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

[0:01] Tim Rice: Welcome to episode 48 of my podcast, Get Onto My Cloud.

[0:18] Tim Rice: At the time of this recording, COVID lockdown or semi-lockdown has now been in operation in the United Kingdom for over one year.

[0:27] Tim Rice: I began my weekly podcasts at the beginning of May 2020, initially expecting to record around a dozen of them, by which time there would have been light at the end of the pandemic tunnel.

[0:38] Tim Rice: I would then have neither the time nor the energy to continue working on Get Onto My Cloud every week.

[0:45] Tim Rice: More significantly, my modest band of listeners would have had better things to do, as I hoped I would.

[0:52] Tim Rice: This has not actually proved to be the case.

[0:55] Tim Rice: As the world of theatre and live entertainment has ground to a halt, the one vaguely creative area in which I've been able to continue operating has been this podcast.

[1:05] Tim Rice: Pre-COVID, there were quite a few projects on the horizon.

[1:09] Tim Rice: A new version of Aida, the show I wrote with Elton John, and also one of From Here to Eternity, which I wrote with Stuart Brayson.

[1:18] Tim Rice: I truly feel some of my best work was in those two shows, and I was looking forward to seeing if they had any chance of renewed life.

[1:27] Tim Rice: Aida, in fact, had never really gone away.

[1:29] Tim Rice: After over four years on Broadway, there have been many productions in the United States and internationally in the past 20 years, although it never came to my home country.

[1:39] Tim Rice: A situation I was hoping might have been changed by now.

[1:44] Tim Rice: However, one song from the score of Aida became a top 10 hit in the UK, written in the stars, sung by Elton and LeAnn Rimes.

[1:54] Tim Rice: I'm sure many of those who were kind enough to buy it had no idea it came from a Broadway show.

[1:59] Tim Rice: But it did.

[2:00] Tim Rice: And here it is.

[2:23] Tim Rice: Simple really, isn't it?

[2:27] Tim Rice: A word or two and there.

[2:31] Tim Rice: A lifetime of not knowing where or how you think of me or speak of me.

[2:43] Tim Rice: Oh wonder the someone you once loved so long ago, so well.

[2:55] Tim Rice: Never want a word of things may be shuffles by.

[3:22] Tim Rice: And fail to understand how the perfect love can be confident out at hand.

[3:33] Tim Rice: Is it written in the stars?

[3:37] Tim Rice: I'll be paying for some time.

[3:41] Tim Rice: Is that all we are good for?

[3:45] Tim Rice: Just a strange model time is this God's experiment in which we have no say in which we give a paradise with holy days nothing can be altered for there is nothing to decide no escape, no change of heart, no any place to hide You are whole with this eye and denied sometimes in my darkest thoughts I wish I never learned what it is to be love and have that no return Is it risen in the stun Are we paid for some pride?

[5:00] Tim Rice: Is that all we are good for Just a stretch of all the time is this God experiment wish we have no safe in the winter paradise for some time?

[5:32] Tim Rice: If that we are good for Stats of Model Side Galaxy Star.

[5:44] Tim Rice: Which we have not seen with your paradise.

[6:11] Tim Rice: Written in the stars, written for the stars, Elton John, who wrote the tune, and LeAnn Rimes from the musical Aida.

[6:18] Tim Rice: I played a few items from this score in podcasts eight and nine.

[6:22] Tim Rice: And I honestly believe the tunes are up there with some of Elton's most melodic.

[6:27] Tim Rice: And I hope they make it to a British stage or two before too long.

[6:32] Tim Rice: The other show of mine I hope to revive when all this COVID drama is over is From Here to Eternity, which I featured in Get Onto My Cloud Episode 18.

[6:42] Tim Rice: This show played for six months in the West End in 2013-14 and was the composer Stuart Brayson's first representation in the West End.

[7:09] Tim Rice: And more recently, we've been discussing a potential UK tour.

[7:13] Tim Rice: All these things could still happen.

[7:16] Tim Rice: But both British and American shows have been stuck on hold.

[7:20] Tim Rice: And I still think we're some way off for return to theatre world normality.

[7:25] Tim Rice: Here's a flavor of the score.

[7:26] Tim Rice: The opening number for the American soldiers waiting in Hawaii in the shadow of an impending war, which of course hit them on December the 7th, 1941.

[7:36] Tim Rice: G Company Blues.

[7:47] Tim Rice: Another game.

[7:50] Tim Rice: Another set makes his way to G Company.

[7:57] Tim Rice: We take our cake.

[7:59] Tim Rice: We take the crab.

[8:06] Tim Rice: Oh, Winston Jeremy.

