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

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

[0:04] Tim Rice: This is episode 31.

[0:18] Tim Rice: I recently moved house, actually, not that recently, over three years ago now, but it's taken me so long to unpack my books and records that the move still seems like the other day.

[0:28] Tim Rice: I wasn't deliberately downsizing, but I clearly have, at least in terms of shelves, as I have literally hundreds of books on the floor and reams of CDs still in the removal packing cases.

[0:39] Tim Rice: And I've given 400 vinyl compilation albums to the charity shop.

[0:44] Tim Rice: I have, however, managed to unload and sort most of the recordings that I've been involved with over the past half century, which have been a great source of material for these podcasts.

[0:54] Tim Rice: I'm attempting to work out how many songs I've written since 1964, which I estimate in the 400 to 500 region.

[1:00] Tim Rice: I shall reveal exact figures in a future podcast.

[1:04] Tim Rice: It's been fun to come across stuff I'd all but forgotten, often mercifully forgotten, but even the many fairly grisly songs are at least of interest to me, and there are just about enough passable ones for me to keep going with Get Onto My Cloud for a While Longer, just like Covid, the podcast is hanging around a lot longer than I expected.

[1:22] Tim Rice: When I think about the many great songwriters I admire enormously, both those from before my time, way before in some cases, and those who've been my contemporaries, I often wonder if they all wrote as much dodgy stuff as I have.

[1:35] Tim Rice: I've just watched High Society for about the 17th time, and marvelled for the 17th time, at the staggeringly brilliant Cole Porter score.

[1:44] Tim Rice: Did he ever write any NAF lyrics?

[1:46] Tim Rice: Did Johnny Mercer, Ira Gershwin, or Don Black?

[1:50] Tim Rice: I do hope so, but it's hard to imagine.

[1:53] Tim Rice: One of the recordings I unearthed this week was from Andrew Lloyd Webber's theatrical reworking of The Wizard of Oz, which, as you all almost certainly know, began life in 1939 as a movie starring the young Judy Garland with songs written by Yip Harburg lyrics and Harold Arlen music, including, of course, the immortal Oscar winning Over the Rainbow.

[2:15] Tim Rice: In 2011, Andrew obtained permission from whoever he had to get permission from to add a few numbers to the existing score and generously invited me to supply the lyrics.

[2:26] Tim Rice: We added four songs to the Harburg Arlen score, and I must say, it was a little unnerving to put one's efforts up against one of the best known and most loved scores of all time.

[2:36] Tim Rice: To be honest, I'm not sure our contributions were consistently up to the task.

[2:40] Tim Rice: But immodestly, I felt one song at least was, thanks in no small measure to Hannah Waddingham's superb portrayal of the wicked witch of the West.

[2:49] Tim Rice: The song we wrote for her was called Red Shoes Blues.

[2:53] Tim Rice: And to use a cliché I've always quite liked, she hit it out of the park.

[3:02] Tim Rice: She's so misguided.

[3:04] Tim Rice: It's all so one-sided.

[3:06] Tim Rice: That dim-witted girl dares to tangle with me.

[3:11] Tim Rice: She's prissy, she's clueless, and I want her shoeless.

[3:15] Tim Rice: I'll show her how fiendishly mean I can be.

[3:41] Tim Rice: Over all I survey, but I now need a much bigger deal.

[3:47] Tim Rice: The shoes are the key to the making of me.

[3:51] Tim Rice: So fight her and bring her to here.

[3:56] Tim Rice: When I get that footwear from her, and it's put where it could have been.

[4:01] Tim Rice: Should have been right from the start.

[4:04] Tim Rice: My power will grow.

[4:06] Tim Rice: It will blossom and flow through the world through the years and straight to my heart.

[4:14] Tim Rice: We all like to dance.

[4:16] Tim Rice: So now here's your chance.

[4:18] Tim Rice: You'll dance till your very last gasp.

[4:26] Tim Rice: And stumble right into my grasp.

[4:30] Tim Rice: You'll find you can't stop as you dance till you drop.

[4:35] Tim Rice: And stumble right into my grasp.

[4:40] Tim Rice: Enjoy your dance, my pretties.

[4:43] Tim Rice: And now, you, my monkeys, my darlings.

