This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Tim Rice: Hello, this is Tim Rice.

[0:02] Tim Rice: Welcome to my podcast, the fourth episode of Get Onto My Cloud.

[0:15] Tim Rice: If you listen to podcast two of Get Onto My Cloud, then you will have heard the story of The Likes of Us, the musical about Dr. Bernardo that Andrew Lloyd Webber and I began writing within minutes of meeting in 1965.

[0:28] Tim Rice: For two years while doing other things, I was a law student and Andrew went up to Oxford briefly.

[0:33] Tim Rice: We worked on The Likes of Us, convinced it was going to break us speedily into the West End Theatre.

[0:40] Tim Rice: But for various reasons, speedily became eventually, eventually became possibly, and after two years of zilch, it began to dawn on us that the West End was going to have to wait a little longer for us.

[0:53] Tim Rice: And the reverse was equally true.

[0:56] Tim Rice: But one or two friends had heard our songs from The Likes of Us and spotted a little bit of merit and a lot of promise.

[1:03] Tim Rice: In late 1967, music teacher at Colet Court School in West London, Alan Doggett, wondered if we'd like to write something for his pupils while we were waiting for our inevitable fame and fortune.

[1:15] Tim Rice: This was to be for an end-of-term afternoon school concert in the following spring, which would be attended by a few probably reluctant mothers, because in those days most fathers were the family breadwinners, and their jobs were a good excuse not to turn up to school shows.

[1:32] Tim Rice: Not quite the glamour and recognition we'd anticipated for our first publicly performed piece, but on balance, we felt it was something we could throw together pretty quickly, and as Alan assured us, there was always a chance that educational music publishers might be interested.

[1:48] Tim Rice: A bit like the possibility of writing a hit Latin textbook.

[1:52] Tim Rice: Maybe whatever we wrote could eventually be performed by schools all over the country.

[1:57] Tim Rice: This seemed a pretty remote possibility to me, but on the other hand, to hear our work performed live in any circumstances was a step forward.

[2:06] Tim Rice: Alan gave us carte blanche over subject matter, beyond pointing out the obvious.

[2:12] Tim Rice: It had to appeal both to the juveniles who were to perform it, and in Alan's case, his choir were kids aged eight to eleven, all boys, and it had to appeal to the teachers who would have to teach it.

[2:25] Tim Rice: Our first thoughts were to write a mini musical about a James Bond character.

[2:30] Tim Rice: But we realized that this might become dated rather quickly.

[2:34] Tim Rice: After all, fifty years' time from 1968, James Bond would surely be long forgotten.

[2:40] Tim Rice: We needed to be more traditional and choose a timeless topic, which in practice came down to English history or the Bible.

[2:47] Tim Rice: My favourite Bible story had always been Joseph and his coat of many colours.

[2:51] Tim Rice: Alan and Andrew both thought this was an excellent subject, and we set to work with an alacrity that I would be in raptures to achieve now.

[2:59] Tim Rice: The first two tunes Andrew produced were the opening numbers that eventually became Jacob and Sons and The Coat of Many Colours.

[3:06] Tim Rice: Both were bouncy melodies, devoid of any classical influence, ideally suited to narrative and to humor.

[3:13] Tim Rice: I reckoned that the best way to a child's heart was through laughter, and set up from the word go to make the songs funny.

[3:20] Tim Rice: My principal source text was the Wonder Book of Bible stories, which contained the line about the first recorded rationing in history, rather than the Bible itself, and my inspirations, whether wittingly or not, were Michael Flanders and Paddy Roberts.

[3:37] Tim Rice: Funnily enough, I had a little trouble convincing Andrew that my style of language was right for the project.

[3:42] Tim Rice: I remember a long discussion about the phrase multicoloured coat.

[3:46] Tim Rice: Andrew felt many coloured more appropriate, and he also felt uneasy about "took the biscuit" and one or two other anachronisms.

[3:53] Tim Rice: But the first time we played the opening five minutes to Alan, he was enchanted, and we both realized we'd hit upon a form both musically and lyrically that would be perfect for the Colet Court choir.

[4:04] Tim Rice: Alan couldn't wait to play the first two songs to his boys, and when their reaction was just as glowing, we positively raced ahead with the rest of the twenty-minute work.

