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John Barry Prendergast was an English composer and conductor of film music. Born in York, Barry spent his early years working in cinemas owned by his father. During his national service with the British Army in Cyprus, Barry began performing as a musician after learning to play the trumpet. Upon completing his national service, he formed a band in 1957, the John Barry Seven.
John Barry later developed an interest in composing and arranging music, making his début for television in 1958. He came to the notice of the filmmakers of the first James Bond film, Dr. No, who were dissatisfied with a theme for James Bond given to them by Monty Norman. Noel Rogers, the head of music at United Artists, approached Barry.
This started a successful association between Barry and the Bond series that lasted for 25 years. Barry composed the scores for eleven of the James Bond films between 1963 and 1987, as well as arranging and performing the "James Bond Theme" for the first film in the series, 1962's Dr. No.
John Barry later developed an interest in composing and arranging music, making his début for television in 1958. He came to the notice of the filmmakers of the first James Bond film, Dr. No, who were dissatisfied with a theme for James Bond given to them by Monty Norman. Noel Rogers, the head of music at United Artists, approached Barry.
This started a successful association between Barry and the Bond series that lasted for 25 years. Barry composed the scores for eleven of the James Bond films between 1963 and 1987, as well as arranging and performing the "James Bond Theme" for the first film in the series, 1962's Dr. No.
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00:29Where is our Joe Buck? Look at his craft!
00:34Yeah, where's a Joe Buck?
00:37I had a farm in Africa.
00:41The head projectors taught me how to lace up, rewind,
00:44and film cement smelt like pear drops.
00:50But it was just the family business, and it didn't seem unusual.
00:55I've always wanted to see the frontier.
00:57Do you want to see the frontier?
00:58Yes, sir.
01:00Before it's gone.
01:04I think he's scored some of the great movies of the last 30 years
01:10and some of the movies that are the most famous of the last 30 years.
01:17If you think in terms of the 60s as a revolution in England,
01:22it was music-led, and the Beatles led the rock and roll,
01:27and John led the movie music.
01:29He's led the way in showing other people how to do it.
01:36He's shown me how to do it.
01:38Come on.
01:39A big welcome, please.
01:41Our guest, special guest, John Barry.
01:43John Barry is the most successful movie score composer of the 20th century.
02:07Yet this very private man prefers to let his music speak for him.
02:12Work that embraces deep emotion and high drama.
02:16It's an island with just a causeway.
02:38It's very private.
02:40It's only 45 miles from New York.
02:45People don't believe it when they say,
02:47oh, we're going to come and see you in New York,
02:48and they arrive here.
02:49They don't get it at all.
02:50It's just idyllic.
02:54There's no traffic here, only the boats and the Oyster Bay train across there, but that's it.
02:59And so any day of the week, it's like a Sunday.
03:04It's perfect.
03:04It's just the way you get things done as a composer.
03:14Just to have 24 hours a day without conversations with anybody
03:19and without any interruption at all,
03:22just so you're free to think and then relax and just go on the beach and reflect,
03:27come back and start writing.
03:28I always wanted to write music for film.
03:42I found the dramatic thing very easy.
03:45I never worried when I saw a movie.
03:47I never really had a big problem worrying what I was going to do about it,
03:52because I was born and my father had theatres.
03:55I was brought up watching movies every day of the week.
03:58OK, John Patrick.
04:04My son has seen Born Free, and he loves it.
04:09He sees the Bond movies.
04:11He loves the Bond movies, you know.
04:13OK, let's go down to the boat.
04:15I've done about 140 movies,
04:18so there's this whole celluloid word out there forever, you know.
04:23I have the good fortune to enjoy America and New York very much.
04:42I guess probably 80, nearly 90% of New Yorkers are all from some other place
04:52with first or second generation memories of where they came from.
04:56It's a wonderful Cosmopolitan melting pot, and I love it.
05:04The
05:30When I come home to York, it really is coming home.
05:56York was a very, very singularly beautiful city.
