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[0:00] Robert W. Schneider: Hi, I'm Rob Schneider.

[0:01] Kevin David Thomas: And I'm Kevin David Thomas. And this is BEHIND THE CURTAIN, Broadway's Living Legends. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter at Broadway Curtain, and make sure to join our Facebook page at BEHIND THE CURTAIN, Broadway's Living Legends, and follow us on Instagram at Broadway Curtain Podcast. Plus, you can always listen to all of our episodes, old and new, on the Broadway Podcast Network, iTunes, and Spotify.

[0:24] Robert W. Schneider: Today's guest is one of the most prolific lyricists working in theater today. For over 50 years, his words have not only brought vivid life to the musicals he has created, many of his song titles have entered the cultural lexicon. You do not have to be a musical theater maven to have sprinkled your conversation with, "Don't Cry for Me Argentina," "One Night in Bangkok," "Can You Feel the Love Tonight," and so many more. His stage works include Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cricket, The Likes of Us, Chess, Blondel, which I have the LP in the other room, Tycoon, Beauty and the Beast, Aida, From Here to Eternity, and his film works include All Time High, From Octopussy, Aladdin, The Lion King, The Road to El Dorado, and countless others.

To tell us what it was like to work with such legends as Elaine Page, Hal Prince, Alan Menken, Andrew Lloyd Webber, ABBA, Elton John, and so many others, here is EGOT winner Sir Tim Rice. Sir Tim, how are you today?

[1:15] Tim Rice: I'm fine, thank you very much.

[1:22] Robert W. Schneider: We are so happy to have you on, and Sir Tim, please tell our listeners you also have a podcast now, is that correct?

[1:27] Tim Rice: Yes, I began it in lockdown, and I'm on week seven, and once a week I'm doing a 20-minute chat about aspects of my long and murky career, and I'm trying to play one or two songs with it, but on the whole, songs that aren't incredibly well known, which makes a change. I mean, if you want to go in here, don't crack me up, Argentina, and I'd be amazed if you do. It's pretty easy to find, but I'm quite enjoying reminiscing about one or two past things, not all triumphant by any means, and playing the odd new song, so tune in. It's called Get Onto My Cloud, tribute to the Rolling Stones.

[2:08] Robert W. Schneider: I love that, Get Onto My Cloud, so listeners, go ahead and subscribe. Kevin, do you have the album in front of you, or is it in the other room, you said?

[2:17] Kevin David Thomas: It's in the other room right now. I wish I... I'll grab it a little bit later, but I have the Blondel album, and I love it. It's fantastic.

[2:24] Tim Rice: Well, it's quite fun. We keep hoping we can, you know, do that show again, and one day we will. I mean, it's done occasionally in amateur groups and schools, but it would be nice to do a sort of proper fun version with, you know, professional actors.

[2:38] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, yes, yes, yes. So, Tim, where did this love of music come from?

[2:43] Tim Rice: Well, I think my love of music came from a very young age, and it was really through 45 RPM single records. I don't know if you remember them. They were round black things with a hole in the middle, and you put them on a thing called a record player, and a needle played them. It was extraordinary, and in fact, before then, it was 78s, the breakable shellac, and I was just getting interested in music when Elvis got going, and his first records came out primarily on 78. They were on 45 as well, but I would say that his sales for Heartbreak Hotel were almost as much as on 78 as 45, certainly in England, but I just loved rock and roll and pop music, and I liked theatre music very much, but I'd hardly ever been to the musical theatre.

My parents had a lot of great soundtrack and original cast albums of all the great shows, so I knew these songs pretty well. Carousel, Oklahoma, South Pacific, My Fair Lady, all those great shows, King and I, and one or two slightly less well-known English ones, like Grab Me a Gondola, which was very well known, and I loved Gilbert and Sullivan, so although I didn't know anything about musical theatre as such, I knew the songs, and it was purely, I mean, my parents were not that musical, funnily enough. They were more literary, and they were quite happy with me borrowing their LPs, but I'm not sure they were completely into Elvis and Chuck Berry.

[4:11] Kevin David Thomas: And what did they do for a living, if you don't mind me asking?

[4:14] Tim Rice: I don't at all. My father was mainly in the aviation business. He worked for a company called De Havilland, the De Havilland Aircraft Company, who eventually became part of Hawker Siddeley, and basically they made aeroplanes since way before the war, and he worked at Hatfield in Hertfordshire at their headquarters, and my mum was a freelance writer. It was a kind of sideline because, frankly, she spent most of her time bringing up three rowdy kids, and she wrote a lot of articles for newspapers like The Times. She did one or two talks on the BBC, and she wrote a lot of short stories, usually under different names, sort of romantic, Mills and Boone-type stuff. But it was a hobby, and it didn't make her a fortune, but it certainly paid the way, paid for a few bills.

[5:11] Kevin David Thomas: And what were the Aardvarks?

[5:11] Tim Rice: The Aardvarks were a pop group I had at school, formed in 1960, I think, and it was just a group of us at boarding school, and we formed a group. We were pretty awful to begin with, and we weren't much better when we finished, but we played at school concerts and school dances, and our heroes were Cliff Richard and the Shadows, who don't really mean a lot, or Cliff does probably, but the Shadows were absolutely brilliant, his backing group. Cliff and the Shadows were the biggest act in popular music in Britain, or the biggest British act, but he was as big as Elvis, in a way, in the UK. And we used to do all the Cliff Richard numbers and play them at school dances, and I used to sing, and we had one guy who was really good on the guitar, and he kind of held the whole thing together.

[6:05] Kevin David Thomas: And is that what you thought you were going to do for the rest of your life?

[6:10] Tim Rice: No, I wish I had thought that, because I might have made a bit of an effort to try and do it, but I felt that as a respectable middle-class chap in the United Kingdom, I should probably do something respectable, like law, and I went into the law. Well, first I had six months in Paris at the Sorbonne, brushing up my French, allegedly, and I went to be an article clerk, was the term in England, to a firm of lawyers, and I failed my exams. So, after about two years of failing to become a lawyer, or failing to even get on the bottom rung of becoming a lawyer, I decided that, as my only interest really still was popular music and the business of it, I knew all the labels, all the artists, everything.