[8:08] Tim Rice: Jeremy stuck out the spot.

[8:12] Tim Rice: I decided to see company.

[8:32] Tim Rice: Easy to forget that there's a world at war.

[8:36] Tim Rice: We're falling Hawaii.

[8:39] Tim Rice: Easy to forget what we're all fighting for.

[8:43] Tim Rice: Undersatisfied soldiers, I don'm brave we died and I don't bars on the centric soldiers.

[8:52] Tim Rice: Might as well have posted us tomorrow.

[8:59] Tim Rice: Got our reasons to be in the shop, which maybe we don't reveal.

[9:03] Tim Rice: Or don't even know, but hanging around was never a part of the deal.

[9:08] Tim Rice: Can't win anymore.

[9:09] Tim Rice: I'm going to use.

[9:11] Tim Rice: I got two nothing coming to lose.

[9:13] Tim Rice: So bring on the warning a little good news.

[9:15] Tim Rice: Tell the fucking G company.

[9:55] Tim Rice: Gonna take your reject for it on that song.

[10:00] Tim Rice: When you cut with life, man, use the house who's deck, never use your own.

[10:07] Tim Rice: When I get my rain, gotta put some mark and some respect.

[10:22] Tim Rice: Maybe I'm here for 30 years.

[10:25] Tim Rice: Maybe I'll die next week.

[10:27] Tim Rice: Maybe the cards won't fall my way.

[10:29] Tim Rice: Maybe a winning streak.

[10:31] Tim Rice: Maybe I'll blow the vehicle tax.

[10:33] Tim Rice: Maybe the box is quite.

[10:36] Tim Rice: Maybe what he needs streaming trying.

[10:38] Tim Rice: Maybe I'll blow my wine.

[10:40] Tim Rice: We're rats in a case for climbing the walls for a wisdom.

[10:43] Tim Rice: We got some stage for a bustin up offs, and anything else to break loose.

[10:50] Tim Rice: Can we look?

[10:53] Tim Rice: Can we song bring on the morning of open news?

[11:10] Tim Rice: The original cast of the London stage production of From Here to Eternity, music by Stuart Brayson, G Company Blues.

[11:18] Tim Rice: I've never made much of a mark writing songs not intended to be part of a stage musical or a movie.

[11:24] Tim Rice: I've written several one-off numbers over the years, but the only significant success I've had with one was in 1982, when David Essex had a big seasonal Yule-Tide hit with A Winter's Tale, which I wrote with Mike Bat. And that one was only really successful in the UK. I've been lucky enough to have had quite a few songs on the charts over the years, including quite a few in America. But they've all been numbers featured in a show or film. Of course, in some cases, the record buyers, as they were quaintly known until quite recently, didn't always realize the song they liked came from a show. That was notably the case in the United States when Murray Head's One Night in Bangkok made it to number three on the Hot 100 in 1985.

The fact that it came from Chess, the show I wrote with Benny Andersson and Bjorn Alvaeus, passed the majority of purchasers by. And sad to say, in my opinion, anyway, it has these days become virtually impossible for a songwriter who is not a recording artist or record producer to get his or her work recorded at all. It's quite extraordinary that many hugely successful songs seem to have been written by anything up to nine or ten people today, nearly all of them involved with the actual recording in one way or another. The days when great songwriters operated independently as songwriters who wrote for singers who didn't write, but who could interpret the work of others, seem to have disappeared.

However, despite all this, in the last few weeks, I have written the lyrics for a one-off song, which furthermore has already been recorded. The performers of the song have never been hit single contenders, but are widely respected for their outstanding work over many years. They are the choir of Truro Cathedral. Truro is the county town of the County of Cornwall in the far southwest of the United Kingdom. It is the only city in the county and has a population of around 20,000. Truro Cathedral, the Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary, was built between 1880 and 1910 to a Gothic revival design by John Loughborough Pearson on the site of the parish church of St. Mary. It's one of only three cathedrals in the UK with three spires.

The Truro Cathedral Choir has an unbroken tradition dating back to the 1880s, when the cathedral was still under construction. Today, the choir generally performs with its 12 adult professional singers, made up of lay vicars and choral scholars, plus 18 boy choristers and 18 girl choristers. The choir have made several albums and even appeared recently on Britain's Got Talent, where they were given a unanimous thumbs up by the panel. Only demands of educational timetables prevented them from progressing to the finals. I'm proud to be a patron of this magnificent outfit. One of the big events that's taking place in Cornwall this summer is the G7 Summit. Leaders of the world's most prominent nations will converge on Carbis Bay and St. Ives in order to solve the problems facing the tottering globe.

