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Blue Seattle with Cameron Crowe | Development Hell · Revisionist History

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hello, Hello, Malcolm Glabel here, and welcome to what
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: might be the final episode in our development hell series
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: of Revision's history. Today we're talking about Alvis Love down
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: on his street. That person singing is not Elvias.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: These are the people.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: That's Cameron Crowe. You've seen his movies. Jerry Maguire almost famous,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: he wrote Fast Times at Ridgemont High, so many more.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: And the guitarist on this song is Nancy Wilson from
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: the mega nineteen seventies band Heart, who at the time
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: was Cameron Crowe's wife. And the story we're going to
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: talk about today starts back in the summer of nineteen
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: eighty six, when Cameron and Nancy were on their honeymoon.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: They spent it in a little cabin in the Pacific Northwest,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: a little cabin that would become the birthplace for today's
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: movie that Never was Blue Seattle, a loving romp about
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: two songwriters trying to write a movie for Elvis Presley,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: A movie about a couple writing a movie, written by
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: a couple writing a movie. What's not to love? A
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: script so meta that it belongs on the big screen.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Only the big screen wasn't big enough to handle it
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: or something like that, because one of the things that
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: you might conclude in listening to this interview is that
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: for Cameron Crowe, it is so much fun talking about
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: his lost Elvis masterpiece that I think he's afraid that
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: if he actually makes it, he'll feel abandoned, like a
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: version of screenwriter empty nest syndrome. So let's tell the
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: story of Blue Seattle. And this interview is different from
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: all the other development hell stories we told on the
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: series because instead of giving us the script to his movie,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Cam and Crope gave us the songs he and Nancy
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: wrote forty years ago. As in every Elvis movie, the
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: best parts of the songs to capture a moment, that
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: honeymoon bursts of creative inspiration, and they tell a story
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: but a young couple in love. I've been looking forward
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: to this. Let's start from the beginning because this is
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: this is a story that needs, as you know, appropriate setup.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: Well, when we first talked, I went down a road
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: that felt very friendly and evocative and filled with memories.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: Because you are an Elvis guy, your revisionist history on
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: Elvis was seminal, and this idea of like never made
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: projects from the heart and stuff. It combined with my
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: love of Elvis and a particular part of Elvis to
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: you just want to like put this in your lap, Malcolm.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: This is this was one that got away.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Well, let's start with Elvis. So you your first concert
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: you ever attended as a kid, right, is an Elvis concert?
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: That's right? I won tickets on the radio.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: It's your twelve Yeah, something like that. Which Elvis are
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: you getting in that low period?
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: Elvis seventy two, Elvis.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: The big, the big high Collers.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: Big high Callers, karate kicks. He was a little obsessed
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: with Nixon. In my San Diego Sports Arena show, he
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: did an imitation of Nixon and at one point was
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: on his back kind of kicking his legs, just having fun.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: The kid was having fun at my show.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Baroke, it's baro You got Barroke Elvis.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: I got Baroque Elvis. But Malcolm, he did. There was
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: one moment where it just broke through, like his genius
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: really broke through. And it was a brief moment of
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: sunlight through the clouds, but it was bridge over trouble
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: water and I felt him connect and there was that
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: moment where it was galvanizing and giving what he wanted
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: to give, and the audience was like mid shriek and
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: kind of taking it in. And and that was that
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: was the DNA you were meant to build up from
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: watching the show. Okay, there he is when you were feelings,
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: it was kind of fun in games Elvis.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: And so this is so much of your life's work
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: kind of grows, is growing from the tiny seed of
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: not the all that of that Elvis concert, right, I
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: mean almost famous. So this this concert had a huge
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: impact on you.
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: It did, and also also Malcolm because like I took
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: my mom and my mom you know, if you if
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: you've seen all famous.
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: It's unfair that we can't listen to our music.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: It's because it is about drugs and promiscuous sex.