06:02I mean, a lot's changed as a lot of things happened to it.
06:05But the whole centre of town, the shambles and Peter Gate,
06:11it had a great charm to it, a great charm.
06:16John Barry Prindergast, the youngest of three children,
06:19was born in York in 1933.
06:21His mother was a classical pianist
06:23and his father owned a chain of cinemas.
06:27The young Barry developed an early love for the cinema.
06:31My father, John Xavier Prindergast, he was Irish.
06:37Started as a projectionist, actually, in the silent movies.
06:40Worked up to being the manager of the Palladium Lancaster.
06:44And then he came to York and bought his first cinema.
06:47And then finally wound up with a chain of, like,
06:52eight independent theatres in the north of England.
06:55So I was just brought up in the cinema.
06:57I mean, that was it.
06:58This is the cinema my father built in 19...
07:14beginning of the 1930s.
07:17I virtually lived here.
07:19It's strange, cos there's certain things that are still there,
07:30the exit doors and...
07:33Yeah, it was a cinema, but it was also a concert hall, you know.
07:40And, of course, all this has changed,
07:42all the staging area here.
07:45I mean, when you think of the artists that appeared here,
07:59from the Napkin Coal Trio, the Inkspots...
08:06If I knew that when I...
08:09All the big bands, Stan Kent and his orchestra.
08:11Gracie Fields.
08:19I guess she was like everybody's mother,
08:21and all these troops were away from their parents and their families,
08:24and they were all here.
08:26And I think everybody reflected there was their mum on stage.
08:33I remember my father walking me downstairs in the stalls,
08:41and it was black, and there was a barrier to cross.
08:45And he picked me up,
08:46and there was this big black and white mouse on the screen.
08:53And it seemed huge.
08:54I mean, you know,
08:55seeing this big black and white mouse on the screen and thinking,
09:00it's strange, my dad has this place,
09:02this year, a black and white mouse on the screen.
09:04We used to come and sit.
09:12Just actually just like the background here.
09:19I used to come every afternoon
09:22from being maybe six, seven or eight years old.
09:25I just loved cinema.
09:30I loved music anyway,
09:32but I started really taking great note of film music,
09:36and the Max Steiners,
09:37and Bernard Herrmans,
09:39and Miklis Rocha,
09:40and I became fascinated with film music.
09:42He was a very, very strict father.
09:54I always thought we should know as much as he did.
09:57So if we did something wrong or whatever,
10:00he'd scream.
10:02I don't know,
10:02I think he must have been in this building somewhere.
10:06And he was talking to some people
10:08about me.
10:12And I stood,
10:14I was just going to come around the corner,
10:15and I stopped,
10:16and I heard him.
10:17And he was saying how bright I was,
10:19how I did this,
10:20how I did it all.
10:22He'd never talk to me like that.
10:24And I let him finish.
10:26And then I just walked past his,
10:27even in that,
10:28walked out,
10:30give him a bit of his own back.
10:32He was almost embarrassed
10:33that he'd been caught being nice.
10:36You know, it's very funny.
10:37And people adored him.
10:40They were very fond of him.
10:42Because he was nice to everybody else
10:44outside the family.
10:45It was one of those Irish things,
10:47you know.
10:47Everybody else is terrific with your own.
10:51You can stick.
10:54In 1953,
10:56Barry did his national service.
10:58While some played war games,
11:00he played trumpet in the army band.
11:02And with the help of a correspondence course,
11:04he also learned to arrange jazz.
11:07When I came out of the army
11:08when I was about 22,
11:11I don't remember a part of my life prior to that
11:14where it hadn't been one of discipline
11:17of one sort or another.
11:18And so when I started my group
11:22and got out on my own,
11:23it was like,
11:24God,
11:24I flew like a bird.
11:28I found three musicians
11:29that I'd been in the army with
11:30and three local musicians in New Yorkshire.
11:33So we formed the first seven.
11:36Let's go over to the bandstand
11:37where the John Barry Seven
11:38are all set to rock and roll
11:40their way through a number
11:40called You've Got A Way.