Or possibly not. Be that as it may, Cornwall is certain to be the center of world attention for a few days in June, and the Truro Cathedral choir wished to commemorate this unprecedented West Country occasion with a song. As their patron, I was approached to come up with something. My first reaction was that this was a tricky one as I had no wish to get into any political comment, nor write something that blandly spouted the expected platitudes about world peace, love, and understanding. None of which I'm against, I hasten to add, but it's a path well trodden, and I had no wish to add to its portfolio of ineffectual piety. But when I realized that it was only the youngsters of the Truro choir that were to be featured, and that the idea was to link up through the song with children's choirs all over the world, I was reminded of the way I approached writing the lyrics for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat all those years ago.

The idea then had been to tell a story in an entertaining way without talking down to the potential young audience, unafraid to use words, expressions, or information that they might not be familiar with, and yet retaining respect for the original, in Joseph's case, as per Genesis. I had minimal interest in the G7 agenda, but I was interested in the number seven. I've always loved numbers, and it seemed to me that an interesting tale could be woven around the impact that that number has made on our civilizations and existence over the millennia. So the lyric I wrote became a tribute to the number seven. And the G became the G as in G Wiz or G Baby, G double E. I wanted the kids, both local and international, to be intrigued by the mathematics, science, and history of the past, without which none of us might be here.

I wanted to keep the preachy level down and the rhythm section up, above all for the song to be fun. Of course, to achieve all this, I would also need a tune. I began to write the words without any kind of melody in my head, but knew it had to be an up-tempo, cheerful one, capable of inspiring a lot of vocal effects and harmonies. I began to imagine I was writing for one of the great doo-wop groups of the 1950s, or perhaps for Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons at their peak. There are so many things to say about the magic number seven. In my lyric, I was able to reference the seven days of the creation, the seven colours of the rainbow, the seven seas, the seven wonders of the ancient world, the seven prehistorically known planets, the seven notes on the diatonic scale, the seven deadly sins, the seven virtues, the seven hills of Rome.

Pythagoras gets a name check. There was so much I had to leave out, such as Shakespeare's Seven Ages of Man, or even Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. But maybe there's scope for an extended mix and extra verses in the future. Once I'd completed my tribute to this prime odd number, I had no hesitation in sending my work to a composer friend of mine, leading light of the British Indie pop duo band The Boy Least Likely To, Peter Hobbs, who just happens to be the producer of this podcast. Responsible for getting my ramblings out into cyberspace once a week for 48 weeks now. And Pete came up with a marvelous tune, just what the doctor ordered. We made a very hasty demo of about a third of the song.

Unfortunately, that was more than enough for the director of the choir, Christopher Gray, to press the button and adapt it for his superb young singers. Pete and I went down to Truro Cathedral to hear their version, which has already been recorded and videoed. We shall follow with our doo-wop version in due course. It's very catchy. Here's a one-minute thirty-second blast of the song. The most basic of demos, but I hope the fun comes through. Here's a snatch of the words. G7, you're such an influential integer. G7, as the centuries unfold, from the dawn of our existence, now the story can be told. Seven days of the creation, seven colors in the rainbow, seven wonders of the ancient world, and seven stormy seas.

Through prehistoric darkness, the seven planets wandered. No other number squared or cubed has qualities like these. G7, you're such a lucky numeral. G7 forever in your prime. G7 for all your sins and virtues for now and for all time. G7, you're an influential integer. G7, as the centuries unfold. G7, from the dawn of our existence. A G7, now the story can be told. Dum dum dum dum dum dum dum. Seven days of the creation. Seven colours in the rainbow. Seven wonders of the ancient world. And seven stormy seas. Through prehistoric darkness. No other number squared or cubed has qualities like these. G7, you're such a lucky numeral. G7 forever in your prime. G7 for all your sins and virtues. G7 for now and for all time.

Dum dum dum dum dum dum dum. The beginning of G7. I did actually put a message of sorts into the end of the song, in which the leaders of nations are urged not to let lesser mortals down, or we'll run you out of town. Running anybody out of Cornwall's tricky since so many of the roads are bendy country lanes. Beautiful but difficult to get out of third gear on. The full versions of G7 will be available soon. So I'm hopeful that my first lockdown lyrical creativity plus Pete's melody will be of some interest and give some enjoyment to choirs and youngsters around the world. As will the Truro Cathedral choir, who shall have the final word, or rather, my final words. Or we'll run you out of time.

[22:22] Tim Rice: That was episode forty-eight of Get Onto My Cloud, written and presented by me, Tim Rice, and produced by the distinguished composer, Peter Hobbs.