Transcription
(Tom laughing) - [Robert] It's a rare, it's a rare treat.
You know, well, a lot of room, you know. But when you keep emus, you know, you gotta have a lot of room.
-[Robert] That's probably, accounts for the lack of furniture.
-(laughing) Exactly, they'll eat anything, yeah.
-[Robert] We're here because you're putting out records. You're putting them out faster than anyone can believe. (Tom laughing) Having gotten used to your relative, kinda Greta Garbo-
-Oh, oh right.
-[Robert] Howard Hughes approach to-
-The leave me alone part, yeah.
-[Robert] Now you're putting out two records at once.
Well, you know, people complain when there's too much time between records, and then they complain that there's too many. The public is fickle, and you know, I can't be responsible for their feelings, you know? I mean, you know.
-[Robert] So is this a provocation?
Well you know, the idea with two records is that you got the stove heated up, and you might as well make more than one pancake. 'Cause you know, how often-
-[Robert] People might be coming over.
How often, (chuckling) exactly. How often do you cook, you know? So you might as well make enough for the whole gang, yeah.
-[Robert] Right, and.
I guess that's the idea.
-[Interviewer] The whole gang.
-[Director] Be careful not to step on him when he's talking.
-[Robert] Okay.
-[Director] Make sure like they separate little thing.
See you get in trouble around here, Robert.
-[Robert] Well, that's our style though. We have a style.
-[Director] Okay.
-[Robert] But no you're right.
Yeah.
-[Director] It just gets harder to cut it into pieces.
Yeah. Okay, you wanna start over, Robert?
-[Robert] No, I don't. (Tom laughs) Today you're in your house here and you've been singing a song about god being away on business.
Yeah.
-[Robert] Where is he away?
I, you know, I don't know. It's hard to say. It's song logic, you know, I don't know, perhaps he's away indefinitely. Perhaps he was never here, you know. There are two different schools of thought on that, I guess.
-[Robert] You called his office and got a message.
Yeah, well, no, it's just, it's one of those things you say in order to explain the way that you feel in metaphor, I guess, Robert. It's just, it feels sometimes in the world that god is away on business, and he is not coming back.
-[Robert] And apparently he's left emus in charge.
He's been known to do that. You know, he'll put an emu in the front office as a receptionist and a couple down there in the stock room and.
-[Robert] Now I understand that the emu is a closely related, barely evolved from the dinosaur. Is that true?
They're a direct descendant, yeah. You can, you know, scales are really feathers before they were feathers, you know. If you look at a scale, you can tell it's about to become a feather in about 2 million years, yeah. I know very little about emus except that they're interesting to look at and according to the trainers here, bird brains.
-[Robert] Which is, we've said before, isn't really an insult to birds. Tom, what is the world's smallest mammal?
The world's smallest mammal? That would be the, the bumblebee bat from Thailand. It weighs actually less than a penny. If you can imagine something that small, that still gives milk and you know.
-[Robert] Well, that's correct.
Yeah.
-[Robert] You got that one. (Tom laughs) I'm gonna try a little harder one now.
Okay.
-[Robert] What bone in the human body is shaped like Africa? Now take your time, don't, because it may not be the bone that you think,
All right, all right.
-[Robert] You probably were gonna say the pelvis.
No, no, I wasn't gonna say the pelvis. I was gonna say the scapula.
-[Robert] That's correct. (Tom laughs) The scapula is shaped like Africa.
Yeah, did I win the Frigidaire?
-[Robert] You did, and I see you have a lot of room to put it in. That's right. But why is it called the scapula if looks like Africa?
It's a whole other area, Robert. I don't know the answer to that.
-[Robert] Shall we compare Alice, your record, Alice to your record Blood Money?
Okay.
-[Robert] You put these two records out.
All right.
-[Robert] You have to give people some guidance, I think, some consumer guidance because they walk into the store.
Because they're consumers.
-[Robert] They're consumers. They have their 14.95.
Yeah.
-[Robert] Or whatever records cost now.
It's gone up.
-[Robert] Has it?
Yeah.
-[Robert] Oh, well that's out for me, but help the people, help the people, you know, they're looking at the covers and they can't choose.
Yeah.
-[Robert] How would you, what would you tell them?
