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.
