00:00I had no idea that there were that many people out there that even knew I was alive.
00:07This experience in the hospital really made me stop and think about, have I done what I wanted
00:14to do? Have I made people happy? Have I been a good friend? All of those cornball things that
00:21I've read for all of my life are going to make me start to cry.
00:27My voice is coming back, my energy is coming back, but it's not there yet because the shows
00:33that I do are full of energy. And unless you're in top-notch shape, you can't make it through 90
00:40minutes. And I know today I couldn't make it through 90 minutes. It's beyond frustrating. It
00:46is sad that I cannot do what I love doing. I've got friends that come and play with me,
00:52but I have not been as energetic as I have always been, no. And I don't like it, but my
00:59body just
00:59doesn't want to get there yet. So we'll see. This experience in the hospital was the deepest
01:06chapter I've ever had in my life. There were that many people out there who said the most
01:11beautiful things to me over and over. It should be a horrible experience, and it was,
01:16but those notes and those people made it doable.
01:29I'm a musician. That's what I am. I don't consider myself a singer. I don't consider myself a performer.
01:35I consider myself a musician. And musicians like me, we like working. I don't sit and watch television.
01:42I go to the keyboard. I think you ask my band, they'll tell you the same thing. And I have
01:47four
01:47great lyric collaborators that I've worked with for years. And we did it again. And I'm crazy about the
02:06I haven't made a pop album since Washington crossed the Delaware. I hadn't made a pop album in a long,
02:14I can't even think of when I did that. I was always making concept albums, big band and Broadway and
02:20stuff like that. And then I just kind of stopped. And I just felt like writing. I felt like recording.
02:26So I pulled together a team. And I had some songs that I had shuffled away that I've always loved.
02:34And we put those on the album. In the beginning, there must have been 30 songs that we could have
02:40used. And of course, we cut it down to whatever it is now. And I made an album.
02:47I did. I made a pop album. And I think there's an audience out there that is starving for a
02:56melody
02:56and a lyric. And that's what this album is all about. It's good melodies and good lyrics.
03:01And I sound pretty good, too.
03:12I think with this having a top 10 single at the age I am, that's different. I'm 105 years old.
03:21And
03:21people at 105 don't have top 10 singles. You know, that is really rare. So I'm very proud of that.
03:30Peter Allen was a good friend. And Dean Pitchford is so great. And Peter showed me the song when I
03:36had my little apartment in New York. And I loved it then. I think I was too young to be
03:41able to sing
03:42a song like that. And I just put it away. And then out of nowhere, Clive Davis, of course, my
03:48wonderful collaborator Clive, he calls me and says, did you ever hear of a song called
03:53Once Before I Go? I said, yeah, sure, Peter played it for me. You should record that one.
04:00And he was right again. And look what's happening with it. It's amazing.
04:04I want you to know that I have loved you all along.
04:11I don't think I'd ever heard a song with that message
04:14in it once before I go. I want you to know that I have loved you all along. I don't
04:20think I've ever
04:21heard anything quite like that. It moved me the first time Peter played it for me.
04:25And it moved me again when Clive reminded me of it.
04:32Well, where did I find the time? I don't know. I guess there must have been
04:37little areas that were empty. And I dove back into making the album. It did take a long time,
04:44longer than a usual album. My life has always been making an album, going on the road to promote it,
04:51and then we finished. Then I go back, and I make another album, and I finish the album,
04:56and then I go on the road to promote it. It has gone like that for years. That's not what
05:01happened
05:02here. For some reason, we stopped. We stopped. And I did harmony for a while. I wound up with
05:09some time. And I, you know, I have been writing songs all during those years and months. And I
05:17listened to a lot of them, and they weren't bad at all. You know, they weren't contemporary. And I
05:23really tried. I listened to the radio. I did. I never do. And that's had nothing to do with today's
05:29radio. I just never listened to the radio. Even when I was on it, I never listened to the pop
05:34radio.
