Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Burt Bacharach & Daniel Tashian

Transcript

Burt Bacharach & Daniel Tashian · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. There's no stopping Burt back Iraq. He's a gifted
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: composer who's been writing pop hits for artists like Dion Warwick,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Elvis Costello, and Dusty Springfield since the fifties. He even
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: wrote a read this iconic I Say a Little Prayer. Now,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: at ninety two years old, Bert's found a new muse.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: That's Daniel Tashin singing. In late July, Burt back Iraq
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: and Daniel released the five song EP Blue Umbrella. They
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: might seem like an unlikely duo. Daniel is a Nashville
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: based singer songwriter whose connection to country music runs deep.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: His parents were part of Emmy Lou Harris's backing band,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: and he just one Album of the Year at the
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Grammys for co writing and producing Casey Musgrave's breakout Golden Hour. Bert,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, is a living legend and made
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: his career writing R and B hits for the likes
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: of ROBERTA. Flack and Tom Jones. But as you're hearing
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: this interview with Bruce headlam Bert and Daniel are a
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: perfect match. Daniel talks about learning to navigate Bert's tricky
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: trademark compositions and Bert says writing for Daniel has given
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: him new life. This is broken record line of notes
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: for the digital age. I'm justin Mitchell. Here's Bruce Headlam
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: in conversation with Bert Backrack and Daniel Tasher. Bert, you
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: once said that you didn't know that a song was
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: going to work until you were in the recording studio,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: until you had the musicians there. What's it like sending something.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I'm going, well, I don't know what it's going to
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: sound like because I can't be there always for me
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: in the past when they knew people would be there
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: or in the in the same studio, I lived by
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: the credo of it was the moment of truth. You
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: lived or died with that song. In the studio. It
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: felt good going in, but things can go wrong in
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: the concept. I had this habit. I don't know whether
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I ever told you, Daniel, when I got in trouble
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: on a date, string players out there and something was
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: amiss in the concept, the way the arrangement was going down,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: I'd give a break to the band ten minutes. I'd
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: go into the bathroom, to the men's room, into a stall,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: just close the lid, sit there on the stall and
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: try to hear this whole scope of where this record
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: was going, where this song was going, and to make
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: sure there were no pimples. If the pimples were there,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: the pimples drove me into the bathroom. And then you
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: try to try to work it through and you don't
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: have anybody leaning on you. You're not at the piano
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: trying to figure it out in a room full of musicians.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: So for me, it's the moment truth. That's where you
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: know you got something. So I want to go back
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: to how this collaboration started. It started with a meeting
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: at your house, Burt, and I'd like to hear both
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: of you just tell me a bit about how that
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: came about. Okay, Daniel's on a glow, Daniel's on a
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: winning streak. Daniel was a very very happy guy, and
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: he had just won the Grammy for produce Or of
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: the Year and Casey's record, which is a brilliant record,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: and you pick it up from there, Daniel, Well, there's
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of mystery for me around Bert before I
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: met him. And you know, they say you shouldn't meet
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: some of your heroes because sometimes you know, you can
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: maybe not have the kind of interaction that you hope for.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: But in the case of me and Bert, and I
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: do consider you to be one of my great heroes. Bert,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: thank you. In that situation, I found you to be
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: very warm and welcoming. You welcome me into your music room, UM,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: sort of a sunken kind of living room you kind
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: of come down into and there's there's a piano, and
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: up on the wall, you know, are the are these
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Oscars and Grammys and and Gershwin Award and uh, it's
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: very very heavy stuff for a guy like me. And UM,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: but you had worked on some music for a little
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: lyric Shred that I had sent you, and UM, I
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: couldn't help it. Man, the tears came to my eyes.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: It was so beautiful. I loved. I loved the way
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: that you, UM made the words that I had written
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: kind of come to life in this in this way
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: that I never I never could have thought of on
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: my own. And and it was just wonderful to be
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: there in that room with you. And I was ensconced
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: in a very comfortable armchair with a nice cup of tea,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: and you were playing to me right right next to me.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: UM on the beginning of Blue Umbrella and it's a
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: memory that I'll cherish all my life. And I could
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: say this the thing about Daniel, I don't think you know,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: I've had different collaborations with Elsa, for with how David,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: my ex wife, Carol bay or Sager. There was something
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: about this relationship as it's grown and expanded, we genuinely
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: really like each other. And the more time that we work,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: connect talk, there's no fear, you know, there's no you know,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: you always have a will. Will this future collaborator be
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: something that will like my music? Will it work? See
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Daniels in this He's got all bases covered because he's