[4:13] Tim Rice: I guess you may know Joseph's coat song pretty well, and it's always been one of the most popular numbers in the score.

[4:18] Tim Rice: I also think it's one of the best, as Andrew's superb, instantly catchy and memorable tune made it very easy for me to write the words.

[4:26] Tim Rice: And because I was attempting to be funny as well as tell the story, the words came quite quickly to me.

[4:31] Tim Rice: When you're attempting to write what's meant to be an amusing lyric, rather than a serious or romantic one, the available vocabulary and rhyming possibilities are vastly extended.

[4:40] Tim Rice: Pyjamas and farmers, for example, will be difficult to slot into a big ballad love song, although I suppose a torrid nighttime romance featuring agricultural workers could have used that couplet.

[4:52] Tim Rice: Anyway, pyjamas on farmers doesn't come into the song about Joseph's coat.

[4:56] Tim Rice: It appears later in the show when that wonderful tune of Andrew's is reprised.

[5:00] Tim Rice: Here now is the coat of many colours from the very first recording of Joseph, which we made some six months after the success of the school concert in summer nineteen sixty-eight.

[5:11] Tim Rice: The lead singer is David Daltrey, backed by an excellent pop group of the day, The Mixed Bag, and with the Colet Court choir boys adding vocal support.

[7:41] ♪ Musical number: "The Coat of Many Colours" — performed by David Daltrey and The Mixed Bag ♪

[7:48] Tim Rice: The long list of colours at the end of the song about Joseph's coat was actually put together by Alan's class.

[7:54] Tim Rice: Our song originally ended simply red and yellow and green and brown and blue.

[7:59] Tim Rice: But Alan and the boys added a further 24.

[8:02] Tim Rice: And a few years later, this joyful string of hues won me great praise from none other than B. A. Young, the famous theatre critic in the Financial Times.

[8:11] Tim Rice: Quote, this to my mind is pure poetry.

[8:13] Tim Rice: He waxed specifically about the 29 colours.

[8:16] Tim Rice: The only problem being that I only came up with five of them.

[8:20] Tim Rice: To this day I find it extremely difficult to remember all 29 colours.

[8:24] Tim Rice: I can usually remember the four or five I wrote, but the others, and they are magnificent.

[8:28] Tim Rice: The kids chose some great colours, scarlet, ochre, peach, violet, fawn, chocolate, mauve, russet, grey, azure.

[8:35] Tim Rice: I would never have come up with half these colours.

[8:38] Tim Rice: But it's very difficult for me to recall them.

[8:40] Tim Rice: Perhaps the greatest honor the list of colours ever received, apart from B. A. Young's ecstatic review, was when it was featured in The Simpsons, and I think it was the character who lived next door to Homer, Ned Flanders, who managed to remember all 29 colours.

[8:55] Tim Rice: I was absolutely thrilled, even though, of course, as I said before, I'd only written five of them.

[9:00] Tim Rice: The world premiere of Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, which was a title Andrew came up with, was on Friday, the 1st of March 1968 at 2:30 p.m. in the assembly hall of Colet Court School.

[9:14] Tim Rice: I have no great recollection of pressure caused by the deadline, which seems almost inconceivable to me whenever I write now.

[9:23] Tim Rice: We had no initial intention of making the work a retirement home for various styles of pop.

[9:28] Tim Rice: The only pastiche in the original 20-minute version of Joseph was the Elvis Presley parody for Pharaoh, and I really can't remember how we came up with that particular idea, but once we decided to include a tribute to the King of Rock and Roll, the song almost wrote itself.

[9:42] Tim Rice: There were connections between Elvis and Pharaoh, which we did not even notice.

[9:47] Tim Rice: Well, I didn't.

[9:48] Tim Rice: During the recording of the Broadway cast album of Joseph in 1982, I suggested to the actor playing Pharaoh, Tom Carter, that perhaps he should not include an ad-lib about Memphis in Pharaoh's number, an anachronism too far.

[10:04] Tim Rice: Tom quite rightly pointed out to the dim lyric writer, me, that his ad-lib referred to Memphis, Egypt, not Memphis, Tennessee.

[10:13] Tim Rice: The coincidence that Elvis and Pharaoh had operated in cities with the same name had never dawned on me.