I managed to get a job at EMI Records, a very humble job, but EMI were the biggest record company in the world at that stage, based in England, but they had all the great artists, they had The Beatles, and they had Cliff Richard in The Shadows, and they had The Hollies, and The Animals, and Manfred Mann, and all the many, many groups of the British Invasion, but before that, they had great artists, you know, going way, way back over the years, who'd been successful, you know, from the 50s and 60s, and a lot of classical records, and they had the deal for Capitol, they owned Capitol Records, so they had Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and all that lot, and they had Tamla Motown in England, so they were a big outfit. They had the Beatles.

[7:34] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, wow.

[7:34] Tim Rice: You name it, they had it, and working in a record company was just heaven to me, and I mean, I was a very lowly management trainee, to be given that.

[7:42] Kevin David Thomas: And what did you think the eventual goal was going to be from this job?

[7:45] Tim Rice: I thought probably by about 2020, I would have just retired, having been head of EMI in Mexico City or something.

[7:52] Kevin David Thomas: It sounds like you loved it, though. It sounds like it was exactly what you were looking for, you know, at that time period.

[7:57] Tim Rice: I mean, it's much more fun being in an office where listening to records was something you should be doing.

[8:02] Kevin David Thomas: Right.

[8:06] Tim Rice: You could not be doing. Of course, in those days, there were no Walkman or, you know, personal stereos. There was no internet, nothing, none of that, so you could only listen to stuff on a record player, on the radio, and you couldn't, I mean, headphones barely existed, so it was something that, in the lawyer's office, you could not secretly be listening to the Beach Boys, but in EMI, you should not be not listening to the Beach Boys.

[8:33] Kevin David Thomas: You've got to be up to date on your knowledge, yeah.

[8:36] Tim Rice: Were your parents supportive?

[8:39] Tim Rice: I think they were a bit worried when I didn't succeed in the law, but they weren't worried because they thought, you know, I ought to. They were worried that I was in the wrong job, and they were really very supportive. I mean, I kind of went into the law because I didn't go. I took a conscious decision not to go to university. I can't remember why. I think it was sort of, I just thought, I don't really want to go. Which might have been a wrong decision at the time, but in practice, it worked out really well for me, because if I had gone, I probably wouldn't have learnt fairly early on to get a job like in EMI, and I would never have met Andrew Lloyd Webber. I mean, I might have done, but, you know, who knows?

[9:18] Kevin David Thomas: What was the first lyric, if you remember, that you ever put down onto paper, and what was the inspiration to become a lyricist?

[9:26] Tim Rice: Well, I wrote a few, I mean, as a kid, I must have written a few terrible poems and this and the other. I always like writing things, but the first lyric I ever wrote, and I wrote the tune, believe it or not, I wrote a song called That's My Story, which was a sort of three chord, or four chord if you count D seventh, a three chord pop song, and it was okay. I mean, there were a lot of three chord mega hits in those days, and still are, today, they don't know about one chord, but it was, while I was trying to be a law student, or trying to be a lawyer, I still had this hankering to sing with groups, and I did occasionally sing with one or two pop groups people I knew, or break into an act somewhere.

I mean, all totally private parties was nothing remotely approaching fame or fortune, but I used to send, I sent a tape around of my voice, and because I didn't want my voice to be compared unfavorably with other singers who'd done the same song, I mean, I thought if I sing It's Not Unusual, or It's All Over Now, they're going to say this is not as good as Tom Jones or Mick Jagger, but if I do my own song, which I wasn't really what I was trying to do, I wasn't trying to be a songwriter, then nobody can say so-and-so did it better, because I would be the only person who'd done it, but funnily enough, nobody, none of the record companies liked me or my voice, but one company liked the song and sent it to a music publisher who got it recorded by a group, which wasn't a hit, but I had my name on a record, and that was about the time I was thinking maybe I should get out of the law, because I've actually made a minuscule mark. I've got onto the bottom rung of the ladder.

[11:16] Kevin David Thomas: And that was where your, sounds like where your heart was too. I mean, you were doing law, but your passion was...

[11:19] Tim Rice: Yeah, yeah. I wrote two or three songs, and That's My Story was the one that got recorded, and then I met Andrew, so, and he was already, he was much more set. He was determined to, you know, be Richard Rodgers or Lionel Bart.

[11:31] Kevin David Thomas: And you met him because of your job at EMI?

[11:38] Tim Rice: Not really, no. It's interesting because, well, it's interesting to me. I was trying to do lots of other things. I mean, I was still basically a failed law student, but I had this idea for a book on the history of the pop charts, and I took that to a book publisher who my mother knew, and he said, well, no, it's not a very good idea, which he was wrong, because in the end, my brother and I and Paul Giammachini did the book called The Guinness Book of Hit Singles, which was massive, and people love lists. We knew this, publishers didn't, and we were also very interested. This was, this was 1965, so...

[12:19] Tim Rice: Music as something to be studied wasn't quite it. It was still so new; it was regarded as something that you would give up when you're 21 rather than a new art form. My dad used to say, "Well, you know, it's all very well with Elvis and the Stones and all that," he said, "but when you're 20 or 21, you'll get fed up with it." And I thought, "I've only got two more years of liking it; this is very worrying." I believed him, but the publisher didn't like the book idea, and I played him my record. So what else do you do? I said, "Well, I've written this record," and I played the night shift scene; that's my story. He said, "I don't like that either." But he said, "I do know a young man who wants to write for the theater, and maybe you'd be interested in that."

And I said, "Oh yes, definitely." I mean, I was keen to do anything at that point; I was 19. He gave me Andrew's phone number and address, and I went around and met Andrew. Andrew had already written about five musicals; he'd written them at school. He'd just left school, and he was clearly very talented. He said, "Would you like to write the words for this musical I've been writing with a friend at school, but he's leaving; he doesn't want to do that anymore, so I've got to start again." I said, "Fine," and that was "The Likes of Us," which got nowhere, but it got us together and made us realize we could work together.