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: Simon and garfun is poetry, Yes, it's poetry. It is
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: a poetry of drugs and promiscuous sex. Honey, they're on POTT.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: So that week changes a lot. So this was the
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: door that gets cracked open where rock and of course
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: my future love and that combined with journalism. I was
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: on my way, but Elvis was there at the gates,
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: you know, and I still was obsessed with Elvis but
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: I was obsessed with the corners of Elvis's experience, and
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: one of those corners was his movies. And I loved
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: those B movies. Some might even call them C and
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: D movies. There he comes out of the box hot
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: with Loving You and Jail House Rock, but eventually he's
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: doing genre things for the money that Colonel Parker has
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: put him up for. And you know, there's a set
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: formula for the Elvis movies that happened. And I became
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: obsessed with those movies.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, And you became obsessed with them because I mean,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: one thing I was trying to figure out is I
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: listened to the music of the project we're going to
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: talk about. Was I was trying to understand your intentions
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: and your So are you obsessed in a kind.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: Of that's so delicately put? I love it?
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Is it is?
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: It is it?
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Are you winking at Elvis? Are you sharing in the fun?
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Or are you buying it?
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: All of the above? All I think you just you
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: just have to enjoy it for what it is, which
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: which is a romp. Elvis often did three of those
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: movies in a year. You can see he's kind of
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: confused by the character names they call him by. It's
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: like he's he's lost, He's he's brilliantly lost. It's just,
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: you know, you see so much. It's almost watching his
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: face in these movies. It's like a diary that he
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: never wrote. You can see why am I here? You
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: can see glimmers of oh this is good, and Margaret
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: Viva las Vegas. Wait a minute, she's challenging me. So
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: it's all there, hidden in this candy colored genre romp
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: that the Elvis movies became so all of the above.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, sir, So you developed early on, in other words,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: a rich and nuanced interpretation of who Elvis was and
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: what he stands for. Yes, and that's that's Is there
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: any other artist who plays a comparable role in your
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: in the development of your imagination?
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: No, because there's only one guy who was or artist
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: who was so huge that he was able to make
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: thirty throwaway movies that did well enough so that he
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: could keep doing it, perhaps against his will. Only one
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: person that I ever knew about, and we'll share this later,
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: did ask Elvis, like, why did you make all those movies?
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: And he gave this one person an answer, But mostly
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: he never did any interviews. He never commented on it.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: He just did all those movies for fifteen years. They
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: squandered quite a bit, you know, as John Lennon would
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: would tell you in his interviews, like why is Elvis?
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: Why is the King? Just like you know, strolling around
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: Hollywood sound stages with B level stars singing like medium
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: decent songs, you know, but that's part of the mysteries
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: of Elvis.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so we have this. This is the kind
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: of the necessary context, Yes, the story that you're gonna tell.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay. So it's the eighties and I had written
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: Fast Times at Ridgemont High which like amazingly kind of
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: found an audience, so I kind of had a shot
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: at possibly a screenwriting career. And in the middle of
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: all this, I perhaps most importantly, fell in love with
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: Nancy Wilson, the great Nancy Wilson, amazing guitarist, half of
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: the Wilson sisters who front their band Heart. So we
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: were together for a while and then decided to get married.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: And it was a beautiful time. And Anne Wilson, Nancy's sister,
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: had a cabin in Cannon Beach, Oregon, and that was
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: where we wanted to go for a little honeymoon, you know,
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: just borrow the cabin from Ann. Now this you must
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: know as a setup is Ann and Nancy Wilson. To
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: this day, they're like the everly sisters. They sing together
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: and it's like, you know, there's no thought that goes
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: into it. They have the sibling voices that blend so
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: beautifully their musical twins in a way, and sings. Nancy
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: sing a little bit, but mostly plays this elegant, beautiful guitar.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: They're a serious duo. So ten days into our honeymoon,
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: which was how long we wanted to spend at Anne's cabin,
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: we decid we want to spend two weeks. We want
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: to spend a little bit longer. But Anne wants to
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: come to her cabin. So Ann Wilson shows up on
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: our honeymoon, which is an interesting thing for a small cabin.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: It's like a sitcom in a way. Here you have
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: the two sisters with you on your honeymoon with one
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: of them, and what are you going to do in
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: this in this small environment in a in a you know,
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: coastal town in Oregon where not much is going on. Well,
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: we're going to do a project, a musical project that
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: will involve all three of us. Whose idea was this
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: mine because I love watching them sing together. And Nancy
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: would later score my movies and stuff, and so we
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: worked really well together and AND's a lot of fun. Now,
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: all all of this being said, I was working loosely
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: on a book I wanted to do about Elvis movies,
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: So so that was on my mind. And like any
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: idea that you believe is good, it's built on the
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: things you love, and Elvis was one. Playing music with
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: my wife was another, and s c TV and Martin
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: Short was a third element. I loved Martin Short, that
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: great that great comedy show s c TV.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Remember I'm Canadian.