[10:21] Tim Rice: From the first rehearsal, it was clear that Song of the King would be a showstopper.

[10:25] Tim Rice: The only problem being that none of the singers in the choir of Unbroken Voices were ideal Presley impersonators.

[10:33] Tim Rice: Auditions for the role of Elvis Pharaoh were held, and after three or four minutes, my vocal demonstration of the song to the boys won me the part.

[10:43] Tim Rice: I must admit there was not a lot of competition for the role.

[10:46] Tim Rice: The choir were given an equally crucial part during the number, the Bup Bub Shuwadiwas.

[10:52] Tim Rice: The reluctant mums who'd come to the afternoon's concert were thus not simply to be entertained by their precious offspring.

[10:59] Tim Rice: In addition to the Collicott School choir, the world premiere of Joseph featured David Daltrey, the mixed bag, me doing my Elvis, and Andrew Lloyd Webber on piano.

[11:10] Tim Rice: However devoted parents are, however tuneful the young voices, and the choir were very good, twenty consecutive minutes of treble warbling is a lot to take.

[11:20] Tim Rice: Besides, the kids are always required to oo and ah behind the broken voices.

[11:26] Tim Rice: Our introduction of unknown but excellent contemporary pop musicians made all the difference.

[11:31] Tim Rice: David Daltrey was a talented songwriter and guitarist whose youthful vocals fitted the two big Joseph solos, Close Every Door, and Any Dream Will Do perfectly.

[11:41] Tim Rice: Again, the choir participated fully in those two numbers.

[11:45] Tim Rice: Its strength was in ensemble singing, and we knew that the whole show would be better served if these two major songs were in the hands, or rather the larynx, of a confident and mature, albeit only 16, vocalist.

[12:01] Tim Rice: The mixed bag were a four-piece rock band whose forte was the note perfect rendition of others' material, although they also wrote songs themselves.

[12:09] Tim Rice: They added a great deal to the piece with their reliable beat and instrumental flourishes.

[12:14] Tim Rice: As the structure of the oratorio took shape, certain lead vocal lines were given to Malcolm and Terry of the group to lend further variety to the non-stop narrative flow.

[12:24] Tim Rice: I'm sure that neither David nor the mixed bag had expected a prep school concert to be anything other than an unpaid favor to me and Andrew, but they bit the bullet bravely.

[12:34] Tim Rice: And it did lead to recording contracts for them.

[12:36] Tim Rice: Plus, they've always been able to claim that they were in at the start of a little bit of theatre history.

[12:42] Tim Rice: Sad to say, David died in early 2019, never quite fulfilling his enormous potential.

[12:48] Tim Rice: But the four mixed baggers are still going strong.

[12:51] Tim Rice: I'm glad to say I'm still in touch with them, albeit they have moved on to other careers and/or retirement half a century later.

[13:05] Tim Rice: Here are the mixed bag with the Colic Court choir and Potifar.

[13:14] Tim Rice: Potifar had very few cares.

[13:18] Tim Rice: He was one of Egypt's millionaires, having made a fortune buying shares in Parameths.

[13:48] Tim Rice: Who found he liked his master, consequently worked much harder, even the devotion.

[13:55] Tim Rice: Puttifar could see that Joseph was a cut above the average, made him lead up of a household maximum promotion.

[14:07] Tim Rice: Poppy Far was cool and so fine, but his wife would never tell the line.

[14:16] Tim Rice: It's on there in chapter 39 of Jenna Cells.

[14:24] Tim Rice: She was beautiful, but even saw a lot of manner gay still's will.

[14:33] Tim Rice: He would have to tell her that she still was here.

[14:39] Tim Rice: Joseph's looks and handsome figure had attracted her attention.

[14:45] Tim Rice: Every morning she would beckon come and lie with me.

[14:49] Tim Rice: Love Joseph wanted to resist her till one day she proved too eager.

[14:54] Tim Rice: Joseph cried in vain.

[14:56] Tim Rice: We stopped by done to leave in free love.

[14:59] Tim Rice: Suddenly they hold on.

[15:22] Tim Rice: The things you have done are beyond the pale.

[15:53] Tim Rice: Sung by the mixed bag with the Colick Court School Choir, late 1968.

