The Big Interview with Dan Rather.
Carly Simon.
♪ Cry myself to sleep ♪
♪ Now melodrama never makes me weep ♪
♪ anymore ♪
♪ Cause I haven't got time for the pain ♪
You have so many great songs.
Thank you.
That's the Way I've Always Heard it Should Be.
At its time when it was written, it was counter to
what the market seemed to want.
So let's talk about one: how you wrote that, what
the process was, and two: how-- how you ever got it
published?
I had been writing some songs with the intention
of getting them to other singers.
So I was gonna be a composer, not a singer.
And I-- I had gotten a job to write the theme melody
for a special, a documentary on Lake Erie
called Who Killed Lake Erie?
We're in danger of destroying the human
habitability of the earth.
And-- and so I wrote the melody, (SINGS).
♪
And so I got a bad review.
The river is coming down under (LAUGH) our very
bodies and can't be used as water, and they're
thinking about me and that my melody was
weltschmerz-y.
(LAUGH) And of course, that's all I noticed about
the review.
And so I just kinda hated myself for another month
and then-- and then when I was gathering songs to put
together I'd-- I thought, "I'd love to write words
to that."
So I tried to write words to that melody.
Now, as it happens I always write words first
'cause it's much easier for me to put a melody to
words than vice versa.
And to do the two at the same time is almost
unheard of, although I've done that too, but not as
often.
So my new best friend was a man named Jacob Brackman
who I had met at summer camp-- we were both
counselors.
He was a brilliant writer of his generation, maybe
one of the greatest.
And I asked him whether he had ever thought of
writing lyrics and he said, "No, of course not.
But lemme hear what you've got."
So I gave him a tape.
He came back with a perfect lyric.
I mean, it just couldn't have been a better song
right off the bat.
We were instantly so proud of it.
Their children hate them for the things they're not
They hate themselves for what they are And yet they
drink, they laugh, close the wounds, hide the scars
But you say it's time we move in together And
raised a family of our own, you and me Well
that's the way I've always heard it should be You
want to marry me
Anticipation?
I'm always interested in the process.
How did it get written?
There was a moment when I was opening for
Cat Stevens at the Troubadour in L.A.,
which was my first gig.
I was very influenced by Cat Stevens's music and I
knew his album by heart.
I can't remember if Teaser had come out yet but Tea
for the Tillerman had definitely come out.
And I learned to harmonize to his songs and-- and so
I invited him to come over to my apartment when we
were gonna be playing Carnegie Hall together.
I invited him to come over for dinner.
And it was about 7:00 at the-- at the time that he
was supposed to arrive, and he hadn't arrived yet.
And I was so nervous-- I was so nervous that the
chicken wasn't well-cooked, that the
cherries would've melted, that the mayonnaise
(LAUGH) would've turned into eggs that were
curdled.
All the things that can happen.
And so I picked up the guitar and thought, "I've
gotta do something.
I have to fill my brain with something."
So I picked up my guitar and I thought, "I'm just
gonna pretend I'm Cat Stevens and I'm here."
And so I started out with very, very Cat Stevens-y
chords, very abrupt and, "Thunk, thu."
There was an emphasis that Cat Stevens puts on his
chords, his words his-- his phrasing had-- had a
lot of expression in it.
And so I went, (MAKES NOISE).
And then I-- (LAUGH) I thought, "I'm so stuck in
the moment of being fearful."
So it was a lesson to myself.
I-- I-- I said, "But we can never know about the
days to come."
So I went, (MAKES NOISE).
(SINGS) "We can never know about the days to come."
I didn't know when the doorbell was gonna ring.
(LAUGH) And so-- so I liked that.
And, (SINGS) "But we think about them just the same.
And I wonder--" and so-- and so it went-- it went
like that.
And it was all of a sudden a quarter of 8:00 and I
had written a whole song.
We can never know about the days to come but...
Certainly the butterflies were not-- were not on
hold.
They were just mesmerized by-- by the whole thing:
waiting and creating at the same time.
Maybe that's what I mean about Grand Central
Station, and the chaos, and the confusion and the
enormity of what you're-- what you're thinking about
at one level of your consciousness and-- while
another level is going somewhere else.
The good old right side of my brain.
♪ Anticipation, anticipation is making me late ♪
Well, I love that story though, that--
good use of the time while you're waiting on this guy
being late.
I was very-- very lucky to have a guitar.
I-- I just thought, "What if I hadn't had a guitar
with me, or if I didn't own one or if I didn't
know how to play it a little bit?"
Yeah.
And-- Mockingbird?
Mockingbird I didn't write.
That was a song that Charlie and Inez Foxx
wrote and that James Taylor, who was then my
husband, added a second verse to.
The, "Hear me now and understand he's gonna find
me a better plan."
So that verse James added to it, and that-- we
decided on doing that when I was getting ready to
make an album, which was a follow-up to the album
that had You're so Vain on it, which was a tremendous
success all around the world.
Never shall I see that again.
But anyway, it was-- it was a very big song and I
had to follow it with something great.
And Mockingbird had a great beat to it.
And it was James's suggestion, he said, "Why
don't we do Mockingbird?"
And he started singing it in the car and-- and he
sort of told me what to sing.
Mock (yeah) Ing (yeah) Bird (yeah) Yeah, yeah,
mockingbird, now Everybody have you heard?
He's gonna buy me a mockingbird And if that
mockingbird don't sing He's gonna buy me a
diamond ring And if that diamond ring won't shine
Watch the full episode with special guest,
Carly Simon.
On an all-new, The Big Interview with
Dan Rather.
Premieres Tuesday, November 1st,
at 8/7 central,
only on AXS TV.