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: So here comes this idea for a kind of and
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: this is the cousin of what you're doing, Malcolm. It's
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: like lost masterpieces. What's What's What's something that like a
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: movie that almost got made? And it's built on the
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: burning fever inside your gut that this is the idea
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: of all time. So I started building this idea of
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: the great Elvis movie that never got made and what's
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: the story behind it? And I decided that it was
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: like you had Goffin and King, who are like a
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: great couple songwriting their legends. They'd written all these great songs.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: The Beatles did some of them. I thought, like, what
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: about a much lesser Goffin and King, Like, what about
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: a couple who's the songwriting team They haven't gotten in
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: the door. And it's Parnell and Zix was their name,
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: Linda Parnell and Louis Zix. And Louis Zix of these
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: two songwriters, is obsessed with writing. He hears Elvis may
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: do one more movie, and he's gonna write with with
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: with his songwriting partner wife, they're gonna write this song
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: cycle for the ten songs of an Elvis movie that
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: they're gonna pitch and make. And this is the beginning
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: of Blue Seattle, which is their song cycle Malcolm, that
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: they're gonna try and sell to Elvis himself. And so
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: here on our honeymoon, I began to write these Elvis
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: songs that were fleshed out with Ann and Nancy Wilson
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: of heart and and and un ironically, really mostly we
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: were gonna do these songs that that captured all the
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: elements of the Elvis movie formula.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Now, before we get into the songs themselves, which I
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: have to say, are genius? I want you to define
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: you said all the elements of the eleph movie formula.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Break it down from before we start. What what are
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: the elements, the crucial.
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: Elements, okay, the the the Elvis elements of this. First
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: of all, he has to have a name that sounds
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: like a fist, you know, nothing too complex, just kind
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: of like deep Rivers was one Buck Thomas, you know,
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: so like we we thought, you start with a name
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: that's like, you know, Mike Davis something like that. And
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: and Elvis must always have workplace pride. He needs to
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: do a couple different things in an Elvis movie of
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: this era, but like they're often a strange combination of things,
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: like he can be a veterinarian who's also a race
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: car driver who also works in a county fair somehow
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: living you know, a little kid should appear at some
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: point looking for kind of some kind of mentorship, which
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: he provides, usually in the form of a song. Dancing
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: girls must appear.
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: In the Garden of Paradise, Noble Master.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: So like that. It's worked in a fight, at least
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: one fight, and a thoughtful moment over a pet. Come on, Albert,
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: don't be a faint.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: A good album because, of course Elvis. Yeah, I mean
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: his dog, his love of dog. I mean the seminal
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: of what was the seminal dog in Elvis's life. I've
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: now forgotten the one that song he used to sing
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: over and over and over again as a teen was
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: a song about a dead dog, Shep.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: Yes, wasn't it.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: I think it's Shep. Yeah. These are the kind of
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: stations of the Elvis cross that you've.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: Us the stations of the cross. You can't say it
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: any better.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: There's a lot going on in these movies.
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: And he lined them up, man, he lined them up
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: and did them. But then ultimately we end up at
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: a place where Elvis's nobility is protected. He either gets
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: the girl or he doesn't get the girl, and there's
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: a there's a rave up song that sends you out
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: feeling good.
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's the Elvis movie.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Did you have you watched all the album Elvis movies?
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. And as long as you have these elements,
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: you're in the ballgame. Yeah. And of course the songs
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: are written outside of Elvis's experience, and usually they come
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: to him and at some point and they play him
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: the songs, and you know, legendarily he's like, no, no, okay,
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: I do something with that. Okay, No, okay, now I'm tired,
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: you know, Like, and they bring more songs another day.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: And these are songs that the songwriters have like killed
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: themselves over because they know they're gonna have a session
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: with Elvis, you know, yeah, yeah, And this was the
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: songwriting couple in the story, my fictional story for lu Seattle,
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: Like their dream is that they will one day be
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: able to play these songs for Elvis and pitch this movie.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Are we going to hear some of those songs, dear listener,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Oh yes we are. After quick Break, Cameron Crowe is
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: going to play us some of the music from Blue Seattle.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: So you sat down, you're there. How long did it
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: take to write these ten songs?