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: I love the way he sings, which I didn't know
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: until I heard it. I love his musicianship, I love
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: his words, and the thing that I find very interesting
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: because I think the work has been really productive and
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: really good and proud of what we've done. Daniel be too,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: bir and friendship has grown. So we'll talk at different times. Well,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: we'll keep on writing. You know. Um, we've got a
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: couple of more songs in the pipeline now and yeah,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: and the same musicians, but they'll instead of all being
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: in the studio, everybody will be in their own house
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: like in Nashville. Yeah, and being able to um hear
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: each other as parts are added. It's a it's not
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: the perfect solution, but the sound is good. That was
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: one of my concerns, how it would sound stuff coming
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: instead of off the board in a studio with all
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the gear. But it sounds really good. So that took
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: any fears, concerns of new stuff that we write. But
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: I love it that we've we've done this thing with
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Blue Umbrella and and me too. I'm proud of the
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: songs and whatever happens with it, if pride will always
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: be there. Yeah, I want to go back to what
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: you said about Daniel as a singer. I mean he's
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: mainly known as a producer. You know, not everybody can
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: sing a Birt backrack melody. You've got a very particular
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: flavor of melody. You play a lot with the rhythm
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: or the beat, I guess, the time signature. And obviously
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: you've had some incredible collaborators. Who do you know, starting
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: with Dion Warwick and many others. What does a good
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Burt backrack singer have to have to sing your songs? Well,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: you don't know what you're going to get with Daniel
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: like because we'd worked in a room until we got
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: it in the studio. But I never had any doubt
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: that he's going to sing well. But when I heard
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: him in the studio, he does his homework. He comes
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: in prepared. I'm a big one in preparation. And then
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: you know, it's like what works. It's all interchangeable. Half
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: of it could work, half of it couldn't work. But
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: we'll get through it. But our taste, we kind of
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: understand each other and in a very a very kind
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: of sensible, loving way. He's my friend. I love you too, Bert,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: I really do, man. And I think one thing a
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: singer needs to do is to stick to the melody
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: because it's probably a good one, you know. And I
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: think a lot of singers tend to kind of go
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: into maybe areas where they feel like maybe more comfortable,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: like doing licks or something that they know they can
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: pull off, and that that our crowdpleasers, and that doesn't
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: really cut it with with with your music, you know.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: I think you've got to um be the kind of
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: singer that can that can stick to the to the
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: inc There was an outro and we were working in
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: the studio and this was another one of those unforgettable moments.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: But I just had this. I was tempted to kind
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: of beer off into some more sort of um, you know,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: dreadful kind of ad libbing. He sort of said, you know, gently,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe let's not let's not let's not deviate here.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: You know, people think that, you know, someone who has
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: some harmonic complexity to their music, like Bert, that you
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: would think that he's interested in complexity, but he's actually
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: quite interested in the opposite. He really loves simplicity. Um,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: he really loves um a simple um, catchy song, you know. Economics, Yeah, uh,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: what's not there is dealing a space sometimes it's very advantageous.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: M hmmm. And the more I've gotten to know you,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, I honestly, you know, I really do like
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: that about our collaboration that I, um, the learning aspect
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: of it for me, and um, the confirmation of things
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: that I've instinctively felt, you know, UM, I like that.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Can you can you give me an example when you
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: said confirmation of things that felt? Well, that that really
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: that the things that you love that you and I
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: love and we listen to all the time, you know,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: if it's name anything, amazing. Whether it's beatles or whatever.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: You know, it's all really, at the end of the day,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: something that's made sort of of the spirit. It's made
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: of the emotion. It's it's it's not it's not a
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: it's not the result of um, a lot of sort
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: of strategic kind of Um, well, if I sing it,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: you know this way here, Um, that'll have the right effect. No,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: that's not the way you approach it. It's a feeling
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: that you're feeling and you're you're inside of that music.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: And I think, you know, Bert's music for me is
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: very easy for me as a singer too, and habbit
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: and to exhibit with a lot of natural feeling because
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: I do feel those melodies and I do feel those sentiments.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: So there's not a lot of strategy behind it. I
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: think that's you know, there may be strategy in arrangement
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that, but when it comes to displaying
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: or creating those moods, it's it's feeling. It's all about
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: feeling and mood, and it's growing together as the song
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: moves on. As the song moves on, and it takes
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: shape and takes different turns, and it evolves from the
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: five songs on the EP are there, Daniel is there?