11:42Take it, boys.
11:43Rock and roll,
11:55it was all Gene Vincent
11:56and all these,
11:57yeah, yeah, boy, yeah,
11:58and I come around,
11:59I come around,
11:59yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:00And of course,
12:01it doesn't carry.
12:01I write you on my lap,
12:04yeah, got me,
12:04wait, you want me,
12:05but I'll give that my way.
12:07Well, it's not that I didn't like singing,
12:09it's that nobody had to write
12:10the way I sang.
12:10It was as simple as that.
12:11It was really not a good idea,
12:21so we quickly switched
12:22to just doing instrumental stuff.
12:35And then suddenly got this call from John
12:37saying,
12:38would I like to join his band?
12:40because the guitar players
12:41couldn't read
12:42and he knew it wouldn't do
12:44that I could read the guitars,
12:45read the music on the guitar.
12:47So he said,
12:47if you come in,
12:48that would be great.
12:54Most of the songs we played
12:55all featured the guitar.
12:57Walk, don't run.
13:00Black stockings.
13:02Hit and miss.
13:02John Barry 7 take over
13:12with Pancho.
13:16The turning point for the John Barry 7
13:19was drum beat.
13:21Every Saturday night,
13:22it was kind of the pop show
13:24and anybody who was on it
13:25became a star
13:26or famous.
13:28You know,
13:28we used to go out
13:28and do concerts
13:29and, of course,
13:30you know,
13:30with the John Barry 7
13:31screaming and all this.
13:42You know,
13:43fans around the stage door
13:45used to come out
13:47and they'd say,
13:48excuse me,
13:48are you famous?
13:52Jack Good had a boy
13:54on the other channel
13:54and he had Cliff Richard
13:56and the BBC wanted to know
13:58did I know anybody else
13:59who we could have?
14:01And I said,
14:01the one person
14:02who I think
14:02has a great personality,
14:04he can't sing for hell
14:05but he's very photogenic
14:07and that's Adam Faith.
14:09I suddenly get this call
14:11from John Barry
14:12to the cutting rooms
14:13at Elstree
14:14where I was
14:14and he said,
14:16we're doing a new show
14:16called Drumbeat.
14:17Do you want to come along
14:18and have a go?
14:19And I said,
14:20look,
14:21do this,
14:23do a couple of them
14:24and do an audition
14:25and let's see.
14:27I said,
14:27but don't give up
14:27your day job yet.
14:29I got six months
14:30on that Drumbeat show
14:31and I honestly,
14:32I can tell you
14:33that it would not
14:34have happened
14:34without John
14:35because John
14:36insisted
14:37to Stuart Morris,
14:38the producer,
14:39that I should be
14:39one of the regulars.
14:42I always looked at John
14:43as the older generation,
14:45like a dad.
14:46He looked after me
14:47like a dad.
14:48In the studios
14:49he looked after me.
14:49I had no knowledge.
14:51I don't think John
14:52had that much knowledge either
14:53but he had a confidence
14:54about him
14:55and it was born of
14:58a confidence
14:59in his own talent.
15:03I was in the corridor
15:04one day on a Saturday
15:05and he came running up
15:06and he said,
15:07quick,
15:07come into the studio.
15:09So I think
15:10I found a hit.
15:10When we were recording it
15:21and I sang it
15:22the first time
15:23they screamed
15:24and shouted at John,
15:25he can't sing it like that,
15:27it sounds like
15:27it comes from China
15:28and John
15:29absolutely
15:30would not allow
15:31any interference
15:32in what him
15:33and I were doing.
15:34Oh well then
15:35you're wanting
15:36my love baby
15:38I think we wound up
15:44with about
15:44eight or nine
15:45consecutive
15:46top ten hits.
