Ravel. And I had this idea, "There is a rose in Spanish Harlem, a red rose up in Spanish Harlem…" I told them the sentences. And he started to play a melody that was like Jeff Barry rock and roll. [Sings the lyrics to a rock groove.] Sort of jazzy and wrong.
I said, "Let me play you some stuff that is in the right bag." And I played him two or three of those pieces. And he has a good ear, and he picked up something in there. I think he ever picked up a three or four-bar lick in one of the pieces that were in the strings. And we wrote it together.
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That's completely different than stories I've read, which stated specifically that he came to you with some music, and you picked up on the Spanish flavor in his music, and were inspired to write this lyric.
LEIBER: All the stories about Phil Spector, almost all of them, are distorted and wrong. Almost all of them.
Did you have that idea - about the rose in Spanish Harlem - before working with Spector?
LEIBER: Yeah. Absolutely. It was a quatrain in search of a melody.
But you never brought it to Mike-
LEIBER: It wasn't in enough shape to bring it to anybody. I mean, I don't come in with two lines.
Those are great opening lines. It's visual, it sets the scene, like "Kansas City," there's a sense of place -
LEIBER: It's nice. It's not special. "There is a rose in Spanish Harlem, a red rose up in Spanish Harlem…" Big deal.
I'd say it is special.
LEIBER: "It's growing in the street right up through the concrete" is a special line. But not those opening lines. They're rather ordinary.
STOLLER: I agree with Paul.
When you were writing your rock & roll songs, did you ever consider that they could become standards?
STOLLER: No, we thought all the standards had already been written. Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, the Gershwins. And those are still great standards, but now they refer to them as the Great American Songbook. And they're putting them in a package as if they are old. Well, they are old. But it's separate from any new works. Just about.
LEIBER: We thought our songs would just disappear after they were on the charts. We didn't think that they had any staying power like the old standards. We didn't think they were as good and specific. A lot of them were comic, and not serious love songs. For a number of years we had trouble writing love songs. Then we fell out of love and it was easy to write love songs. [Laughter]
STOLLER: I think we were, and probably to some degree, still are, in awe of the writers I mentioned before.
As songwriters today are in awe of you.
LEIBER: If they are, I wish they would remember to tell us that more often. [Laughter]
STOLLER: I'd say most writers today don't know who we are.
If they don't, they certainly know your songs.
STOLLER: Yes, that they do.
LEIBER: I'd say that's true. •
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