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Can you take of a particular song or passage that
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: may sound like a distinctive Burt backrack melody that you
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: just love singing, or that you found easy to sing,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: or that you found really hard to sing. Well, they're
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: all tough to sing because what you realize once you
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: get behind the wheel on these things is that there's
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: specific jumps, which I would imagine it's similar to when
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: an orchestral musician has to play a passage that they've
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: got to make a jump that's at a significant distance.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: On the chorus of Bells of Saint Augustine, for example, Um,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: there's a there's a jump there. It's not kind of
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: and it's not swooping. It's a specific set of notes
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: that that it's very fun to sing. But also if
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: you're not in shape, you know, the muscles of the
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: throat they've got to um, You've got to sort of
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: stick the landing, you know, otherwise you kind of come
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: off of a jump and you'll be flat. Really you
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: is it? Do you remember the particular interval that it
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: was so yeah on the chorus of bells of saying
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Saint Augustine, there's a there's a figure, uh uh, And
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: I love singing that so much. Um it's a specific
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: series of notes that it's very easy to skid off
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: rails on that, especially on that bottom note. And um,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: so those are the challenges for me as a singer.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: You've got to like tighten tighten your control up a
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: little bit so you can nail those notes, you know.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: And there's no auto tune on this project. And I
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: told Ryan, our our wonderful engineer and mixer that, um,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: I really wanted to avoid any any tuning, any artificial
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: um help and just really as a singer, I wanted
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: to grow. I wanted to learn, you know, and get better.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: And a great way to get better as a singer
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: is to sing some of Burt stuff, because there's no
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: you can't really fake it, you know. Yeah, we'll be
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: back after a quick break. We're back with Bruce's conversation
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: with Bert and Daniel. So tell me about the first
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: song you worked on from this great EP and and
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: how it started. Yeah, I texted and Burt. I texted
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: him basically some lyrics that I m was kind of
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: tossing around, and um, I've never worked that way before
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: with just sending a lyric to someone. That's a first
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: for me. I'm usually um involved in people sitting together
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: in a room with holding guitars and playing and stinging
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: together and trying to come up with something silentaneously. But
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: it was another aspect of this process that was great,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: different for me in a good way. And we've come
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: a long way, Daniel, we have and Bert when you
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: first got those lyrics, do you still do you still
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: play every day or you try and get at the
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: piano every day? Not every day? Hey, this has kept
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: a life going for me, this whole process with Daniel,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: with the EP, with promoting it, with believing in it
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: and writing new stuff, and a continuing process. We'll get
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: two three more songs done and we'll do it remotely
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: because that works. Yeah, we'll give the best of what
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: we can do. I think you did some great direction
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: on Blue Umbrella. I'll tell you something funny about recording
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: that song. When we were recording that, we had figured
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: it out and we were playing it, and then when
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: we would go to the to um wonder where we
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: go that part, and the drummer was like going to
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: the ride symbol and every the band was sort of
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: flourishing on that section. And Bert got on the talk
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: back in the studio and he said, it sounds like
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: everybody's like going to the chorus, and we all kind
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: of looked at him, like what is he talking about?
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: And then I started to understand about the way that
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: you're interested in developing. I think things simmering a bit more,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: you know, and not kind of telegraphing. You're sort of okay,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: now we're in the section that everybody's supposed to like
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: kind of feel like, Okay, now this is the point
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: of the whole thing. But maybe instead of telegraphing what
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: everybody should feel, it was more like, let them, let
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: the notes and the chords do the heavy lifting, and
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: just everybody just holds seavy. Man. That was such a lesson.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: That was so cool. Absolutely, I do like a kind
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: of seamlessness if can be done that. Yeah, one goes
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: into the other without an announcement. Trumpet's blaring. You know, now, Bert,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: had you worked from lyrics before? I know you used
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: to often compose and then make up dummy lyrics and
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: then how day that if someone else would provide lyrics?
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Did you ever have just a lyrics sheet? And you say, Okay,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Now I got to create something from these lyrics. Yes,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: certainly did with Alphie because it had to depict what
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: the movie was about, So Alphie that the words came
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: in first, absolutely and one of the hardest sons because
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: I wanted to make it perfect and it dominated my life.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: How long did it take you to write that? Three weeks?