[4:47] Tim Rice: Yes, it is time at long last for you to do your work.

[4:50] Tim Rice: Off you go and mop up the mess.

[4:52] Tim Rice: I want that little girl and her mangy little dog.

[4:55] Tim Rice: But most of all, I want my slippers!

[4:58] Tim Rice: Now go!

[4:59] Tim Rice: Fly!

[5:00] Tim Rice: Fly!

[5:50] Tim Rice: I know I hold sway on her own eyes today, but I now need a much bigger deal.

[5:58] Tim Rice: The shoes are the key to the making of me.

[6:01] Tim Rice: So fight her and bring her to heel.

[6:05] Tim Rice: So that media, I hope I made clear what you have to surrender.

[6:11] Tim Rice: And why?

[6:12] Tim Rice: It's the end of the line.

[6:14] Tim Rice: The slipper's mine!

[6:16] Tim Rice: You're welcome, my pretty.

[6:18] Tim Rice: Yes, you're welcome, my pretty.

[6:22] Tim Rice: Ta-da!

[6:30] Tim Rice: Hannah Waddingham is a magnificent singer and a commanding presence on stage.

[6:35] Tim Rice: I put her interpretation of Red Shoes Blues up there in the all-time top ten renditions of my words.

[6:41] Tim Rice: And it was usually the one moment in the show, which ran for 18 months at the London Palladium, where I felt our intrusion was justified.

[6:48] Tim Rice: But Hannah's co-stars were also top class.

[6:51] Tim Rice: Danielle Hope and Michael Crawford, no less.

[6:53] Tim Rice: And each had to grapple with one of our contributions.

[6:57] Tim Rice: Which they did superbly.

[6:59] Tim Rice: There was a song towards the end of the show called Home, or maybe it was called Already Home, I never quite knew.

[7:04] Tim Rice: To which Danielle gave her considerable all.

[7:06] Tim Rice: But I still feel a little worried that we hadn't quite given her the big bang the end of the show needed, and that her performance deserved.

[7:14] Tim Rice: Maybe we should try again before the next Wizard of Oz tour.

[7:17] Tim Rice: Michael Crawford is, of course, one of the great actors and theatrical singers of our time.

[7:22] Tim Rice: His song in Andrew's Oz was called Wonders of the World, which was a kind of global travelogue presented by the Wizard's alter ego, Professor Marvel.

[7:32] Tim Rice: It was an honor to have Michael sing my words on stage, especially at the London Palladium, as I'd been a fan of his since way before his rise to megastardom with Phantom of the Opera.

[7:41] Tim Rice: I first noticed him in the 1964 late night David Frost television show called Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life, in which Michael, in the guise of a slightly bewildered teenage mod biker named Byron, commented hilariously on the world with confused confidence.

[7:59] Tim Rice: I'd also relished his performances in films such as The Knack, directed by Richard Lester, featuring another of my favourite actors, Ray Brooks, and the Michael Winner film, The Jokers, in which he starred with Oliver Reed as a pair of crown jewel thieves.

[8:14] Tim Rice: Phantom, however, emphasized his great singing voice, and I was delighted when he added Gethsemane from Jesus Christ Superstar to his concert repertoire.

[8:22] Tim Rice: He never failed to extract every bit of emotion and drama from that aria, one of the most demanding songs in musical theatre.

[8:29] Tim Rice: Some years ago, when my good friend Richard Kerr and I heard that Michael was recording a new album, we sent him a song we'd just written, entitled One of My Best Friends, which, to our delight, he liked.

[8:41] Tim Rice: It's one of my lesser-known songs, which I particularly like, and Michael's voice on this track matches the excellence of Richard's melody.

[9:01] Tim Rice: Some of my old friends are here.

[9:07] Tim Rice: The light isn't good, but their outlines are clear.

[9:13] Tim Rice: I'm talking of solitude, silence and doubt.

[9:19] Tim Rice: I try to escape them.

[9:22] Tim Rice: They soon found me now.

[9:26] Tim Rice: Some of my old friends are here.

[9:35] Tim Rice: Some of my friends call today.

[9:44] Tim Rice: I'd throw it away by thought, word or deed.