15:48Well I still go to
15:50the dance hall
15:51listen to the noise
15:53I try to kid myself
15:54I'm having fun
15:55there with the boys
15:56Adam who always
16:00wanted to act
16:01then he got
16:02his first break
16:02from a producer
16:04called George Willoughby
16:05who was making
16:06a movie called
16:08Beat Girl
16:08which was about
16:09the English beatnik
16:11life in Soho
16:12at the time.
16:26John and I
16:27were managed
16:28by the same
16:29horrendous woman
16:30Eve Taylor
16:30but one thing
16:32she did
16:32she knew how
16:33to leverage
16:34one artist
16:35against another
16:36and when I got
16:37Beat Girl
16:38as a movie
16:38the first instinct
16:40for her was
16:40who's doing the music
16:41I want John Barry
16:42to do the music
16:42You want to pay me now?
16:46More excellent
16:46let's pop!
16:55I think that film
16:56probably was more
16:57major for John's
16:58new career
16:58as a film writer
16:59than it was for me
17:00I just sort of
17:01did it as a laugh
17:02I was loving acting
17:04but for John
17:06it was the path
17:07split at that point
17:09from pop music
17:10into film
17:11A major break
17:19came for Barry
17:20when he was asked
17:21to arrange
17:21Monty Norman's
17:22title music
17:22for the very first
17:24Bond movie
17:24about to finish production
17:26the producers
17:27were under pressure
17:28to complete on time
17:29By the Thursday
17:32of the following week
17:32I was in the studio
17:33with the seven
17:34plus the full orchestra
17:36I never saw the movie
17:38I never met
17:38Sauceman and Broccoli
17:39I never met the director
17:40I never even read a script
17:42I just knew of Bond
17:44I think it was
17:44in the Daily Mail
17:45there was a strip
17:48of Bond
17:49which I'd occasionally
17:50looked at
17:51so I knew
17:53what it was about
17:54I know we were very
18:13influenced by Duane Eddy
18:15who was a wonderful guitarist
18:18out of America
18:19who'd done an album
18:22I think called
18:22The Twangs The Thang
18:23and he did a lot
18:25of that low down
18:27dirty kind of guitar thing
18:31The guitar was very much
18:32featured with the
18:33John Barry seven anyway
18:34but we wanted
18:37a more dynamic
18:38more percussive sound
18:40than we'd been getting
18:41It was kind of
18:44an unusual record
18:44really because
18:45it started off like that
18:46then it went into
18:47a whole big swing
18:49jazz kind of
18:50like almost
18:51this is Gillespie
18:52bebop
18:52I think once
18:59they heard
19:00what John could do
19:02you know
19:03they felt that
19:04that was the right sound
19:05that he was very contemporary
19:06this was a new type
19:07of movie
19:08and they needed
19:09to have a very
19:11contemporary sound
19:12The actual scoring
19:18of that high brass
19:19you know
19:20and I've seen the score
19:21and it's very clever
19:22I mean
19:23John actually writes
19:24the trumpets
19:25quite high
19:25to make that
19:26tremendous crack
19:27and I'll see you next
19:28time
19:29and I'll see you next
20:00Everything came together in Goldfinger. It was like they'd been learning themselves, and when it came to Goldfinger, they'd got the whole style down, and everything else that went on after that, Goldfinger was the blueprint.
20:15Goldfinger was a gold album. Goldfinger hit the charts internationally. John had written the song. John had also brought Shirley Bassey into the equation.
20:30I said, Shirley, just sing it. Don't think about it too much. Just go out there and belt the hell out of it. And that's what she did.
20:41Goldfinger, he's the man, the man with the mightest touch.
20:50With that voice and that music, you know, it certainly told people, wow, this is going to be an experience.
21:02I think everybody who saw the Bond films to begin with were knocked sideways by the, not just the film itself, but the music. I mean, the music was terrific.
21:20He's always a character who has to appear calm and cool and collected, so it's really the way that the audience can get an insight into Bond's emotions is through the music.
21:43John was part of the DNA of the James Bond films.
21:56If you don't have the right music when you're going through an action sequence, you don't know, you know, it's the thing that takes you through and says, okay, this is now the moment.