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: Like four or five days? Because I remember we made
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: this cassette that we're going to listen to mercifully a
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: little bit of yes, maybe a lot, but there's I
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: remember we listened to it on our way back from
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: the honeymoon. We were like, this is really pretty good.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, wait, why don't we let's play that one? I
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: actually I think you're being far too modest. I have
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: another one I want to recommend, but we'll get to
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: that one. Just play just to get us in the mood.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Let's listen to your favorite of the ten songs you wrote.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: It's going to be My People, My People.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Let's listen to My People.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: Let me set it up. We wanted to bring Elvis
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: this movie in the late sixties because this is kind
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: of the period where post Elvis has started to develop
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: a little bit of a social conscience. So the idea
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: is Elvis plays a cab driver in this who is
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: a man kind of of the people. And so like
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: the idea of Elvis roaming the streets in Seattle and
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: like Pike Place and all that stuff. We loved it.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: And so there is a moment where he realizes he
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: he must return to the relevance of the street where
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: he was once this cab driver, and he leaves this
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: relationship that has kind of belittled him in some ways.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: And so he's like going back to his roots, and
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: he's singing this song from behind the wheel of his cab,
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: My People, And it's always good. I'll just add this,
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: It's always good when you have a little bit of
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: a of a Spanish kind of castinette, you know.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Clove down in his street watching from my seat. These
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: are the people, my people in the city. Raid, I
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: seem to know my these are the people, my people.
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: I'm just an afty.
• 19:39
  Speaker 6: How did mine.
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: My review?
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: Mar excuse me in my crime?
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: I must be seeing my bride.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: For the people, the people of people people.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: A little bit.
• 20:03
  Speaker 7: You're a moment in there, and now another one. He's
• 20:13
  Speaker 7: gonna be clapping, even though he has danse hands on
• 20:15
  Speaker 7: the wheel simp figure.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: It out almost.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: To the people.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: People you can. Actually, it's funny. That's like totally believable.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Wasn't Elvis song? If Alvis? Have I heard that on
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: an Elvis album? I'm not thinking twice about it.
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: I've come such a long way to hear you say that.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: No, I mean I'm not I'm not blowing smoke here.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: No, I felt that too at your time. Almost sell
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: that to to to Elvis. Yeah, for one of those movies.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, who's playing guitar on that?
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: Nancy and Ann are both playing guitar and singing, and
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: I'm like attempting to do an Elvis voice?
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which is it's not that the wake link for sure,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: it's not your range.
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: Fantastic. You know, they can play anything at the drop
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: of a hat, and their harmonies are so cool.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Wait, let's so let's start from the view. So Blue
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Seattle is set's the is the first song sets the
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: tone here, and we we're what are we? What are
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: we doing?
• 21:35
  Speaker 8: What do we?
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: What are what are we trying to do? Narratively with
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Blue Blue Seattle.
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: Usher you into uh an Elvis world of time and
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: place and character. Yeah, where fun will perhaps abound.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's let's play a little, just the first half
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: of it, and then just to get a kind of
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: feel we get in the mood, Let's let's hear a
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: little bit of it.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: Leathers always in LUs.
• 22:18
  Speaker 6: Green mountains, a maple.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: This is the native influence was thing through.
• 22:43
  Speaker 6: I'm going back to the place where I'm.
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: A pretty little ship of warm man. Just kg.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: The sticks are rare boom. I thought the opening this
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: should be the theme for Seattle. First of all, Blue Seattle.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Seattle needs to call itself blue because everyone thinks they're
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: gray Seattle, so as a marketing campaign to remind us
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: that the skies are blue in the mountains are green
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: is like. And secondly, just those opening this place made
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: the town made for love. I mean, come on, why
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: is the city not make this just that those three
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: opening lines. That's the That should be the official tagline
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: for Seattle.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: Everything takes its time. I'm realizing to come to this
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: crossroads with you is really meaningful. So yeah, once he did.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: It happened at the World's Fair in Seattle. So this
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: is like a reunion with uh, with an Elvis city
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: that's like undervalued as an Elvis city.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: But wait, yes, Elvis. Elvis plays Seattle during the expo.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: He makes a movie. It happened at the World's Fair.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: I forget who the co star is, but like the
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: space needle is on the poster for it.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: It's a good nastic oh oh wow, a little kind
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: of a little a little a little phallic imagery to
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: add to the we then we come to pay the fair. Yeah,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: and as you said earlier, in the kind of like
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: in the Elvis movie taxonomy that you created, he needs
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: to have multiple jobs, but one of them has to
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: be a kind of keeping it real, that's right. And
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: so the keep it real job we have here. We
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: understand that he's a cab driver.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: He's a cab driver, looking for love.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Looking for course. Yeah, let's do let's do it. Let's
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: do a minute of let's do a minute of of
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: pay the fair.