[9:50] Tim Rice: Almost likely all three.

[9:53] Tim Rice: The person to run my affairs is in me.

[10:00] Tim Rice: Some of my friends call today.

[10:25] Tim Rice: By pretending my world was an ending.

[10:37] Tim Rice: One of my best friends is gone.

[10:42] Tim Rice: Not moving.

[10:44] Tim Rice: I watched her walk out where upon the words that been crazy to hold back before came crashing like waves on a white empty shore, and no one has ever loved anyone more.

[11:08] Tim Rice: One of my best friends is gone.

[11:39] Tim Rice: Before came crashing like waves on a white empty shore, and no one has ever loved anyone more.

[11:57] Tim Rice: One of my best friends is gone.

[12:24] Tim Rice: Michael Crawford sings Richard Kerr and me. A nice song, which was, unusually for me, a one-off, not part of any larger work, show or film. I wonder if the song might have become better known had it been part of a show. We shall never know. Incidentally, Richard has also recorded one of my best friends, and it's on his album Late But in Earnest, and I recommend it extremely highly for both his emotional voice and his many beautiful tunes.

[12:52] Tim Rice: Talking of one-off songs, which by and large I'm not very good at, I have done a few with Andrew over the ages. In 2004, he produced an album by the Irish singer Shonagh Daly entitled Beautiful View. And I contributed words to an ALW tune which I called A Touch of Love. Brackets, Butterfly Sting, close brackets. I'd always liked songs with some of the title in parentheses from early record buying days when I was intrigued by songs such as Elvis's open brackets, now and then there's close brackets a fool such as I, or open brackets, I can't get no close bracket satisfaction. But I really do digress.

[14:00] Tim Rice: Need a touch of love. Don't want you in my dreams. I'd rather stay awake and feel a touch of love. No second guessing, no conversation, no ever after, no complication. I want you. I love you, I leave you the usual thing, the butterfly sting, no other motive, no expectation, no disappointment, no obligation. You touch me, you love me, you leave me here I go again. Oh if I could steal your heart, but it's nothing to take, it's just a touch of love. I won't hold you to a word you who whisper for my sake if there's a touch of love. You don't need to tell the truth if every move you make becomes a touch of love. No future perfect, no accusation, no one to notice some desolation. You touch me. You love me, you leave me. Here I go again. I want you. I love you, I leave you. Here I go again. I never mean to love you. Oh if I could steal your heart, but it's not there to take it's just a touch of love.

[14:13] Tim Rice: A touch of love. That was Shonagh Daly and a little known ALW TR song. A Touch of Love. Not little known because of Shona, I hasten to add. She sang it superbly. I hope I thanked Shona at the time, but if not, belated gratitude for a wonderful and powerful vocal. Searching through my back catalogue, recordings on vinyl, cassette, eight-track, mini disc, CD, and now sometimes sad to say, only findable through downloads, I've discovered quite a few songs I'd all but forgotten about, and that includes those one-offs I mentioned, written with Andrew, that were not connected with any show, or at least weren't at the time they were first composed.

[18:11] Tim Rice: Way before Evita, Andrew and I produced an album with a very talented actor singer Maynard Williams, son of the popular actor-comedian Bill Maynard, open brackets, who starred in among many other shows, Oh No, it's Selwyn Frogit and Heartbeat, close brackets. And I only have Maynard's album on vinyl. One of the songs we offered Maynard was entitled Down on the Farm, the tune of which eventually became High Flying Adored in Evita, a much better place for it. As Eva Peron was not known ever to have milked a cow or ploughed a field, I had to change the words fairly drastically. But I still like the original version. It wasn't bad, just hopelessly uncommercial. It was a little bonkers to think a song about a farm being irrevocably changed by technology was a potential chartbuster.

But Maynard sang it superbly, and the words cannot disguise the fact that it's one of Andrew's greatest melodies. Farming Today would have loved it. Forgive or perhaps enjoy the sound of needle on vinyl.

[18:29] ♪ Musical number: "Down on the Farm" — performed by Maynard Williams ♪

[23:39] Tim Rice: That was episode 31 of my podcast, Get On to My Cloud. Written and presented by me, Tim Rice, and produced by Peter Hobbes.