roomthreeseventeen
Inaugural Dopey Challenge finisher
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2009
- Messages
- 8,756
I had the great fortune to meet and spend time with Richard Sherman last week. My husband and I were invited to take a trip to Los Angeles for the Society of Composers and Lyricists tribute evening to Richard Sherman, which was hosted by Tim ODay.
We got to the venue (the Paley Center) a few hours early, so we got to spend some time with Richard and Tim before the crowd showed up. Out of the four days in Los Angeles, this was my favorite part of the trip. I think when you meet an artist you really admire, theres always a lot of trepidation about whether or not they are going to be a nice person, or what you even believe them to be. Well, Mr. Sherman is an unbelievably kind man, very generous with his time, and loves being with people. He could not have been nicer or more accommodating. He even told me that I should definitely run the marathon this year dressed as Mary Poppins. (I think I probably wont do that, as the thought of navigating 26.2 miles with an umbrella is a bit much).
The evening itself was a mix of interview and performance, with Richard talking about everything from his father, who was a songwriter on Tin Pan Alley, to his time writing for Annette Funicello, and then his long collaboration with Walt Disney.
After every story, he would sit down at the piano and sign his and Roberts songs. As a songwriter myself (my husband is also a songwriter, and teaches musical theatre), it was incredible to hear the stories of how the image of a spoonful of sugar in real life translated into a lyric, and how when Walt asked them to write the explanation for the Tiki room, how a fellow songwriter could be thrilled by the opportunity to put such an amazingly tuneful word, Tiki, into a song. We got to hear about the songs from The Parent Trap and the Jungle Book, Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Busker Alley, among so many others. When he got to Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow , almost all of us sang along.
(Suffice it to say we also sang along to Feed the Birds and Winnie the Pooh , but by then, many of us were in tears.)
To me, the most interesting thing, though, was when he talked about the nonsense words that he and Robert would create and subsequently put into their lyrics. The real craft of when to use a nonsense word, and the ability to make it SOUND like a real word are just wonderful qualities that so few songwriters have. Additionally, the repetition of certain words in a lyric (the word fun in The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers ) can enhance the mood and tone of a lyric so dramatically, without the listener even knowing the work is there. Fantastic stuff.
We also got a sneak peek at some of the Saving Mr. Banks movie, from Mr. Shermans perspective, hearing about how Walt tried to do Mary Poppins for 18 years before Travers finally relented, and the story of how Walt gave the brothers the Mary Poppins books to look at, trying to find a cohesive story in the short stories that were already written. They underlined the stories they thought could be a good movie, and when Walt took out his copy, they found they had all the same chapters underlined.
Anyway, this is long and rambling, but its hard to impress upon other people how fantastic this night was. If you have a chance to meet Richard, move heaven and Earth to do it; and if you get a chance to hear him sing his own work for two hours, you will never have another experience like it.
As a bonus surprise, my husband drove us down to Anaheim the next day. Id never been to Disneyland before, and we spent the whole day in the park that Walt built. Going on the original IASW that the Sherman brothers wrote the song for, after such a difficult challenge from Walt, and going back into the Enchanted Tiki room, it all made the experience that much more special.
We got to the venue (the Paley Center) a few hours early, so we got to spend some time with Richard and Tim before the crowd showed up. Out of the four days in Los Angeles, this was my favorite part of the trip. I think when you meet an artist you really admire, theres always a lot of trepidation about whether or not they are going to be a nice person, or what you even believe them to be. Well, Mr. Sherman is an unbelievably kind man, very generous with his time, and loves being with people. He could not have been nicer or more accommodating. He even told me that I should definitely run the marathon this year dressed as Mary Poppins. (I think I probably wont do that, as the thought of navigating 26.2 miles with an umbrella is a bit much).
The evening itself was a mix of interview and performance, with Richard talking about everything from his father, who was a songwriter on Tin Pan Alley, to his time writing for Annette Funicello, and then his long collaboration with Walt Disney.
After every story, he would sit down at the piano and sign his and Roberts songs. As a songwriter myself (my husband is also a songwriter, and teaches musical theatre), it was incredible to hear the stories of how the image of a spoonful of sugar in real life translated into a lyric, and how when Walt asked them to write the explanation for the Tiki room, how a fellow songwriter could be thrilled by the opportunity to put such an amazingly tuneful word, Tiki, into a song. We got to hear about the songs from The Parent Trap and the Jungle Book, Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Busker Alley, among so many others. When he got to Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow , almost all of us sang along.
(Suffice it to say we also sang along to Feed the Birds and Winnie the Pooh , but by then, many of us were in tears.)
To me, the most interesting thing, though, was when he talked about the nonsense words that he and Robert would create and subsequently put into their lyrics. The real craft of when to use a nonsense word, and the ability to make it SOUND like a real word are just wonderful qualities that so few songwriters have. Additionally, the repetition of certain words in a lyric (the word fun in The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers ) can enhance the mood and tone of a lyric so dramatically, without the listener even knowing the work is there. Fantastic stuff.
We also got a sneak peek at some of the Saving Mr. Banks movie, from Mr. Shermans perspective, hearing about how Walt tried to do Mary Poppins for 18 years before Travers finally relented, and the story of how Walt gave the brothers the Mary Poppins books to look at, trying to find a cohesive story in the short stories that were already written. They underlined the stories they thought could be a good movie, and when Walt took out his copy, they found they had all the same chapters underlined.
Anyway, this is long and rambling, but its hard to impress upon other people how fantastic this night was. If you have a chance to meet Richard, move heaven and Earth to do it; and if you get a chance to hear him sing his own work for two hours, you will never have another experience like it.
As a bonus surprise, my husband drove us down to Anaheim the next day. Id never been to Disneyland before, and we spent the whole day in the park that Walt built. Going on the original IASW that the Sherman brothers wrote the song for, after such a difficult challenge from Walt, and going back into the Enchanted Tiki room, it all made the experience that much more special.
(I get teary just hearing it on my iPod while driving!)