[13:36] Tim Rice: Well, they eventually recorded it. I think it was funny; it was recorded. There's a double CD of it which we recorded in 2005, and it actually sounds quite good. I rather like it. We haven't got the book; the storyline was pretty thin, and Andrew's original—I don't think Andrew wrote it, but I mean the original structure of the show—other tunes were great, and some of the words were okay, but the tunes were really good. It was a very old-fashioned musical; it was very like "Oliver." Nothing wrong in that; "Oliver" is one of the best shows ever written, but we hadn't really found a style. I mean, I hadn't found a style at all because I never thought I'd be writing for a show.

[14:27] Kevin David Thomas: It's your first time. Now that you've written so many songs, what do you know now that you wished you had known then when you first started writing "The Likes of Us"?

[14:33] Tim Rice: Wow, well, I think it would have helped if—I mean, what I do know now, and whether or not that would have been a good idea if I had come in and said to Andrew, "This is what I know," I know that if you want to get off the ground with a show, you're probably better doing something which is funny or at least light-hearted, not too expensive to produce, and something which will appeal to a fairly wide audience. These are all things which "Joseph" had, but we didn't consciously think that when we wrote "Joseph." I get lots of musicals sent to me, and some of them have got good tunes in them, good songs, but they tend to be—an awful lot of them are about rather depressing topics, like suffering, serious topics which need to be thought about, but you know, mental health or problems in society, fine.

But I think if you want to get yourself into a position where you can write those things and be heard, it's easier if you can do it to get going with something that is funny. Being funny and entertaining is just as important, in my view, as probing tragedy.

[15:47] Tim Rice: Of course, part of the great tapestry. The other thing I did not know when I was writing "The Likes of Us," I don't think Andrew did either, really, was that the book, the story, is the most important thing. I was writing the words; he was writing the music. We didn't really have a proper book, and a very distinguished writer called Leslie Thomas was brought in to give it a go, but I think he realized that fitting the songs that we had done into something coherent wasn't really going to work. We never really ended up with a decent book, but I now know that if you have a musical with a good story and a so-so score, that's got a good shot. A musical with a great score and a dire story probably won't make it. You've got to get the story, and obviously, the songs should be—or the music and the lyrics should be part of that story, and I didn't know that then.

[16:49] Kevin David Thomas: What prompted you to then continue on writing another musical and another musical and another musical?

[16:55] Tim Rice: Well, we wrote "The Likes of Us." Andrew had already written great chunks of it, and the publisher, a chap called Desmond Elliott, sort of took us on as agents. He was a brilliant book publisher, but to be honest, he wasn't really a big cheese in the theater world. That didn't really matter, I guess. What the problem with "The Likes of Us" was, it just wasn't quite good enough. It was nearly good enough. People who listened to it said, "Yeah," and I think what other people said rather tactfully was, "Well, you know, that's great, but maybe you should try something else." You know, "You two guys, we think you've got something; I'm not sure what, but maybe you'd be okay if you tried something else."

We thought, "Oh no, 'The Likes of Us' is brilliant, and this is going to be a big hit in the West End and then Broadway, blah blah blah." We were still believing that when a schoolmaster approached us out of the blue. I mean, he was a friend of Andrew's family, and he said, "While you're waiting for West End and Broadway, which obviously is going to happen next week, but while you're waiting for that, could you write something for my kids?" He'd heard our demos of "The Likes of Us" because we had this demo LP, and it didn't sound too bad. I mean, I've still got it, and I've played it occasionally.

[18:13] Tim Rice: But what really got us going, as I'm sure you know, was "Joseph." It was the fact that we still thought "The Likes of Us" had mileage when we were writing "Joseph," which we thought was just a throwaway thing for a school. But when "Joseph" began to take off, it got us proper management. We then thought—I mean, "The Likes of Us" sort of faded away.

[18:28] Kevin David Thomas: When you say it began to take off, how did it go from being this—I mean, I know much has been written about it, but you know, to hear from you, how did it go from being a school production?

[18:34] Tim Rice: Well, it was a long story and quite a slow one in a way. We wrote a song a week for Alan Doggett, who was the teacher, and the kids loved every song. The funnier we made them and the more wonderful catchy tunes that Andrew came up with, the more they loved it. We did a school concert; it was only about 25 minutes long at that point, and the mums and dads loved it, which is unusual apparently for school concerts. We were encouraged to do it again and try and get a bit of publicity, and we did it in a big hall in London. We took it out of the school, got all the school involved, so we had a built-in audience of mums and dads, and we did a few ads. We brought in a few people; I mean, it wasn't to sell out by any means, but one of those performances, or that it was the second performance ever of the show, got a rave review in the London Sunday Times, which we hadn't invited anybody to review that. I mean, that's crazy.

[19:50] Tim Rice: Well, the guy who—yes, in my view, because it was a rave—he said he went along. He's a guy called Derek Jewel, and we owe Derek a lot. I mean, sad to say, he's long since died, but a lovely man. He kind of spotted "Joseph," and he said, "This is—you know, he'd come along because his son was in the school choir." We didn't know that; we didn't know which one his son was. Anyway, his son must have been, I'm guessing, 9, 10, 11, and Derek came along, and we had no idea who he was or we didn't know he was there. But the next week in the Sunday Times, there was a column—his music column began with a rave review of "Joseph," quoting some of the lyrics and saying, "These two guys, you should look out for them."

[20:25] Tim Rice: And then that, you know, having tried with the school concert and writing letters to music publishers and educational book companies saying, "This is something good for schools," having no interest, when that Sunday Times review came out, suddenly we were being pestered. We had a record deal offered, and we had a publishing deal. "Joseph" got going very slowly, and we then put a record out about six months later of the entire show. We wrote a couple of new songs to bring it up to 30, 35 minutes, or it was still quite short. The record got wonderful reviews and didn't hit the pop charts really, but people began to take an interest. We got one or two covers on the songs. An English entertainer who was very popular called Max Bygraves had a big hit with it in Australia with one of the songs, and it was clear that this piece—and we had something, even though it hadn't made us any money.

But what it did get us was decent management, and Andrew sent the album to a philanthropist who was backing—he was a property man, but he was backing pop stars and musical theater. He loved show business, and he hadn't really had much luck in that department.