05:35But I did, because I knew that the pop songs and pop music had really changed. And I thought, well,
05:44let's listen to Billie Eilish. Not bad. Really not bad. And I tried it. It didn't work for me. It
05:52really didn't work for me. And then I did that down the list of the contemporary young people. Many of
05:58them sounded like run-on sentences. I'm used to writing a song that has a verse, a bridge, a chorus.
06:08Then you go back to the chorus, and then you fade out. That's not the way we write music anymore.
06:14And
06:14I really tried that. It just didn't work for me. It works for everybody else these days. But for me,
06:20it just didn't sound honest. So I went back to doing what I know how to do. Whether it's an
06:26up-tempo
06:27song or a ballad, there's a certain way of writing that I learned how to do. And I couldn't get
06:34away
06:35from it. I fear that people are going to listen to this album and think I haven't listened to the
06:39Pop 40 radio in 40 years. But that's not true. I still do listen to the Top 40 radio. It's
06:47just that
06:47I had to do with this album what feels good for me. And I don't know if there's anybody out
06:53there that
06:53wants that. But I'm hoping that there are people that are starving for songs like what's on this album.
07:05Nobody really knows what the word arranger means anymore. But maybe back in the 50s or 60s,
07:12there were singers like Sinatra and Rosemary Clooney. They were all singing the same songs. Most of them
07:20came from Broadway. And they all needed their version of that same song. So they hired Nelson
07:28Riddle and Don Costner, these wonderful arrangers and musicians, of course. But they were arrangers,
07:34and they would take the same song that everybody was singing and give Sinatra his version of that
07:41song. Well, that's an arranger. And that's when I grew up loving. I loved listening to the different
07:47versions of the same song by these very famous singers. Well, that's what I wanted to do with
07:53my life when I grew up. I wanted to be a musician and an arranger. And I did that. I
07:58did that for a
07:59load of singers, including my friend Bette Midler. I did that for her. I took these songs and threw them
08:04up in the air and made them into her version of those songs. When the Beatles came in, I guess,
08:09and started to write their own songs, and everybody started to write their own songs,
08:13the arrangers kind of took a back seat because they didn't need them. So the arranger kind of was
08:21pushed to the side. But that's what I love doing. I like a melody that you can sing back.
08:28I've always liked them. I have done some oddball albums and oddball songs. But most of the time,
08:36I like melodies that you can sing right back. I guess I learned that when I was doing commercials,
08:45because in order to get the commercial that you were going up for, you had to write a melody
08:52that people would remember in the first 10 seconds, 10 seconds. And when I would write a melody for a
09:03commercial, my instinct was to keep on going. And that's not what you do. When I went from
09:07commercials to pop, songwriting, it was the same rules. You have to grab the listener as soon as
09:15you can. You can't do a really big instrumental opening and then start your song. You can't do it.
09:24I like to write a song that you'll sing back. I'm getting honored as one of the guys that wrote
09:29commercials. That's nice. It was a long time ago. They're still using Stuck on a Band-Aid.
09:35I am stuck on Band-Aid brand, because Band-Aid's stuck on me.
09:39And they're still using State Farmers there.
09:41I got my neighbor to you. State Farm is there.
09:48That State Farm is there. I handed my melody in, and they bought it, and I got $500. That's it.
09:55Because you don't get residuals as a songwriter. You get residuals if you're on the spot,
10:01if you're singing or you're talking. But I know it. But $500 was pretty good for me
10:06back in those days. How many years has it been? 50 years that this melody has been going around?
10:13There must have been about five or six of us who were all going off to the same spot. I
10:18remember I
10:19didn't get the American Airlines because my last five notes went down. It's something like,
10:26it's something in the air. My melody went down, so you don't do that on an airline commercial.
10:38I like that I make people feel good. And I know I do. I couldn't tell you that years ago,
10:44but I can now. My goal has always been with the shows, with the albums,
10:48I want them to feel better when they leave than when they came in. Really. That's my goal. And that's
10:55what I do on stage, and that's what I try to give them in my music. I would like my
11:00epithaph to be
11:01here. He made me feel good.
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