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: We'll see the little girl.
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: I'll stand a rod over there, maybe forty.
• 24:55
  Speaker 8: Understand she's a watch.
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: He's a watch.
• 25:00
  Speaker 8: He's a watch. He's a wall.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: A fair.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: Yuh, that little girl a little lot of like you.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: But das and they sound and Nancy sounds so good
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: on this, they don't.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: I know that the thing that makes this genius is
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: because understanding that we have the Wilson sisters doing the
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: do do Do Do Do Do.
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: Do right.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: Came when you when you're doing this project? Are they
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: what's there? They as into it as you are? There?
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: I mean A we're bored, yeah, but b it's it's
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: a it's a great question. There was mist there's like
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: waves crashing on the below these little cliffs where we're staying,
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: and in the middle of this we're just like howling
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: through these Elvis songs. It was amazing.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: Honeymoon is there Is there a lot of weed involved
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: or not?
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: Not really? Not really. I think a lot of beers.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: I think we were just like lining up beers doing
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: some of this stuff. Yeah, yeah, I think I think
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: we would have lost our hard Elvis edge if we'd
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: gone to the weed too much. That would be the
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: later Elvis movie, that's right. So Hiccups is the one's
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: there's usually a novelty song that's completely embarrassing.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Oh that's what Hiccup is doing.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, where Elvis is asked to do something that's really
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: kind of beneath him and he knows that. You can
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: always see it in the movies when he's asked to
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: do this, to play patty Cakes with a little kid,
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: or or do a move like that, he usually, if
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: you're really looking at it with a microscope, he has
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: a little fun and then it gets old because they're
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: asking him to do a number of takes you can
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: usually tell. And so by the end of the novelty
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: song in the movies, he's so ready to move on.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: But but it's important that he bonds with a child
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: and a pet.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, those are crucial.
• 27:19
  Speaker 7: You know.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: It's just impossible not to be filled with sympathy for Elvis.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: I would want no part of his life. It just said.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Everything about it just sounds he's locked up in this
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: gilded cage and he just sounds like he's desperately unhappy
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: almost all the time.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: Yes, and the further you go into the movies, you
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: see the anguish start to turn up. You can see
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: the anguish build and sometimes for whole movies he's annoyed,
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: kind of just wondering why he's there while he's doing
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: these lines.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's so. It's so heartbreaking, it is, but
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: still a little bit of hiccups, just so we understand
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: this the novelty because now that you say that, it
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: made I was puzzling. I was listening. It's like, why
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: is hiccups here? That's here?
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Part this partlet a rhyme, the hiccup, No friend of mine,
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: there's no way to rid yourself.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Oh this a little scat hellup, yeah, big.
• 28:40
  Speaker 6: Big.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: I was humming this to myself after a mile around.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: Now this year. Right, this is a heartbreak. This is
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: like the guy who was truly dangerous is now doing
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: the hiccup song.
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Culturally, my and.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: That line at the end, my prescription is simply love.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: When he goes to yeah, when he goes to all
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: the cures for the hiccups and then he comes as
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: to the only one that works for me is love,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: which by the way, is like so poignant and so true.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: The one thing he was lacking was love. Right, That's
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: a truer line has really been written of Elvis that
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: he got every other drug in quotes offered to him
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: and none worked. The only thing you need it was Yeah,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: it was.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: Super well said, and there was buried in the Hiccup song.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: But the way, what's hilarious continuing hilarious is I said
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: before the contrast between two of the great guitar players
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: of our generation. And then it's a good Elvis impression.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: But as you say, you if you are the weak,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: you could only be you could only be though in
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: this company.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: That's that's true. It's true. And and of course story wise,
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: which we'll we'll get to.