[21:43] Tim Rice: But he brought in a lovely man called David Land to sort out his investment in music, and Andrew sent Sefton Myers—was his name. Andrew had sent Sefton this album of "Joseph," and Sefton gave it to David and said, "What do you think of this?" David said, "Get rid of everybody else you've got on your books; just pay them off and stick with these two guys." And we did a deal. At this point, I had a job with EMI. I'd actually left EMI, but I was with Nori Paramore, who'd also left EMI, and he took me as his PA. We were offered a deal which meant I had to give up my job, which I did rather reluctantly because it was a bit of a gamble. But we were offered enough payment—£2,000 a year each. It was easily enough for me to give up my job, and we had three years guaranteed income from Sefton Myers and David Land, and we had to write something.

We were very lucky; "Joseph" hadn't made us any money at that point, but it had got us a record, which was a great calling card, and it got us decent management, and they backed us. It was a question of what are you guys going to do now.

[23:04] Tim Rice: The first thing we did was, funnily enough, a forerunner of "Blondel," which wasn't very good—another oratorio for schools, but it wasn't as good as "Joseph." My last podcast talks about how "Superstar" got going, and a friend of mine in the music business, who I'd mentioned—I mean, I'd had this idea for "Superstar," or not—it wasn't called "Superstar," but I had this idea of doing something about Judas Iscariot way, way back, way before I met Andrew. A music friend of mine, who I'd mentioned it to four or five years before, I'd forgotten about it almost. When I ran into him, because he was playing me a record from "Joseph" that he'd recorded a song from "Joseph," he said, "What happened to your idea about Judas Iscariot?"

I said, "Oh yeah, right, I've kind of forgotten about it." I said, "Yes, it was a good idea, but when I had the idea, I didn't have anybody anywhere doing it. I thought it might be a play or a book, and I'd done nothing about it. But now I had a chance to do it because Andrew was a great anti-composer. We were looking for a topic, and Andrew thought it was a great idea when I mentioned it to him, but why didn't you mention this before type thing? I forgot about it was the answer. We began working on "Superstar," but we couldn't get any theater people interested, so we had to make a record, and of course, we therefore created rather a good way of launching the show by mistake.

[24:31] Kevin David Thomas: Let's talk a little bit about your process, if we can. What is your preference? Do you come up with the lyric first, then the composer sets it, or you...

[25:08] Tim Rice: You don't have a rigid format. You can sit down and write something, and you can make the lines as long as you like, or you can have the rhyming pattern you like. Of course, once you've written verse one, then you've got to stick with that framework for verse two, three, and four. But of course, if you can't get verse two to work, you can just play around with verse one and et cetera, et cetera. So sometimes that can be easier, but there's a danger of being long-winded if you don't have a tune. The great thing about a lyric should be that it makes the point concisely if it can. If you've got a tune that already exists, as Alan Menken or Andrew prefer, then you've got to get your thought into nine syllables, or whatever it is.

And the emphasis has to be on the right beat of the syllables and this and the other. But in both cases, if you're talking theater, the key thing is to get the story right. If you haven't got a good story, you might as well forget it. I mean, I've never been very good at writing one-off pop songs because it's very hard to put myself into a position of writing a love song, say, when I don't quite know who the characters are, or any sort of song. Whereas if I'm writing for a lady on a balcony or for a warthog with wind problems, I know precisely what their problems are. Totally. And Eva Perón's problems and Pumbaa's problems were not identical.

[26:33] Tim Rice: And then when you write, do you lock yourself in an office and you're going to write down on a legal pad? Do you take long walks? When do you...? Most of the time, you or I sit down and it's like doing an essay at school. You've got to get handed in by five o'clock or whatever. Deadlines help. You've got somebody ringing you up saying, where's the words? But I think you can get inspiration. I mean, what I will do is I will go somewhere. I mean, I can't write with anybody else in the room and I can only write the only music I have on, obviously, is the tune I'm working to, if I have a tune. But of course, after a while, you don't need that because you've learned the tune, so you don't really need it.

So it is a solitary thing. But certainly, I would say, oh God, I've two hours, I can't listen. And I might go for a walk. I've got a very nice dog who takes me for walks. And that can clear the air occasionally. But you've got to really like the tune, and if there is a tune at that point, or you've got to like the story or both. I need the inspiration of something more than just the other half of the song.

[27:48] Tim Rice: Do you play the piano? Ish. I can play enough to keep me happy, but I can clear it pretty quickly when I sit down. Do you like having your composer in the room with you as you're crafting something? No, segregated. I don't like having my composer in the room, even if I'm just having a drink. No, that's not true. When I was with Andrew, when we wrote Evita, I wrote a lot of it at his house and also a lot of it in a hotel in France. We went away to write it. And what would happen is we would usually have a discussion. We'd say, right, this scene is so-and-so and I've got these tunes. And I'd say, that is, I think, the best of those tunes for this scene. And then I'd get the tune, usually put it on a cassette recorder or something.

Or I might have even got it in my head strongly enough. Then I'd go into the next room in his house or in the hotel or my room in the hotel and write it and then come back. But I couldn't write it if he was sitting there, whether he was reading the paper or playing the tune or whatever. But I might come back and say, look, I just can't get one line. Could you just sing what I've done and see, am I on the right lines? But a lot of the stuff was written without any direct contact at the time. I mean, as I said, we would be talking about the song. I'm talking about Andrew and Alan Menken now. I would then go away with the tune and then maybe come back with a finished lyric.

[29:22] Tim Rice: With Elton, it was pretty remote in a way because I would write the words and send them off to him. And he might be in anywhere, New Zealand or whatever. He's nearly always been on the road. And somehow within about two days, I would get a CD. I think we were just writing the CDs by the time we worked together. I'd get a CD back with a great vocal and singing my words, which is extraordinary. But we were never in the same room. Although having said that, I was in the studio when he wrote the tune to Circle of Life, which was a great experience. He was just in the studio and just came up with it? I was working with The Lion King. I was on the team pretty early on. And I had a meeting. The first meeting I had in Disney was me, the producer, the director who actually left the project and went on to something else.