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Three weeks? Yeah, I would go maybe go to theater
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: to see a play, but I've been working on maybe
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: the pimples in the song, and I wouldn't enjoy the play.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: I would wind up leaving the theater having solved nothing,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: solved nothing on Alfie and not enjoy the play. And
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: everything on promises, promises. When we did the musical, all
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: the words really that how I would have to come up.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: You could write a melody out of a Neil Simon
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: script because the dialogue would go into a song and
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: it didn't seem to fit to sit down and imagine
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: what the song might be because you wanted to make it. Again,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: the seamless thing I'm talking about, go from the script
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: the dialogue continues into song because it's just natural. Otherwise
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: I can't conceive of it doing it another way. You know,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: A little bit what Danny was talking about, that that
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: you didn't want people to feel the chorus too soon.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: It's a little care juristic of some of your songs.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: And Alphie's a good example where sometimes you're not quite
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: sure where it's going, like it's got a lot of momentum,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: and then when it ends up because there's there's time
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: changes and the harmonies complex. Well you see, yeah, see
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: with Alphie that it just it took me to another
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: place by having words and became an eight bar phrase,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: or it became a six bar phrase or a twelve
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: barth praise just by where the lyric took me. Right, Wow,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: I like very much writing to Daniel's words if he
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: sends me. I mean, I had this one phraise on
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Blue Umbrella, the hook the chorus. You know, are you
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: still under the same blue umbrella? You know, the way
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: you spaced it out, you added an extra bar, so
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: it became are you still under the same blue umbrella?
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: And it just a change like that, splitting the word
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: instead of going how are you still under the same
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: blue umbrella? And that drove the next four bars just
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: by that space. Yeah, it continues to evolve, and you know,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Bert thinks about these things a lot. You know, he
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: spends a lot of time. Like I heard that. You know,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Duke Gallington could write arrangements and orchestration in in in
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: the midst middle of chaos with no piano. He could
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: just take some paper out and write stuff. And Burt's
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: the same way. He can sit down at his desk,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: no piano and just write orchestration. Um, just just write it,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: write down violent parts, write down all that stuff. It's
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: wonderful to to to work with Bert and watch the
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: way that the musical ideas take shape for him and
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: be able to witness the process for Bert of how
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: an initial seed or you know, of an idea can
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: can expand in his mind. And what is involved as
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: you're as you're building the structure of a song and
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: a melody, what's involved for him? And what boxes does
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: it have to tick? It's got to you know, he's
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: got to see the whole length of it, the whole
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: way all the way through. And then forgive me, Bert
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: if I'm you know, telling your stories here for you,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: but right, but he's got to see the melody, the
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: long line of the melody all the way through, and
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: then we can start to navigate through there. But um,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: you know, the collaboration is so great because we say
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: yes to each other. You know. Um, you know, he says,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: I don't think that the string should come in the
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: first first chorus, and I, you know, I don't say no, man,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: we got to get him in there. And I just say, okay, Bert,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: that sounds great because I trust you, and he trusts
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: my words and the simplicity of whatever it is that
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to express with that. He trusts it. He
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: doesn't say, hey, we don't need to be singing about
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: that right now. So we trust each other and that's
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: a beautiful thing. It is absolutely you know, we were
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: talking about the feeling when you sit down in a
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: movie theater and the lights go down and it's a
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Steven Spielberg film. You know that Stevens got got you.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: He's gonna, he's gonna take on that ride. There's a
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: similar feeling with with your music. People you know, they
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: know you're you're gonna You're gonna hold them um in
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: in in the palm of your hand and carry them
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: through that that song, with that that music tell me
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: a little bit about whistling in the dark, about the
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: writing of that. Yeah, well, well I was I'll just
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: say real quickly about the lyric. I just wanted to
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: make something. Um. I like the phrase whistling in the
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: dark because it sounds like like somebody that's um going
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: through something hard and and and they're kind of consoling
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: themselves by sort of trying to create an atmosphere of lightness,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: you know, within themselves. And we wrote that song before
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: you know, anybody knew anything about a pandemic or or
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: or any of that kind of uh, hard hardship that
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: was about to coccurse. So there's something about whistling in
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: the dark that's like, I'm I'm feeling that song right
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: now because I kind of have to take that song's
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: advice and just keep your eyes on the horizon and
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: keep your eyes on the light at the end of
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: the tunnel, which you know it's going to come. It's
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: just it's going to be a minute, you know. There
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: was a hint of what was going I remember it
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: was one of the last songs we wrote, and there
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: was there was a sense of whistling in the dark. Yeah,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: I think that lonely so it was almost indicative of
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: what was to come. Do you feel that, Daniel absolutely,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: and um, you know, whistling in the Dark is one
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: of those examples of sometimes also you'll sing about something
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: as a singer and songwriter and then you don't realize
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: what you're singing about until later on it seems to
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: take on, you know, more meaning or you realize, oh,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: I was really trying to process this thing that was
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: happening in my life and that's a weird thing that
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you can resonate with that bird,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: but um, I think so. I think because Uh, there's
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: an element in that song, like the intro, which is
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: very dissonant piano, and it's sort of like where did
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: that come from? I wanted to ask you about it?