22:06I've got to do something really dangerous. And John was really great at creating enormous tension in scenes.
22:13With a Bond movie, it's action. He walks in, he takes a look, he hits somebody in the face.
22:26It is Mickey Mouse, what we call Mickey Mousing. It goes with the action.
22:33It was a big canvas, a million dollar Mickey Mouse music, but it was very, very highly disciplined writing.
22:43Writing lyrics for John Barry, it's not as simple as just making the words fit.
23:00John is very much aware of the mood of the song, and although the lyrics have to follow the contours and curves of his melody, he's very much aware of the mood, the same as he searches for a mood for a movie.
23:14He wants the words not just to fit, but to cover that same landscape as he has covered.
23:19To this day, when people sit in the audience, when they hear that sound, which is the John Barry sound, they start to tingle.
23:37I remember very, very well when we wrote Diamonds Are Forever, and we were very, very pleased with it.
23:53They won't leave in the night. I've no fear that they might desert me.
23:59I remember saying to the Duchess, let's treat a diamond like it's a man's penis.
24:15Harry Saltzman said, how can you write words like touch it, stroke it and undress it?
24:20It's too provocative, it's filthy, and I said, but Mr Saltzman, you know.
24:23That was what was so fun about the Bond, because all that kind of innuendo and stuff was all done in a larger-than-life kind of cartoon kind of fashion.
24:35I'm the hood!
24:42If you think he wrote for the Bond, who was the big hero with Aston Martin and all the girls and cocktails shaken but not stirred,
24:51and Harry Palmer, who couldn't get a girl, wore glasses, did his own shopping,
24:56usually shook the milk to see whether it was sour or not,
24:59and John Barry had to represent that kind of a character.
25:09I use a cymbalum, it's a lovely Hungarian instrument, and I just love that solo sound.
25:21In Ipcrest's file, you think I'm captured and taken away to some terrible, dangerous communist country in Eastern Europe somewhere.
25:33In actual fact, I was still in London, which is the whole trick of the movie, and his score helped the trick.
25:40His music helped the plot, forwarded the plot, but never got in the way of it.
25:57As the British film industry flourished in the 60s, London started to attract American movie makers.
26:03When Carl Foreman came over to produce Born Free, he chose Barry to score it.
26:11It was a most exciting time, where we were all so busy doing movie after movie, and song after song, and advert after advert.
26:22A face without a trace of make-up proves it.
26:26A girl's most important cosmetic is her shampoo, her sun-silk.
26:29I think John, like me, we still couldn't believe that we were actually in the eye of the storm, that all this was happening to us.
26:42Barry never turned work down, and when he wasn't writing for movies, he also worked on television themes, mood music, and continued to run a record label.
26:52I was always a hard worker, but when I saw the way he went at it, he used to tear himself apart.
26:59It was a bit like, you know, to be an artist, you must suffer.
27:02But what happened with us is, we were artists, and then we suffered, and then we went out.
27:07Of course, John was also the man about town, he had this beautiful white Citroen car, beautiful women.
27:21You know, he managed to get a lot into his life.
27:24I don't know, he found time to write tunes, anyway.
27:27No, it wasn't half as good as people thought.
27:31It sounds a lot better in the telling.
27:32It was terrific, I mean, England opened up, it was a very healthy time to have been born into.
27:42The Lion in Winter is one of Barry's very best scores.
27:46Because it's a period piece, it demanded a specific kind of dramatic music.
27:52But because Barry chose to make it a choral score, as well as a fully symphonic score,
27:57I think surprised a lot of people in Hollywood and around the world.
28:02We had like a 120-piece orchestra and choir, I had a 40-piece choir.
28:12And it was a great opportunity for me to do a choral,
28:14because I'd started off studying with Dr. Francis Jackson at York Minster.
28:19I'd studied choral music with him.
28:22Francis Jackson was the only teacher in York.
28:27He'd written a couple of symphonies himself, he was a master of music at York Minster.