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: It.
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: These are the demos that the songwriting team within the
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: story are going to present to Elvis. So this would
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: be they're recording these themselves present to him, which which
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: i'll you know, we'll talk about in a second. Yeah, yeah,
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: I'll be brief.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: I want to I want to play I want to
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: play One Chance to Love and then we listen, let's
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about about about context. This
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: this is this is where in this functions how.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: I think this is kind of the looking over his
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: shoulder at the romantic landscape of Blue Seattle. He kind
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: of steps out and it's a single man in the
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: spotlight Roy Orbison kind of song. Yeah, that allows him
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: to uh, you know, flex his his vocal Elvis chops.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: And this time I think we should listen to the
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: whole song. I think it's a lovely song. Yeah, just
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: do the whole thing.
• 30:51
  Speaker 8: H m, Dom, I've known you.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: And yet I've loved you. No old as many greedy men.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: With hands and gloves.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: But I just want one.
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: One chance too loud.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: What I want you to know? I am everything, yea Christ.
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: I don't have a lot to give, but I'm giving
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: it all here.
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: You coming man.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: So helpless.
• 31:59
  Speaker 8: Would ask for.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: Chances to look what I means.
• 32:10
  Speaker 8: No, I'll take my chid.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: I'll take my chance of just one.
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: What chance?
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: There's only one chance, There's not two, there's only one.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: I just think s great. I just I just love
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: this one.
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: We're building We're building this olf, Yeah.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: We're we're we get the Wilson Sisters at the end.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: You can't beat it.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: We have real singers at.
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: The end, but the situation forgot what real city is like.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: It's the least demo.
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: Ish mm hmmm mm hmmm.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: It feels like by the end of this you're your
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: enthusiasm for the project is increasing.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: You're exactly right.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: That is the most Elvis, that's the most pure. If
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: you played that for anyone and said who would be
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: the ideal singer for that? Everyone everyone would say Elvis,
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: that's an Elvis song.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: I'm so close to it, you know, I'm When you're
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: the artist, Malcolm, it's hard to look outside the character
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: you're playing. Sometimes. No, that's amazing, Thank you. I still
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: one chance to love.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, now that you've heard the songs, I think
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: you understand why I needed to see this movie. We're
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: gonna take a short break. When we come back, we
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: talk about how the story of the film turns out
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: and what it all means. So we've we've we've got
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: our ten songs, and now we're this is the core
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: of a of a narrative. You want to do you
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: want to do this kind of tongue in cheek Elvis movie, Yes,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: pretending to.
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: Tell the story of how it almost happened? Or yeah,
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: could have happened that that idea is what kind of
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: landed for for this.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: So to go back to the screenplay, did you actually
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: write a screenplay around those songs?
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: I did? I did?
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: So how does it begin with those two characters dreaming
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: about writing an Elvis movie?
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and enjoying enjoying one of the movies and trying
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: to be productive in their own little songwriting career. And
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: I got the feeling story wise that Elvis had done
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: the Comeback Special and just maybe he had two more
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: movies that he did after that. I think he did.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: I could be wrong. I think he did. He did
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: a movie called let Me See Chautauqua was the name
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: of it, and it was kind of like a sought
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: after property. And he does this movie Chautauqua, but by
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: the time it comes out, they've changed the name to
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: The Trouble with Girls and how to get into it?
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: So so dashed again or his you know, dying embers
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: of an acting career. And then he goes into the
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: last one, which is Change of Habit, which he does
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: with Mary Tyler Moore, and of course he plays a doctor.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: In a movie with Mary Tyler Moore.
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: The last one, it's the last one. So I got
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: the idea that our little songwriting duo gets a shot.
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: That's the dream to get the shot with Elvis. They're
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: they're ushered in and they have a moment in his
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: trailer where he's in his doctor uniform. There's a guitar
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: in his trailer. He's on a break doing you know,
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: change of habit, and he and he ushers them in
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: and they're kind of nervous. Our guy, the main guy
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: who's who's like an Elvis fanatic and has like really
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: studied Louis Zix has studied Elvis. But anyway, they run
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: through the songs. But before they do, Elvis says, you know,
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: not real talkative, totally charismatic, bronze in his doctor outfit.
