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[0:00] Tim Rice: Hello, this is Tim Rice, and this is episode 62 of my podcast.

[0:05] Tim Rice: Get onto my cloud.

[0:16] Tim Rice: When you look back on your old stuff, do you ever feel you'd like to rewrite the old word or line or indeed show? That is one of the questions I'm asked most often, both by people in the theatre or music business and by those in more sensible professions. The short answer is yes. At least I would if other people would let me. The trouble is that once something's become popular and thus been accepted as the definitive version of a song, it's very hard to change it. Impossible in some cases. Even if I point out that the rhyme isn't pure, or I've thought of a better way of putting it. And quite right too, most of the time. I would object if Paul McCartney suddenly decided he preferred Hey Ron to Hey Jude, which would be a fairly drastic change, I admit.

But even if he suggested a minor tweak here and there to any one of his peerless creations, I and many other fans just wouldn't stand for it. All the same, I do sometimes go through my early creations line by line, usually in the shower, and wonder if certain variations I've thought of since wouldn't have been better. And my favorite show to sing new versions of in the privacy of my bathroom is Joseph. It's tragic that there's no one there with a towel to appreciate my renderings or rather re-renderings of words I wrote to Andrew Lloyd Webber's marvelous melodies over half a century ago.

[2:11] Tim Rice: Not long after the Bible began. Jacob lived in the land of Canaan. A fine example of a family man. Take her, Jacob and Sons. Depended on farming to earn the key. Spent all of the day in the fields with sheep. Listen me and then leave by the next in line. Nathalion is a co with Asher and Dan. Zebulum Gad took the total to nine. Jacob, Jacob and Sons, Benjamin and Judah, which leaves only one. Joseph Jacob's favorite son. Jacob, Jacob and Sons. Jacob, Jacob and Sons.

[3:22] Tim Rice: That was the first song of any show written by Andrew and me to be commercially recorded. It was at Decca Studios back in 1968. Around the time Hey Jude, not Hey Ron, was at number one around the world. Every time I hear songs from that Joseph album, I'm reminded how woefully inexperienced we were in the recording studio. Technically, my boss Norrie Paramour was the producer, but while taking huge interest in the project and turning up at crucial moments to check things hadn't got out of control, he trusted us to get it right. Quite a gamble by Norrie, as it was a whole LP's worth of material which his company was responsible for and funding. Unknown songwriters, virgin producers, and the first ever outing for orchestrations by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

The performers were also totally unproven. David Daltrey, the mixed bag, the Colic Court School Choir led by Alan Doggett, plus, of course, me as Pharaoh, and a pal who'd introduced us to both David Daltrey and the Mixed Bag, Martin Wilcox, who was on Harpsichord, Maracas, and Acoustic Guitar. The artist on the project with by far the most record biz experience was Andrew's father, Dr. W. S. Lloyd Webber, the distinguished classical composer and director of the London College of Music. Bill Lloyd Webber played Hammond organ.

[4:46] Tim Rice: We were all fortunate that the engineer in charge of our sessions was Bill Price, ably assisted by Peter Rinston.

[4:53] Tim Rice: Bill had been at the controls for hundreds of Deca sessions, with artists such as Tom Jones, the Moody Blues, Engelbert Humperdinck, and John Mayall, whose band included Eric Clapton, and he was to have an even more stellar recording career in later years, working with The Clash, Sex Pistols, Guns N' Roses, Roxy Music, Paul McCartney, and many, many more.

[5:16] Tim Rice: Bill was tactful and encouraging, which was what we needed as much as his engineering wizardry.

[5:21] Tim Rice: Although in some ways, engineering wizardry was more important back in those technically simple pre-digital days of four-track tape, working against the clock in batches of three hours on the limited budget.

[5:33] Tim Rice: So, in great part, thanks to Bill, the final album came out pretty well for us novices.

[5:39] Tim Rice: That opening song, Jacob and Sons, was a short and in retrospect a rather good intro to the whole piece.

[5:45] Tim Rice: It got into the story double quick, introducing Jacob and his twelve sons.

[5:50] Tim Rice: But could my contribution have been better?

[5:52] Tim Rice: The brothers are not in the right order.

[5:54] Tim Rice: The list begins accurately with Reuben was the eldest of the children of Israel, with Simeon and Levi the next in line, but then there is a parting of the ways between Genesis and me.

[6:07] Tim Rice: I'm rather worried that generations of kids, and indeed their elders, while they may be able to recite the names of what became the twelve tribes of Israel, which would prove very useful on university challenge, they might, thanks to me, forever think that Naphtali and Issachar were numbers four and five, when in fact they were six and nine respectively.

[6:27] Tim Rice: But my prime consideration, when attempting to squeeze all the brothers into Andrew's jaunty opening melody, was to make sure the number and emphasis of syllables fitted each and every note and the way it was stressed.

[6:41] Tim Rice: Pay attention now.