28:30And I asked him if he'd teach me, you know, the rudiments of harmony and counterpoint.
28:35He taught organ and he taught piano, but he never actually taught musical theory.
28:40So he said, oh, that might be amusing.
28:41It's always difficult to assess the potentialities of a pupil.
28:49But I was pretty certain with John that he was dedicated enough.
28:59He never said very much, so I couldn't really tell what was going on between those ears.
29:06I wasn't crazy about teachers, you know, basic dislike of teachers.
29:15So, and you were kind of extraordinary in your attitude.
29:20You might not know that, but compared with...
29:23Well, you were.
29:24You were very, very understanding and helpful, believe it or not.
29:34I mean, it was a different teaching ambiance than I'd ever experienced before, most certainly.
29:43Really?
29:44Yes, absolutely.
29:45Well, that's a comfort, because...
29:49After all these years...
29:51I must confess, I've never seen any of the films which he's written for.
29:57But I've heard the music by other means.
30:00And I'm astonished at his facility with melody and the way that he's orchestrated everything.
30:10I must say, I'm bowled over by the way you write for an orchestra.
30:30Mm-hm.
30:31The way you use the horns high up...
30:33Mm-hm, right.
30:34...in unison.
30:35Right.
30:35It's a wonderful effect.
30:36Very powerful.
30:37There's a lovely, low flute.
30:41Alto flutes, I like.
30:42Yes.
30:43Alto flutes.
30:44But you either use one or four to get four alto flutes.
30:49Two doesn't sound right.
30:51Hey!
30:52I'm walking here!
30:53I'm walking here!
30:55Midnight Cowboy was the first time we actually worked together.
31:00John was not only the composer of the incidental music,
31:04but he was sorting out all the songs from scratch, you know,
31:11that we were using as if heard on the radio, whatever.
31:18You've got to hit it straight away so that you evoke a mood or a feeling for the audience.
31:24Everybody's talking at me
31:28I don't hear words I say
31:30John did a tremendous job of arranging Everybody's Talking
31:34into different lengths and different introductions
31:37and whether we should go straight into the lyrics sung by Harry Nilsson.
31:44There were various demands made of him to get it just right.
31:51Everybody's talking at me
31:53Everybody's talking at me
31:58Can't hear a word they're saying
31:59Only the echoes of my mind
32:02The lyric had a sort of sense of energy and poetry about it
32:08I would say if I have to pick an image for the film, it's neon
32:15I wanted the smell of the place to be caught
32:20But I think that the music very aptly caught the atmosphere of what we wanted
32:27But then they wrote the harmonica thing, which didn't come in at all
32:32Like halfway through the movie
32:36Getting the atmosphere was really simple and John captured it so much in the movie
32:44It was New York. I mean, it was just it was it was the
32:47The underbelly of New York and those characters just walked around those streets
32:52And it was that
32:56I had people say
33:09What's this girl down limey doing this such an American thing, you know
33:14That didn't worry me
33:16Certainly, I think the end of the film owes a great deal to John's theme
33:23When Razzarizzo has died
33:28John Voight is supporting the dead body of Razzarizzo
33:34I think the fact that Barry was a Britisher
33:46Gave him a kind of objectivity
33:48Afforded him a chance to look at America as it was
33:52And see it as an outsider would
33:54And I think that that
33:56While not the same choice every filmmaker would have made
33:59I think helped to make Midnight Cowboy
34:02The success it was
34:04As Barry's reputation grew in the 70s
34:08He could choose which directors to work with
34:10Some collaborations were very successful
34:13Like those with Wim Wenders and Francis Ford Coppola
34:15In other movies, his music was to prove even more memorable than the story
34:20We have all the time in the world that I wrote for
34:24Under Majesty's Secret Service
34:25It was probably the least successful James Bond song
34:30At that period of time
34:33And then several years later
34:37It's on a Guinness commercial in London
34:40And the very same Louis Armstrong record went to number one in England
34:42It was a huge success
34:44We have all the time in the world
34:51Time enough will lie to you
34:56I didn't know exactly who John Barry was
35:00I knew he did a lot of the early Bond movies
35:03But as years went by
35:05I found myself on occasion
35:08Using his film music from other pictures
35:14As a temporary track
35:17In the editing room
35:18Finally on Out of Africa
35:21I began to notice that I was
35:24Using more and more temporary pieces
35:27From John's music
35:29From Robin and Mary
35:31From somewhere in time
35:32From many of his films
35:34And by the time I got done with it
35:38I thought
35:39I think I'm going to finally have to hire John Barry
35:42Sidney, when he was cutting the movie
35:52Had tried all kinds of African music
35:55You know, records of previous African movies
35:58And whatever
35:59The first thing he said to me
36:00He said, I've put African music
36:02All over this thing
36:03And he said, do you know what?