And four or five people and one drawing of a wicked lion. There wasn't this vaguely probably going to be called King of the Jungle, which was a rotten title because there's no jungle in the story. And it was a very, very shaky start. And it might not have might never have happened. But gradually, we realized this was a good, good story and could work. And we once it was clear that the film was probably going to be Disney's next animated feature if we get the story dead right. They said to me, who would you like to write the music? And you can't have Alan Menken because he's working on Aladdin. And I said, well, you could try Benny Anderson, but I don't think he'll do it. I said, but I was going to say it's a toss up in a way between Benny and Elton, but I think Elton would be absolutely spot on for it. He's brilliant. You couldn't do better. I said, but you won't get him. I thought Elton might be interested. He'll be and also the deal won't be good enough.

[31:39] Tim Rice: Anyway, Elton rang me up a week later, which is great. He said, almost all the King of the Jungle. Then I said, well, it's a listen, it sounds great. And thank you so much for recommending me. But the deal is terrible. And I really can't afford to do it. I said, I fully understand. And then two days later, his manager rang up and said, when do we start? And I thought, ah, he's got a better deal than I have. But I was so excited because he would have been absolutely perfect. And it's because of you. And he was perfect. And well, he's always been very gracious and always thanked me for recommending him because it did give him a second string to his career. I mean, he's had four Broadway shows, which three have been big hits.

He's had, you know, film scores and things. I mean, of course, he didn't need it in one sense. But I think it introduced Lion King, for example, the album introduced him, obviously, all the Elton fans bought it. But a lot of people who were too young to be Elton fans bought it, you know, their kids or, you know, or five year olds loved it. And that was great.

[32:31] Tim Rice: And he wrote, I mean, getting onto the circle of life. I mean, yes, I, I've written the lyrics. We wrote quite a lot of songs that didn't make it, not necessarily because they were bad, but because the storyline changed and the plot changed. And I was very much involved with being part of the script team. My lyrics had to fit the script. And the thing about cartoons is you can axe a character, you can get rid of a giraffe who might have had a big number. And then the giraffe's agent ain't gonna complain. Whereas they can do whatever they want. So things kept changing. And suddenly, a song one had written for one character, or this, I'm terribly sorry, this, this character gets eaten in the second reel.

So he's not going to be singing that song. So we, we had a couple of goes, we, I did a lighthearted lyric for the circle of life originally, which we knew was going to be the title of the opening song. They liked the title. Right. And then I thought, no, it should be more, you know, be slightly more serious. And I said, Elton, the Disney guys love the second lyric, I sent it off to Elton. And I didn't send it off to Elton, I said, I've done the lyric. And when you're next to him in the studio, and actually, I hadn't quite finished it. And he said, Oh, I'm going in on Thursday. This is like Monday. And I said, Oh, well, I'll send it to you tomorrow. He said, No, no, no, just bring it along. So I thought, great, I've got three more days to finish it. And he was nearly finished.

[34:00] Tim Rice: And I went along to the studio in London, London studio in the middle of London. And there he was, he got there first things with his piano and with Guy Babylon, one of his one of his band, giving him different rhythms, you know, because he because he wasn't quite sure what sort of rhythm would best suit the song. And he saw the lyric, and he began singing the lyric over and over again. And I just listened in the control room. And in about an hour and a half, he wrote this wonderful tune. And at one point, he said halfway through, could I have one more line? Fine. And I said, on the path unwinding, which somehow worked. And it fit in perfectly. And it was just a great one of the great songs he's ever written, I think.

[34:45] Host: Yeah, oh, I quite agree. And of course, the words coming first. And I rather like the words coming first sometimes.

[34:49] Tim Rice: Yeah, it's weird for you.

[34:55] Host: Is there a song that you've created that for you feels like a great summation of your life philosophy, or a lyric that you've written?

[35:02] Tim Rice: Probably, which one would be side or you have to learn to live alone. These are rather slightly downer songs, you have to learn to live alone was from a show I wrote called Starmania, which but nobody's side. I mean, it's quite a few high flying adored. That was really written as much about when you make it, you suddenly think, oh, now what? Yes. I mean, but a lot of songs have a certain aspect of my experience in it. Some don't, I mean, pity the child doesn't. My mother never liked pity the child, because it was rather rude about the character's mother. Yeah. But a lot of people have said to me, gosh, that song really was something that I've been through. And I was very flattered by that. But I was putting myself into trying to put myself into the position of somebody who might be in that situation. And you obviously not every song you write is going to be your situation.

[36:00] Tim Rice: I mean, don't cry for me, Argentina, I have never stood on a balcony in a dress addressing 10,000 people in the public square. But you have to imagine what it would be like to do that. But I have witnessed a lot of, you know, pretty grisly political speeches, which sounds nice. But when you actually think about it, don't actually say anything. Don't cry for me, Argentina. Sounds beautiful. But she's not really saying anything that that's the idea. Some I mean, one critic said a terrible song. It's a string of clichés. I thought that's exactly what the point. Do you read it? Yes. Do you? We never thought that would be a hit single. I mean, that was extraordinary that it was out of context. It became a number one in England. And isn't that crazy? Yeah, it did. But if we'd sit down, if Andrew and I, if Andrew come up to me with his tune, which is a great time and said, let's write a song, I mean, write lyrics to this.

[37:27] Tim Rice: Hello, this is Audrey Hepburn. Welcome to Crackertown Dinner Theatre and Grill.

[37:44] Tim Rice: Audrey Hepburn, this is Ann Miller here, and I'm disgusted. What are you doing in a place like this? It's all I could get. I didn't know about Patreon.com. I didn't know you could go there to set up a monthly donation to keep going. Well, the boys at Behind the Curtain, Broadway's Living Legends, like me, they know, and their listeners do, too. They go there and set up a donation, and they donate all they can. Oh, Patreon, it's wonderful, but will you be having the prime rib or the chicken? I'll be having Patreon.

[38:21] Tim Rice: Now, we all have these, I think, in our lives, so I'm going to ask you, is there a song or a lyric that every time you hear it now, you go, oh my gosh, why did I do that? I wish I could go back. I wish I could fix this.