[15:58] Tim Rice: A song which was not actually in the very first performance of Joseph at the school, but added for the album, along with one or two other extra songs.

[16:06] Tim Rice: There were still more new Joseph songs to come as the work increased in popularity and became a show for commercial theatre as well as for schools.

[16:14] Tim Rice: But on that very first LP recording, the entire production was only 30 minutes long.

[16:20] Tim Rice: As I think I've already made clear, writing the words was great fun, all the more so because every tune that came off the ALW conveyor belt sounded like a winner.

[16:31] Tim Rice: There are several examples of bad rhyming throughout Joseph, I'm afraid, but while purists, and I now count myself as one would shudder, no one was anything but delighted with the couplets as they flowed from my portable typewriter.

[16:44] Tim Rice: Biscuit and District always hit the button laugh wise, but is of course an inaccurate rhyme.

[16:50] Tim Rice: Elsewhere we find mean and dream, fine and time, and plenty of other solecisms that would have me railing against a lyricist who tried them in theatre today.

[17:01] Tim Rice: Pure rhymes and rock are almost mutually exclusive.

[17:04] Tim Rice: In my defense, I point out that we had no inkling that the work would even survive for a second performance, and that telling the tale entertainingly for those particular children was almost all that mattered.

[17:17] Tim Rice: Furthermore, when I've tried to correct rhymes for subsequent professional productions, the directors and singers involved always refused to accept the changes, saying they'd always loved the original.

[17:28] Tim Rice: I'm stuck with Biscuit and District.

[17:31] Tim Rice: The question I've been asked most since around 1970 is which is written first, the words or the music?

[17:38] Tim Rice: With Andrew, and I primarily work this way with nearly all of my collaborators, with the notable exception of Elton John.

[17:45] Tim Rice: With Andrew it was always the music, but before the tune comes the plot.

[17:50] Tim Rice: Both partners should be fully aware of and completely happy with the structure and storyline, the book of the entire show, ideally before a single song is contemplated.

[18:01] Tim Rice: Writing the book of a musical is generally a job in its own right and usually involves a good deal of spoken dialogue.

[18:09] Tim Rice: However, Joseph had a story already written by some old testament sage and was an oratorio, the tale told entirely through song.

[18:18] Tim Rice: My initial task was simply to suggest to Andrew what aspect of the story each musical scene should convey.

[18:25] Tim Rice: He then produced a tune to fit the mood and the plot of each scene, and I added the words.

[18:32] Tim Rice: Joseph ends with a lyrical moment of doubt in Any Dream Will Do, but any doubts or unhappiness in that thought have always been swept away by the triumphant music.

[18:41] Tim Rice: Joseph is, after all, an optimistic piece.

[18:45] Tim Rice: It still works best when performed by the kind of people for whom it was first written, not the actual people who are nearly all now balding and or bearded family men and grandfathers themselves.

[18:56] Tim Rice: It was written for children, learning about music and language, and maybe about the Bible too.

[19:03] Tim Rice: However polished some of the gigantic commercial productions have been, it's versions similar to the spirit and size of the world premiere at Collic Court School on the 1st of March 1968, that I enjoy most.

[19:17] Tim Rice: And it's those performances that make Joseph the work of mine, and maybe of Andrew's too, most likely to survive into the 22nd century.

[19:27] Tim Rice: Thank you for listening to one or two of my earliest Joseph memories.

[19:31] Tim Rice: I'm afraid I'm ending this podcast with my treatment of the Song of the King.

[19:36] Tim Rice: Mercifully Short, as in the original show, Elvis Stroke Pharaoh only had one verse in which to explain his torment.

[19:52] Tim Rice: Come on, one other than the Nile.

[20:03] Tim Rice: So they were skinny and vile.

[20:37] Tim Rice: Hey, hey, hey hey, Joseph.

[20:41] Tim Rice: Won't you tell more male?

[20:45] Tim Rice: What is it?

[20:59] Tim Rice: I say Ferraraoh.

[21:01] Tim Rice: What was that again?

[21:02] Tim Rice: Hey, Joseph.

[21:05] Tim Rice: Won't you tell for a male?

[21:09] Tim Rice: What does it mean?

[21:17] Tim Rice: We don't need that kid all around here.