36:06He said, it doesn't work
36:07And then when I saw the movie
36:09I said, well
36:09The music
36:10And the nature of African music
36:12Is not going to deal with the relationship
36:14Between Redford and Street
36:16And how they feel about Africa
36:18It gave the picture
36:26More size than it really had
36:28It gave the picture
36:29Some kind of real
36:31Romantic resonance
36:34In all of the relationships
36:36He did a film called
36:46The Last Valley
36:47That I never saw
36:48I think very few people saw
36:51But there was a particular cue in it
36:53That I used as a temp score
36:56For a section of the film
36:58Where Robert Redford takes Meryl Streep
37:01Flying over Africa
37:02And it's kind of a religious cue
37:04And it gets a lot of its feeling
37:06Because they're deep male bass voices
37:10So I really wanted John
37:17To find a way of doing a new piece
37:20That had that same church-like feeling
37:24You just go through a whole
37:30Dramatic searching
37:32Before you even put pen to paper
37:33You don't just sit down
37:35You just analyse everything
37:38The drama
37:39His relationship with the woman in the movie
37:41Then you start to write the music
37:44Which hopefully is something
37:45That dramatically pulls all that stuff together
37:48I think John found a wonderful way
38:10To be unashamed of the emotion
38:14But controlled
38:17So that it never got into this sort of
38:21Emotional bloodbath of self-pity or anything
38:25When I write scores
38:35If there is that sense of loss
38:37And now in Africa there was
38:38You bring your own sense of loss
38:41It wasn't loss of a country
38:43It was loss of friends
38:45And just the whole atmosphere of World War II
38:51That one lived through
38:52You recall that
38:55And bring it to things
38:56And five years is a long time
39:00At that age
39:01To live through a war
39:04York was a very big military town
39:16And it was pretty indiscriminate bombing
39:20The whole sky
39:24Was like just one ball of red
39:27From the bombing
39:28From the city burning
39:29I guess I was about nine or ten
39:36When that happened
39:36And I remember the following day
39:42My mother taking me into the centre of the city
39:45And it's a stench you'll never forget in your life
39:48You're talking about burning bodies
39:51And it's different from anything else
39:54There's no way that doesn't imprint deeply on you
40:10For the rest of your life
40:11No way
40:11Dancers was most certainly a story of the loss of the West
40:33One of the great lines in the movie
40:37When the captain says to him
40:39You know, why are you going out there?
40:41Do you want to see the frontier?