[38:33] Tim Rice: Well, there are odd lines in one or two songs, yes, definitely, but not, I mean, it sounds a bit arrogant, but not that many. In "High Flying Adore," there's an emphasis, when she sings at the end of the song, I don't know how well you know the song, it's in "Evita," when she sings, no one else can do it like I can, and it should be, is it do it? I can't remember what the line is now, but no one else can do it like, should be I can, and the emphasis on the tune is I can.

[39:05] Tim Rice: I can, yes.

[39:08] Tim Rice: One thing I'll say for me, no one else can do it like I can.

[39:12] Tim Rice: Fill it? No.

[39:13] Tim Rice: Fill it, fill it, that's it, well done.

[39:14] Tim Rice: Yeah, let's fill it.

[39:15] Tim Rice: You're married better than me.

[39:16] Tim Rice: We're talking about a gap, fill the gap, I was lucky, and if you spoke it, you'd say, no one else can fill it like I can, but when she sings it, it goes, no one else can fill it like I can.

[39:29] Tim Rice: You're right, completely, no one else, yeah, you wouldn't think to sing it with the emphasis on that.

[39:33] Tim Rice: Not many people have noticed it.

[39:36] Tim Rice: You're fine.

[39:37] Tim Rice: Certainly in "Joseph," and even in "Superstar," the one or two, in the early days, one or two not perfect rhymes, which I would not let through now, in "Any Dream Will Do," may I return to the beginning, the light is dimming, not quite right, but there again.

[39:52] Tim Rice: That's such a good lyric, who cares?

[39:54] Tim Rice: Well, thank you, but when I've tried to change lyrics in old songs, say, well, hang on, no, no, no, it's our favorite one, you can't change that, so.

[40:05] Tim Rice: Yeah, it's done, yeah.

[40:07] Tim Rice: But I don't think I would try and write a non-perfect rhyme now.

[40:16] Tim Rice: It's very out of "Chess," there's a lyric, you and I, which is a nice song, beautiful song, and I'm always, 2% thing, I shouldn't have had that title, because it's been used before, but it ends up, stories like ours have had, but we go on pretending, stories like ours have happy endings, and it should really be, have a happy ending, stories like ours have a happy ending, and I should have said to Benny, look, please, can we just put that extra syllable in the tune, because, and I don't know, maybe I said that to him, and he said, no.

[40:53] Tim Rice: I'm curious, that's a question I'm wondering, because with all your different collaborators, I imagine that comes up, can you change your music to fit my lyric, how does that conversation go?

[41:06] Tim Rice: It depends on the writer, I'm sure.

[41:07] Tim Rice: I would very occasionally suggest that, and from what I can remember, obviously the key people in that position would be Alan and Andrew.

[41:19] Tim Rice: I'm sure I have suggested it, and I don't remember having a fight about it, but sometimes they may say, well, we do think that's a very strong tune, and often it would just be putting in an extra, turning a crotchet into a quaver, or the other way around, or whatever.

[41:34] Tim Rice: I think, by and large, they would go along with it, but I wish with "Chess," I'd somehow said, let's just, because it's the last line in the show, but I think by the time you get to that point, people either like the show or they don't, so they're not going to say, oh, I love this show, and they're the last line, argh!

[41:51] Tim Rice: Now, how did the idea for "Evita" come about?

[41:56] Tim Rice: Well, I knew from a very young age, weirdly, I knew about Eva Peron, I knew she was a very, very important and loved person in Argentina from my stamp collection as a child, but I didn't know much more than that, and we'd done "Jesus Christ Superstar," which had been a big hit, and it's a tough one to follow, any hit's hard to follow, and I was in my car, driving to a dinner, and I got lost, slightly, no sat-nav, none of that, I was just driving around, and I heard, as a result of that, I heard the beginning of a program called, what was it called, something like "Heroes of Our Time," or something, or "Idols of Our Time," or whatever, and it was this week, Eva Peron, I thought, hmm, interesting, and I heard the first five or ten minutes of it, then I got to the dinner, and I couldn't hang around and wait half an hour, but it struck a chord with me, this program, because I'd heard nothing about Eva Peron in England since my stamp collection, and frankly, when we wrote "Evita," nobody had a clue who she was, certainly in England, I mean, obviously they knew her in Latin America, and in Spain, and places like that, but in England, we kept having to say who she was, but, and a lot of people said, well, it's a rotten idea for a show, because nobody knows the story, with "Superstar," they said, it's a rotten idea for a show, because everybody knows the story, so you can't win, but Eva Peron did appeal to me, I thought it was a very fascinating tale, and the more research I did, the more I thought this could work, and I thought, if I like it, and I'm a regular punter, other people might like the story.

[43:43] Tim Rice: And then how did Hal Prince get involved, how did it go from being a concert album, to a concept album, into a stage show?

[43:50] Tim Rice: Well, we decided, because of the success of "Superstar's" album, leading to a show, and we did the album for "Superstar," really, because we couldn't get a show, we thought, well, let's do it again, now we're better known, we can do the album first, and Andrew had wanted Hal to do "Superstar," I'm ashamed to say, I was so ignorant about theatre, I'd barely heard of Hal Prince, I didn't really quite know who he was, but I'd soon found out, and of course he was brilliant, but Andrew sent "Evita" off to Hal, shortly after he'd finished recording it, before it came out, and he said, this is really interesting, I like it a lot, and he sent back a few notes, and he said, let me know, I'd like to meet you next time I'm in England, or vice versa, and the album was a massive hit, and "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" was the number one single in England, not in America, but Hal came over, and we talked about it, and he said, I'd love to do this, but I can't do it for another year, and we thought, but in actual fact, the year rushed by, and having a year's wait in England was good, because the records continued to sell, we had another hit with "Oh What A Circus," another one with "I've Been Surprising Good For You," everybody wanted to see the show, and we thought, well, thank God we're in the hands of Hal Prince, because he's brilliant, and we cast it, and it took a long time to get everything together, and it was a brilliant show, I mean, I honestly think the opening night of "Evita" in London was the peak of my career, in a way, because it kind of proved we weren't one-hit wonders, and it was a good score, good show, with brilliant direction, and so that was great.