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Sounds a little like like felonious monk, almost like it's yeah,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: like it's falling apart a little bit right, and then
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: the ending uh is uh also basically asking a question
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: with the strings don't, don't, don't, don't, don't boat, don't, don't,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: don't don't You know where did that come from? Do
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: you remember writing that that string part is beautiful and
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: the description of it is asking a question is so interesting?
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Do you remember do you remember writing that bit what
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: you were thinking or how it came to you. M
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: I knew I wanted and and I got a definitely
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: push from my partner here really, Daniel saying that thing
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: you played on the piano dissonant, very kind of weird.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: I love it. So it starts that way and then
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: it's in a very weird way to We'll be right
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: back after this break. We're back with the rest of
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: Bruce's conversation with Bert Bacharach and Daniel Tasher. The songs
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: you're writing now, because most of these were started, you know,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: before coronavirus. What are the songs like now that you're writing, well,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: so different. Yeah. We were working on one of the songs,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: the newer songs, called twenty first Century Man, and it
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: was a little bit of a piece of music that
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: I had started, and I said to Bert, you know,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: do you want to work on something that I kind
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: of got started on but I sort of don't know
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: where to go with it, And he said, sure, let's
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: check it out. So I played this little bit for him.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: So I like that. So there's this one part where
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: you're going that sounds like something I've heard before, and
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: we can do better than that. And boy did we ever.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: I thought that was interesting because I think I had
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: come from sort of an environment. There's something about being
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: a commercial songwriter in Nashville, and I've spent a lot
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: of years here writing commercial songs very ineffectively. I might add,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: if you look at the statistics for the number of
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: cuts that I've gotten versus the number of songs that
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: I've turned in, it's pretty ridiculous. But I sort of
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: came from this environment of like it actually is a
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: good thing. If something sounds like something you've heard before,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: you know, And I feel like you kind of got
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: me back on track, Bert, because really what I want
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: to be is innovative in everything I do. I want
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: to be. I don't want to be sort of giving
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: you a hook because it sounds like, oh, I've heard
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: that hook before. You know that that's something I can
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: get stuck in my car. I want to I want
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: to innovate, and I think you definitely do, and I
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: think my tendencies are sort of leaning more in that direction.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: I want to make this conversation about EP and the
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: songs you're doing now because they're so good, not about
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: your whole career, Bert, because that would take us a month.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: But just that story Daniel told of you saying we
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: can do better than that is probably something everybody needs
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: to hear, not just songwriters, but particularly songwriters. Where does
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: that come from? You're now in your nineties. Yep, you're
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: putting out sensational music. Thank you, and you're the guy
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: saying no, no, no, we can do better than that.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Where does that come from in you? I think it's
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: a it's a growth process. Neil Simon, when we were
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: doing Promises Promises one night, made this comment. He said,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: you know, you can get older, get fatter, but you're
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: not like an athlete who's finished at thirty two, said
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: you get to be eighty. That talent that you've got
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: should be nourished. You won't fall back. If somebody says, hey,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: we got this new singer, could you write some of
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: the song for her and just make it sort of
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: like don't make me over. I wouldn't know how to
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: do that anymore. It's left me you can't repeat. Do
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: you mean it's left you in that you don't remember
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: how you wrote songs like that, or just that's not
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: something you're interested in doing. I couldn't do it because
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: I did it once and when it's done, don't repeat yourself.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: I just want to say that the songs are just
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: wonderful and it is just a thrill to meet both
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: of you, and I think what you're doing is exciting
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: and I think we can do better. Is something I'm
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: going to remember the rest of my life. Appreciate you. Thanks, Bruce. Yeah,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: you've been good, Bruce. Thanks to Burton Daniel for taking
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: the time to chat with Bruce. You can hear all
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: of our favorite Burt background composition and his new ep
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: with Daniel Tashan on a playlist at Broken Record podcast
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: dot com, and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: channel at YouTube dot com slash broken Record Podcast. There
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: you can find extended cuts of a lot of our
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: past episodes as well as new ones. Broken Record is
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: produced with help from Jason Gambrel, Mia LaBelle Lea Rose,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, and Martin Gonzalez for Pushkin Industries. At Theme
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Musics by Kenny Beats, I'm justin Richmond Bass