[6:42] Tim Rice: The actual batting order after Reuben, Simeon, and Levi is Judah IV, Dan V, Naphtali 6, Gad 7, Asher 8, Issachar 9, Zebulun 10, Joseph 11, and Benjamin bringing up the rear at 12.

[6:56] Tim Rice: The first four, and Izzy and Zeb, were the six sons of Jacob with Leah.

[7:01] Tim Rice: Dan and Knapp, the sons of Jacob with Bilhah, who was Leah's sister, Rachel's servant.

[7:07] Tim Rice: Gad and Asher were Jacob's sons with Zilpah, Leah's servant, and Joseph and Benjamin, his sons with Rachel.

[7:15] Tim Rice: I'm not sure how much of that I'd taken in back in 1968.

[7:19] Tim Rice: But looking at it now, I'm rather glad I didn't attempt complete historical accuracy.

[7:24] Tim Rice: But it would have been possible.

[7:26] Tim Rice: Reuben was the eldest of the children of Israel, with Simeon and Levi the next in line.

[7:31] Tim Rice: Followed up by Judah, then came Naphthalie and Gad, Asher number eight, next up, Issachar nine, Jacob, Jacob and sons, Zebulun and Joseph, leaving just one, Jacob, Jacob and sons, Benjamin, and that's Israel done.

[7:45] Tim Rice: But then I haven't mentioned yet that Joseph was Jacob's favourite.

[7:49] Tim Rice: I think I was right first time. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[7:53] Tim Rice: Ironically, the song was lengthened in later years for full-blown theatrical productions.

[7:58] Tim Rice: The lines, Jacob was the founder of a whole new nation thanks to the number of children he had.

[8:04] Tim Rice: He was also known as Israel, but most of the time his sons and his wives used to call him Dad, work well as an extra stanza, usually needed when characters are bounding onto the stage at the start of a show.

[8:15] Tim Rice: I also added later, Jacob, Jacob and sons, men of the soil of the sheaf and crook, Jacob, Jacob and sons, a remarkable family in anyone's book.

[8:24] Tim Rice: But I didn't read Jig, The Order of Bros.

[8:28] Tim Rice: Now the next song in Joseph is quite frankly a corker. I feel I can say this 54 years on from its creation.

[8:34] Tim Rice: But even with Joseph's coat, as I grope for the pear's transparent amber soap in imminent shower mode after a hard day's night with the rhyming dictionary, I find myself thinking about improvements I could make to the original Joseph's second song.

[8:49] Tim Rice: Joseph's coat, of course, contains an imperfect rhyme.

[8:53] Tim Rice: His astounding clothing took the biscuit, quite the smoothest person in the district.

[8:58] Tim Rice: But that one works, even though the true rhyme with Biscuit would be Diskit.

[9:03] Tim Rice: I always remember the late Angus McGill, the outstanding arts journalist, telling us that that was the couplet that first grabbed him and made him listen with interest to the entire work, which was, of course, only 30 minutes long then.

[9:16] Tim Rice: It was clearly the slang phrases in the less serious songs that gave the piece much of its verbal style, albeit the slang was closer to P.G. Woodhouse than whatever the hipsters were using on the streets in 1968.

[9:28] Tim Rice: I was bolder with slang as the show progressed. When Jacob's coat was extended, as almost every number was, eventually, it included phrases such as, also Rand's, Slay Us in the Isles, and Missing the Boat.

[9:41] Tim Rice: I never worried that children wouldn't get all these phrases first time out. They'd soon learn what they meant.

[9:47] Tim Rice: We wrote Joseph in late 1967 and early 1968 for just one school, the aforementioned Colick Court, then a boys' school in Hammersmith, London.

[9:57] Tim Rice: Alan Doggett, the music teacher at the school, had heard the demo disc of the first musical Andrew and I ever wrote together, The Likes of Us, which at that stage had never been performed, and on the strength of that, asked us to write something for his upcoming end of term concert to be performed by boys aged eight to eleven.

[10:17] Tim Rice: I remember Andrew and Alan had slight doubts at first about too much slang, even querying multicoloured rather than many coloured. And I too wondered if my lyrical approach would work.

[10:28] Tim Rice: But I remembered the songs I sang when I was eight at school, and stirring though the tunes, such as Marching Through Georgia and Men of Harleck were, I did not really identify with the situations they described.

[10:40] Tim Rice: Cowboys were big. I would rather have sung Davy Crockett or The Man from Laramie, or even Nelly the Elephant. However, the kids themselves loved Joseph more and more each time they were played a new song, and their approval settled it.

[10:54] Tim Rice: I began to throw in gags and one-liners wherever possible, always aware that telling the story was the most important thing. Luckily, I was working with a succession of superb new tunes.

[11:05] Tim Rice: I'm sure that if we'd been writing Joseph for all ages for the theatre, we would have been much more inhibited in both creative departments. We owed a lot to those kids' laughter.