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: He says, I always wanted to be in a good movie.
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: I don't know I'm gonna I'm gonna do this very
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: much anymore, maybe never go ahead. So with having led
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: with I'm not really doing this stuff anymore. These guys
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: earnestly run through the songs, and Elvis listens and he says,
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: let me, let me, let me, let me have the
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: sheet music for the the Cab Driver my People song.
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: And there's one guy that's written the songs, plays the
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: guitar his Elvis's guitar and accompanies him, and Elvis sings
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: My People in that little trailer, and then a guy
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: comes to get him to do a scene and he's leaving,
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: and our guy, Louis says, Elvis, why'd you do all
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: those movies? And I used the line that I had
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: heard from the actual story where somebody asked him that,
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: and he said, hey, man, last thing I remember I
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: was driving a truck. And he laughs and leaves, and
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: we're left with the songwriting couple, and the wife of
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: Louis says, I think he said no. And Louis says, yeah,
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: but what a no? That's like the greatest no ever.
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: And she says, sometimes a no is maybe even better
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: than a yes. And that's that's the end of Lost Masterpieces,
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: the movie that never gets made. Elvis never makes another movie,
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: but they have that moment in the trailer that that
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: where it all came to life for one minute while
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: he sang the.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: Song, yeah that truck. Last thing I remember, I was
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: driving a truck.
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll tell you where it came from. Leon Russell,
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: the great you know, pianist and member of the Wrecking
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: Crew and stuff. Besides being you know, genius solo artists,
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: he played on so many records, and he played on
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: a bunch of Elvis records. And he was in the
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: RCA studios in the hallway and he sees Elvis coming
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: down the hallway and they hadn't seen each other since
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: playing on a session, and Leon Russell described it as
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: he kind of like developed Elvis Turett's you know, he
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: just like, what do you say to him? And he
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: ended up blurting out, Elvis, why'd you make all those
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: shitty movies? Just yucking it up in a studio hallway,
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: and Elvis said, last thing I remember, I was driving
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: a truck and like walks on, you know, driving a
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: truck in Tupelo basically, and then the hurricane.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: His whole life is just a blur.
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: That's what he means.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's what he means.
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: But yeah, but.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: Cameron, well, once again, it's just it's so heartbreaking.
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: It is heartbreaking the idea that.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: He would confess. He's essentially confessing to the fact he's
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: had no agency over his own career, which we know
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: is the truth of his own career. Yeah, that he
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: just completely surrendered all decision making to somebody out to
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: this kind of bad surrogate father.
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and clearly, in what little research I've been able
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: to do in the years passed our little novelty project here,
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: he didn't appreciate his movies. He never apparently had the
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: moment of watching him at two or three in the
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: morning and saying, like, shit, it's kind of good. I
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: think he mostly became ashamed of them.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, But also the idea of doing this kind of
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: bittersweet Elvis, who's aware of his own kind of loss
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: and failure in some sense, and who you know, they're
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: coming to him and they're confronting him with more of
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: the kind of falsehood, you know, like a kind of act,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: and like that's and he just he can't do it anymore.
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: Driscilla Pressley said, there's a version of Elvis that few
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: people ever saw. And they would go to the outskirts
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: of town to like gospel festivals, and Elvis would sit
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: at a piano with with like a gospel group who
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: was just like kind of an amateurish gospel group, and
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: he'd sing at this piano and she would say that
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: was the purest Elvis that was him just connected to
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: his own heaven. That was it. And she said, like,
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: if you're going to do something about Elvis and not
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: have that in, you're not seeing the real guy. So
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: I felt like that moment in the trailer he actually
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: there was. There was just a love of music and
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: there was something in that song that like touched him
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: enough to want to sing it. And he who is
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: he if not a singer? And so he takes a spin.
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: He takes it for a spin, and that was his goodbye.
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: It's like.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: In the screenplay, how much of Alvis had we seen
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: prior to the trailer?
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: Oh? Nothing, He's like Wolfman Jack in American Graffiti or something.
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: It's like, so we have a brief.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: That he has that cameo right at the very end.
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're just jamming like we're on the honeymoon. They're
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: trying to like it's the joy of their creation that
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: the songwriters the whole story really is. They're living in
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: it and experiencing it like we did on our honeymoon.