40:43Yes, sir
40:44Before it's gone
40:46So right there was, you know
40:48The whole key to what the movie was going to be about
40:52You know, things that work in films are very black and white
41:04They either work or they don't work
41:05They don't kind of work
41:07And that
41:08You know, you just went
41:12Like, that works
41:14I'd been very ill
41:19I'd been ill for two years
41:21So, dances was the first thing I wrote
41:23After I'd been out of action for two years
41:25Music is a very personal thing
41:29Music
41:29I mean, probably the most personal thing of anything
41:32And you can create
41:34Whereas literature gets very specific about the details
41:37So you're following the specifics of the writer
41:41Music doesn't have the specifics
41:43But it carries the mood
41:45It's one of the only crafts
42:01That a director really doesn't know how to do
42:04You know, you put your whole self in the hands of a composer
42:09It's like, you actually give this thing to him
42:11And you say, can you make this better
42:13When I sit down and write
42:27I can start at maybe 7 in the morning
42:29And then I'll look at my watch at 11.30
42:32I mean, I'm like exhausted
42:35As if I physically went through something
42:39You know
42:39So it's the doing of something with passion
42:43When John is working on a project
42:50He has unbelievable tunnel vision
42:53Nothing else is existing
42:54And the rest of the universe shuts down
42:58Basically
42:58And he goes into his rooms
43:01And he doesn't really come out
43:02Until he's through
43:03And one has to be respectful
43:05That that's where he's working
43:07The worst thing you can do is
43:13Fall in love with the first idea you get
43:16You just go until you think
43:18You've come to the end of the thing
43:20And I've totally nailed this
43:21You never know what's going to trigger off something
43:28But I do have total faith
43:31In the fact that something will arise
43:34Out of the dark
43:35That's going to perk you up
43:36And you never know when that's going to happen
43:41You know when it happens
43:43When it happens, you know
43:44Oh, God, yeah
43:45It's like a gun going off
43:48I'm doing my albums now
43:55And I did the beyondness of things
43:57I'm doing another album at the moment
44:01Based on John O'Donohue's book
44:03Returnal Echoes
44:04It's very much inspired by John's writings
44:09There's a certain spirituality about it
44:12But there's a lightness to it
44:14And there's a kind of Irish whimsy to it
44:16Which is nice
44:16I never thought you were able to have that much fun with the priest
44:23It amazes me, actually
44:30That somebody who's moved in that whole superstar world
44:33That he has held his substance so completely
44:36Because he's in a real conversation with himself
44:38And it's that integrity that I love
44:41How adjacent
44:42From reading the book
44:44There was an instinct
44:45That I loved the way the man wrote
44:48For instance, they believed that in November
44:50Mean the sound of the month of the dead
44:52But the veil was actually pulled back
44:54So in a place like this
44:56They all must claim that it's
44:58There's that quality
45:00There is a huge longing
45:03For some kind of rootedness
45:05And that's what the Eternal Echoes book about
45:07Is about our yearning to belong
45:09I find my own mental movie
45:14My own sense of drama
45:17Whatever that might be
45:18It is a film score
45:23I just don't have any film
45:25The family name is Prendergast
45:32They were all over the place
45:34Basically Cork
45:35There must be something in one's
45:41Background
45:42One's spirit
45:43That just
45:44Just connects
45:45In a strange way
45:46It's a wonderful feeling
45:49It's a wonderful feeling
46:16John Patrick's arrival
46:44Definitely has been a rebirth for John
46:47In the most positive way
46:49And it has energized him
46:52I don't think that John
46:55Would have been able to write
46:56The Beyondness of Things
46:57Or Eternal Echoes
46:59At another time in his life
47:01For a variety of reasons
47:03I think
47:04He now has the security
47:06To write for himself
47:08Whatever he wants
47:09However he wants
47:10He is writing music
47:18That is virtually symphonic
47:20At the same time
47:22He's not losing the audience
47:23Most of the great film writers of today
47:31Are in fact writing virtually
47:34The only classical music
47:36That people hear now
47:37Because the average classical composer
47:40Is writing music
47:41That isn't warm enough
47:43For people to understand
47:44Or to hear very much
47:46I do think style
47:51Is important
47:53It's certainly identifiable
47:56As his music
47:59I like to hear a score
48:01Where if it's possible
48:03To identify
48:04Who's written
48:06It is
48:06He's a composer
48:09When I started
48:27I mean one year
48:29I did eight movies
48:29In one year
48:30I don't know how the hell
48:31I did it
48:31But now I can get
48:35Just one really terrific movie
48:37A year
48:37I'd be very happy
48:39Be careful
49:02Now that's a cigarette butt
49:28We don't need that
49:29No
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