[45:35] Tim Rice: After that, it was all downhill and tragic.

[45:39] Tim Rice: And that's where the interview ends, no.

[45:42] Tim Rice: So then, we're so curious about "Chess," which is a show that Michael Bennett was slated to direct it originally, and then...

[45:50] Tim Rice: Yes, "Chess" was a bit of a blocker, I'm afraid.

[45:53] Tim Rice: The album did really well.

[45:54] Tim Rice: It did quite well in America, because "One Night in Bangkok" was a big hit, and in England, we had a number one with "I Know Him So Well," the album did really well, Bjorn and Benny of ABBA, huge names, and it is a good album, no doubt about it, and we did a concert tour with the album when it came out, and that was wonderfully successful, and went really well, and we were getting lined up.

[46:15] Tim Rice: We had everybody wanting to do the show.

[46:16] Tim Rice: We had producers, directors, ringing me up, and it was great, but the trouble was, we had too many Chiefs and not enough Indians, and in the end, we went with the Schubert organization, who were great, but they wanted Bernie Jacobs, who was running the show at the time, and Jerry Schoenfeld, they wanted Michael Bennett, and basically, Michael Bennett was...

[46:40] Tim Rice: I'm not sure Michael was actually that keen to do it, because he'd been through a bit of a rough time personally and everything, but I think Bernie and Jerry persuaded him, and we had a few meetings, we had a lot of meetings with Michael, and it looked like it was going to be quite exciting, but we'll never know, because he got ill, and he pulled out when we'd just cast it, and what we should have done in retrospect, which was said, right, we're putting the show off for a year.

[47:09] Tim Rice: We didn't know that he was fatally ill, it was terrible, but we did know that he was not able to do anything for the next however, so we went ahead, and Trevor Nunn came in, and Trevor, at very short notice, got the show onto stage, with the cast he hadn't cast, with the set he hadn't organized, and it was, in a way, we had two shows fighting for space on one stage, and it cost a lot more than it should have done, and it did okay in London, it did quite well, it got its money back, it ran for two or three years, but it never really had a chance, and we'd all agreed it would need to be changed if we'd go anywhere else, and it was changed for New York, but changed pretty disastrously, and it just didn't work, but the show keeps going, it's always being done everywhere, and I think, you know, we're currently, or we weren't, you know, before the pandemic, we were talking about a revival on Broadway, and that may well happen, because it ain't gonna happen immediately, but the songs have continued to be very popular.

[48:12] Tim Rice: Oh yeah, what is the vision of the show that you wish New York audiences, or even London audiences, had seen? What was your intent?

[48:20] Tim Rice: Well, I'm not sure, I mean, I'm not really a director, I'm not a director at all, I'm not sure what my vision was, it kind of, I mean, it worked so well in concert, I think, well, let's do it as a concert, but I've seen some productions of "Chess," which have worked really well, and I've seen some which have been absolutely horrendous, but I mean, I've seen it done in Hungary, and on an island in the middle of the Danube, and that was really good, it's been done in Japan, it's been done everywhere, and in most countries, it's done okay, or very well, but in New York, it was, I'm afraid, didn't do very well, although funnily enough, it paid its way, it only ran for eight weeks, but it was quite full for the eight weeks, and I think each week it made a profit, but it got no Tony nominations worth talking about, so as a result, the producers.

[49:46] Tim Rice: I mean I think if you appoint a director to a great extent you have to let him get on with it and obviously I have one one one one has views but I felt with Evita in particular that going to the early rehearsals that well this is looking pretty good frankly and I don't think I can help. I mean obviously I would say well if we needed line change or something I mean there were one or two little changes we had to make for the stage show and we wrote one new song actually, so things like that I'm more than happy of course to work with them but you sometimes I think well if you're not a director keep the trap shut but directors are crucial. I don't think, I mean if a piece is really bad then I don't think the greatest director in the world can save it but if a piece has got some merit if you've got a good director he'll bring that out. I mean I think a director can ruin a good piece, I don't think that's happened with us but I mean it's possible.

[50:52] Kevin David Thomas: Where did your relationship with Disney come from? How did that all come about?

[50:56] Tim Rice: Well I was loitering around Disney I can't remember why but it was yeah they were talking about this is way before the film actually happened they were going to do the movie of Evita and that never actually happened with Disney although Disney ended up distributing it I think you know many many years later and I met through a friend of mine Brown Robertson BA Robertson who was a very talented Scottish songwriter who was doing an album project with them and I was in LA for whatever reason and Brown introduced me to one or two Disney heavy honchos but I'd also met them anyway like Jeffrey Katzenberg and people because they were thinking of doing the film of Evita and I said if you need any words for a film you know I'm around and they offered me a deal to be a sort of standby lyricist as far as I could tell for about and it was quite a nice deal it was you know I got a certain number of dollars a year it wasn't an absolute fortune but they said well we might well need you for something and I worked vaguely in an advisory capacity on a Dolly Parton film but didn't actually write anything and I got to know a few people there and then because of the enormous success of Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast they decided to ramp up their you know area the animation department and they wanted to do this supposedly you know this is this is where we came in they wanted to do this film about Lion King you know about a lion whose evil uncle kills his father Hamlet with fur as we were told and they said when I was in when I was enrolled they said would you like to work on this I said I love Disney cartoons which is true I grew up on them and I said I would love to work on one and they said well here's the one and then I went in and met these Lion King people or the king of the jungle people and that was when I suggested Elton and so that was how I really got involved and of course that turned out to be a massive hit and at one point they pulled me off Lion King briefly and said we need you to work on Aladdin which was currently in production because I they said Alan Menken won't be doing the music for this new film because he's doing Aladdin and we're not going to do films at a much quicker rate we're going to try and get one out every year rather than one every two years and Aladdin was written by the genius Howard Ashman and Alan and poor Howard died and I was suddenly asked to go over meet Alan and would I finish off Aladdin, finish off in the sense of complete it rather than completely kill the film and I did.

I met Alan we got on very well and we wrote a whole new world within weeks of meeting each other and that was a bit of a turning point for me and for Disney in a way I mean it was a massive so it was a very good film.