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: But but I think that line is is cool because
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: maybe maybe his partner realizes that the act of actually
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: doing it and pulling el of us back into a
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: place that he was obviously leaving, and like, how will
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: the songs really turn out? And are they out of
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: step with the times? Like these are all challenges that
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: they don't have to face. They got to see it,
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: and damn it was good.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, oh man, Cameron, Why have why have we
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: been denied this? This is so much more interesting than
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: I imagined I thought what you were doing because all
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: I had was the songs you sent me, the songs.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: I didn't have the story, and I thought, oh, this
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: is like a goof I just thought, oh, you're just
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: like someone loves Elvis is doing a little goofy Elvis.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: But now I understand, as is the case with so
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: many of your movies, when we get to the core
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: of it, there's there's something really emotionally resonant there, like painfully,
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: painfully emotionally.
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: So it's that happy sad feeling that you know, like
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: the songs we love so often tap into the happy
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: sad feeling of you know, the ying and yang, and
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: you get to feel it all.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: So did you pitch this script anywhere?
• 44:17
  Speaker 7: No?
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: I kind of wrote it and enjoyed it and moved
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: on to something else.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: Why didn't you pitch it?
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: I hadn't started directing yet really, and by the time
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: by the time that I did, I was already off
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: on another journey. But I mean, I always loved the
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: idea of the dream that almost happened. And this, this
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: is what you're digging into right now. There's there's an
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: incredible kind of like happy said, melancholy about you know,
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: some of some of the Christopher Guests stuff in the
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: way that that it was influencing me around this time
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: and later too, Like I just loved the humanity and
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: the humor and the mix of that. I don't know
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: it just maybe someday I'll circle back to some version
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: of this. But I did love the idea of a
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: portrait of these artists, just like scraping for something true
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: and a different truth comes out of it.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: On this season's development Hell series, we've heard stories about
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: my brush with Hollywood Glory science fiction tales never were
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: chimped forward Michael Jackson biopics. But I wanted to tell
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: you about Blue Seattle at the end of it all,
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: because this conversation was my ticket out of development. Hell
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: Crow and Nancy Wilson got divorced some time ago. We
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: didn't talk about that, but I think it was part
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: of the happy sad feeling I got listening to these
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: songs they made together right when they got married. Crow
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: is the king of happy sad on film, the kind
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: of instant nostalgia. It's all about feeling joy while knowing
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: it will pass, that all things fade, but not if
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: they never exist in the first place. That's the beauty
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: of development. Hell I thought it was all about missing
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: out on projects the world deserves to see, and for
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: some films, like say Bubbles, it really is. But it's
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: also about ideas so perfect that realizing them on screen
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: might do them a disservice. Will anyone's elbows be better
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: than Cameron Crowe singing with Nancy Wilson ten days after
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: they got married? How could you even shoot the scene
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: with the songwriters run through all the songs they've written
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: in a trailer? How's Elvis gonna clap his hands while
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: driving his cab? Would it look ridiculous? Maybe that's not
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: the point. Does it sound amazing? Absolutely? And does it
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: come to life in our imagination? Yes?
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: It does.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: It's like Louis's wife says, sometimes a no is better
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: than a yes. This episode of Revision's History was produced
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: by Nina Bird Lawrence and Ben and Alfhaffrey, with Talian
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: editing Sarah Nix, original scoring by Lubiskarra engineering by Echo Mountain.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Thanks to the Pushkin Crew,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: Greta Cone, Christina Sullivan, Sarah Nix, Nicole upten Bosch, Eric Sandler,
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: Sarah Bruger and Kerry Brody. An extra special thanks of
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: course to Camera Crow. I'm Malcolm Glappa.
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: One too loud?
• 47:36
  Speaker 8: What I love?
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: Ye man, There's so.
• 48:01
  Speaker 8: Many of us who that's what one.
• 48:10
  Speaker 6: Whatever?
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: Let the chances to look, but not me.
• 48:14
  Speaker 8: Donald. No, I'll take my shot.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: I'll take my chances.
• 48:21
  Speaker 8: Just what chance? It's true?
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: What's it?
• 48:52
  Speaker 6: Chimes one sends to
• 49:24
  Speaker 8: Chans to