[11:16] Tim Rice: Here's the original recording of Joseph's coat, which is perhaps most notable for the string of colours at the end.

[11:29] Tim Rice: Joseph was the special one, so Jacob bought his son of coats, a multi-colored coat to wear. Joseph's coat was elegant, the cuts were spine, the tasteful style was the arts inerting good design.

[11:46] Tim Rice: This is why it caught the eye. A king would stop and stare. And when Joseph tried it on, he knew his sheepskin days were gone. Such a dancing coat of many cupcase.

[12:04] Tim Rice: How he lost his coats of many cupcakes in the glass of the rest. Such a styling coats of many coatways. How he loved his coats of many curveplays.

[12:24] Tim Rice: It was red and yellow and green and brown and blue. Joseph's brothers weren't too pleased with what they saw. They had never liked him all that much before. Now this coat had got their goats.

[12:42] Tim Rice: They felt life was unfair. And when Joseph raised the scene, his brothers turned a shade on green. His astounding coins of the biscuit. Quite the smoothest vessel in the district.

[13:01] Tim Rice: He looks handsome. He looks fast. He was a walking worker. Such a vastly coat of many cards. How he loved his coat of many colours.

[13:16] Tim Rice: It was red and yellow and green and brown and scarlet and black and ochre and peachy and booby and pollen and violet and full and lilac and gold and chocolate and foam and green and crimson and silver and rose and ashell and weather night.

[13:37] Tim Rice: Russet and green and purple and white and pink and orange and blue. Can you name all the 29 colours in the right order? I'm not sure I can, because when we gave Joseph's coat to the Collic Court boys, it only contained five: red and yellow, and green and brown and blue.

[13:56] Tim Rice: They asked if they could add a few more. And the two dozen they tagged on to the end of the song proved an addition of genius. More than one review complimented me, instead of the choir, on the ingeniousness of the list, which has even been featured in The Simpsons.

[14:10] Tim Rice: No praise could be higher than acceptance by the Simpsons. Even if it was Flanders, who remembered them. I occasionally run into members of the Colic Court choir today. They're all now in their 60s, so I don't always recognize them immediately.

[14:23] Tim Rice: Luckily, they seem to recognize me, and I'm always delighted to say hello. I recently had the strange experience of meeting two Joseph Colic Court alumni on the same day, separately, within five minutes of each other, one being Simon Curtis, the theatre and film director, Downton Abbey, My Week with Marilyn, etc.

[14:43] Tim Rice: Joseph's coat was sung by David Daughtry, lead singer of a band called The Tales of Justine, who were very much into psychedelia, and with whom Andrew and I recorded several of David's songs.

[14:54] Tim Rice: Many can be found, should be found, on an album entitled Petals from a Sunflower on the grapefruit label. David was a great talent and was unlucky not to have achieved more recognition in his lifetime.

[15:08] Tim Rice: Had Andrew and I been more established when we worked with him on his material, I feel certain his recordings would have got released and promoted with every chance of success. Sad to say, David is no longer with us, but I'm delighted to say the four members of the mixed bag are.

[15:23] Tim Rice: I'm still in touch with them, in particular with Malcolm Perry and Terry Saunders, bass and lead guitar respectively, both fine vocalists, and enjoyed a 50th anniversary dinner with all four not that long ago.

[15:33] Tim Rice: John Cook on keyboards and Brian Watson drums, completed the quartet from Hertfordshire, which was also David Daughtry's Neck of the Woods. Terry, it was, who sang lead on Jacob and Sons, and the band played throughout the piece, augmented at times by David's guitar.

[15:49] Tim Rice: I'll have another look back at that first Joseph album, as there are some other lyrical memories and unfulfilled alterations to mention. It was such a short piece when it started out, only 20 minutes long, extended to 30 for the album.

[16:02] Tim Rice: Now it runs for well over twice that length. Usually with a mega mix of all the songs as an encore. In effect, punters get the show twice. Only the second time the scenes are in a different order. Nobody seems to mind.

[16:16] Tim Rice: Like Topsy, it grew and grew. To end, here's a song which was added to the score in one or two early productions of Joseph on the Road. The tune was originally written for the likes of us when it was called You Won't Care About Her Anymore.

[16:31] Tim Rice: It doesn't work, although the concept of Joseph having a song in which it dawns on him that his brothers aren't his greatest fans is quite a good one. However, the anachronisms in this number are too far-fetched.

[16:43] Tim Rice: And although it's a good melody with a good gag or two, it didn't add anything to the show, and has been officially permanently and rightly abandoned. Except at the end of this edition of Get On to My Cloud.

[17:31] ♪ Musical number: "I Don't Think I'm at Home" — performed by Tim Rice ♪

[19:18] Tim Rice: That was episode 62 of my podcast, Get Onto My Cloud, written and presented by me, Tim Rice. Produced by the immortal Peter Hobbs, and dedicated to a new arrival, Gus Lloyd Webber.