[54:02] Kevin David Thomas: And I have to ask when this is to me it's such an odd idea that you know you have to go in and finish something that somebody has already created did you try to emulate his voice any?

[54:08] Tim Rice: Well I knew obviously I had to make my words mix in with the ones Howard had already done and there were a couple of songs brilliant songs he'd done which were in the film already and because films songs get booted out and brought in and this and the other but there were a couple of major major production numbers that were definitely going to be there you know a friend like me in particular was the one I loved but I was and Prince Ali and all that and I was obviously aware that I couldn't suddenly start delivering you know Bob Dylan or Sondheim lyrics if I could but funnily enough I always felt that Howard and I had a rather similar approach to writing lyrics I think Joseph in particular is rather like a little mermaid in style I mean and Howard was very witty and he had you know great word play and so I didn't have to fake my style I mean Howard is one of my favorite lyricists because probably because I felt that was my neck of the woods so but I as I said I had to be aware that what I wrote had to fit in with the you know you couldn't suddenly have a sudden jolt of a completely different style and of course the whole film was held together musically by Alan's great music which was one guy.

[55:37] Kevin David Thomas: Out of any composer that's ever walked this earth living or dead who would you love to have collaborated with on a song?

[55:44] Tim Rice: Wow you mean who I haven't collaborated with already? Yes I mean the people you've collaborated with my god but is there somebody living dead from the from the annals of history that you would go my god yes I would?

[55:54] Tim Rice: Well um I wouldn't I Barry Gibb I've always you know I mean I'm a good friend of Barry and we've often spoken about doing something together I think it's very annoying he writes very good lyrics as well so it's very annoying. I mean I'm a great fan of Barry Gibb I mean trying to think of a chap who only writes tunes who who I would like to write with. I mean obviously I mean I'm talking of a long time you're talking about doing something with Rick Wakeman who's a wonderful classical and rock composer. No there are lots I mean it's it's very difficult I mean I've been very lucky I've worked with Bjorn and Benny about that but I've worked with Alan Macon, Elton John, Andrew Lloyd Webber it's not a bad lineup really.

[56:45] Kevin David Thomas: No no that's not like any one of those my god please any any one of those.

[56:50] Tim Rice: And so now what are now that you know we're still all in this quarantine what are you doing to fill the time what projects are you?

[56:55] Tim Rice: Well I've been doing my podcast which has been quite fun which takes up a day a week if not maybe about a day a week good walking a dog. I'm working on slowly on another book of my memoirs good I was gonna ask yeah only one never came out in America I don't think anyone unofficially but I get quite a lot of mail about it I mean not a lot but you know yeah people say people people have read it in America they know about it oh yes I'd like to write a bit more there. I'm I did a show in England not that long ago called From Here to Eternity which didn't quite work but we've got American it's played a couple of times out of town in America and I think I think that could work and we're working on seeing if we can get that on that'd be great but you know the world doesn't need too much more of my stuff frankly.

[57:45] Kevin David Thomas: Disagree disagree disagree we want more we're gonna disagree with you.

[57:52] Tim Rice: Sir Tim this has been an absolute pleasure I cannot tell you how much we both appreciate you taking the time out to speak to us I'm so sorry that I was a bit late in coming.

[58:01] Kevin David Thomas: Oh please please and you know before I go I have to ask did you did you work on the fan Hearts Not Diamonds?

[58:07] Tim Rice: Yes I'm funny enough it was on television in England not long ago and I watched it most of it it I love Lauren McCall it wasn't the greatest film of all time and I did a couple of songs with Marvin and they were they were they were fun it was a remarkable woman and Hearts Not Diamonds I mean how can I put it Lauren McCall is one of the greatest voices of all time but maybe not when she's singing although she I mean she was lovely and and and I was thrilled to meet her but it'd be quite fun maybe one day I'll I'll ask somebody else to have a go at one or two of those songs but I'm very proud of them because Marvin Hamlisch was a good friend of mine I should have mentioned him earlier we we often talked about maybe doing a show but we never got around to it.

[59:02] Kevin David Thomas: Oh I wish.

[59:02] Tim Rice: Devastated when he when he died so suddenly it was also yes very so suddenly yeah my friend was working with him I'd seen him quite soon before when he came to England did a couple of shows and we met up again had a catch-up.

[59:14] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah yeah good man a good man but thank you for that that that movie comes up a lot on this podcast and so we're very excited.

[59:19] Tim Rice: It does it does yes I thought it was I mean Lauren McCall was great but I thought it was a little bit of a gruesome film in a way but it was fine but your music is fantastic this I mean the lyrics the songs are great this has been so wonderful sir Tim thank you.

[59:37] Tim Rice: Thank you so much and please thank you yes and and hopefully we'll all be back in the theater again soon fingers crossed yes oh the other thing I'm working on is Aida we're looking to get Aida back yes that's what I heard yes yes which is good wonderful for the next interview yes for part two for sure when the second part of your autobiography comes out we'll bring it we'll bring you back on and we can talk but until then please listen to sir Tim's podcast the title again sir Tim get onto my cloud.

[1:00:03] Tim Rice: Get on to my cloud get onto his cloud he's waiting for you let's give him some subscribers.

[1:00:09] Kevin David Thomas: All right till everyone thanks thank you for listening to today's episode and a big thanks to the punchy players Jeff Marquis who is bringing back Lucy Betty Judy and Morta Schill for us and a big thanks to our sound editor Daniel Schwartzberg and social media manager Bethany Ann Selecki and don't forget we want more folks to hear these incredible stories and that's where you come in in order for people to find out about us we need lots of ratings on iTunes so head on over to iTunes search for Behind the Curtain Broadway's Living Legends click on our logo click on ratings and reviews then write a review and leave us five stars and make us feel as special as Eliza Doolittle on Eliza Doolittle Day or you can leave us just one star and you can make us feel as baddie baddie bad as Annie did in that really weird production in Boston where Annie dreamt that she was being adopted but then she ended up back we're in the orphanage right back where she started yeah true story Rob saw it yes and it was baddie it was bizarre I was there I was.

[1:01:12] Tim Rice: Oh good so head on over to iTunes and make us feel even more special than we already did.