Oh god, well, Alice, I guess, is a little kinda like taking a pill. It's a little more dreamy. A little more, more, I don't know, more, more of a, I hesitate to say druggy. I'd say more, yeah, kind of an opiate, a little dreamy, you know, more of a song cycle. And then, what was the other one?
-[Robert] Blood Money, your record called Blood Money.
Blood Money.
-[Robert] I know you're putting out two. It's a lot to remember, two titles at once, but really try.
That one is more rooted, you know, more tum, tum, tum, tum, you know, more rhythmic and you know, I guess more real, more in the real world.
-[Robert] Is that really more the real world do you think?
I don't know, I'm oversimplifying.
-[Robert] You are.
Yeah, but I have a tendency to do that.
-[Robert] For video.
Yeah, right. Who's watching anyway, right. They don't know.
-[Robert] Well, she is, and he is, and he is. Sorry.
Go ahead, let me help you.
-[Robert] Well, you are Tom, you wrote out all these questions.
I did not write all those questions.
-[Robert] Oh, well, do you make sounds, do you sometimes, do you ever find this happening to you?
Yeah.
-[Robert] When you just suddenly you're making sounds with your voice that have no meaning.
It happens a lot.
-[Robert] Does it?
Yeah, it does. It's called sub vocalizing, you know. And I don't know, I guess maybe it's part of the evolution of language. It's going backwards though. Back to when sounds had just basic shapes to them and had yet to be applied to anything truly meaningful. And I guess I'm, I don't know. I'm probably dyslexic and you know, attention deficit on it.
-[Robert] Are there any examples on your new record?
Actually, there is, there is one of the songs on there that's on Alice, kommienezuspadt, which is actually, there are a few words in there that have real meaning, but the rest of it is just pure gibberish. But a lot of people, when they hear it, they say, gee, I didn't know you spoke Romanian or I didn't know you spoke this odd dialect of Finland or, I have been known to tell them that I do speak those language, but truthfully, I don't.
-[Robert] Have you ever put one over on the Romanians?
No, not the Romanians specifically. No, no, no. I'm having a, I'm having a ball with just the sounds and it's kind of thrilling to invent a language and not know from one word to the next what the next thing, what you're gonna say. You have no idea what you're gonna say. And it's free, it's a free feeling.
-[Robert] In your head, is there anything that you think you're saying when you speak these languages or?
Yeah, you go through a series of emotions. You're angry, you're compassionate and you're sad then you're, you know, you go through the whole range, but you're, you know, doing it with just shapes. (speaks made-up language) you know? (speaks made-up language) you know?
-[Robert] That was Chinese.
See what I mean? Yeah, people do think it's really a language, yeah. Sid Caesar used to do it all the time. But it's actually therapeutic. You know, you gotta try it. If you're angry, don't say words, just say shapes and sounds.
-[Robert] When I'm angry, I can only say shapes and sounds. I forget how to speak.
But that's really, most lyrics in songs start just with a sound. And then somehow, the meaning finds the sound and they join and now that you get a word and that's the way I do it, anyway, you know.
-[Robert] Now with the song, You Haven't Looked At Me.
Oh, right, yeah.
-[Robert] You Haven't Looked At Me.
Oh, right, yeah.
-[Robert] Now, I think there might be a story behind that song because it says so this paper.
Oh, actually there is, there is, yeah.
-[Robert] You didn't begin with nonsense syllables in that?
No, no, no, no, that's a more traditional song. Actually, the story is that, I guess it was Oxford University had a celebration and they wanted Alice, the Alice of Alice in Wonderland. They wanted her to come and speak in front of the class 'cause by then she was in her eighties. And so she came all the way from wherever she came from. And it was a long journey, and she got up on stage. She walked out to a microphone and, you know, and banged on the microphone. And said a few words to the class and this was kind of a hypothetical song that we, you know, created to cover a situation like that. That you might imagine one would be singing or thinking about when. It's just kind of an odd situation to imagine a story with a little girl who's like nine years old, and then to see her as a grown woman walking out, you know.
-[Robert] So this is what she would've sung if she had burst into song at that moment?
(laughs) Yeah.
-[Robert] In the musical version of.
Yeah right, in the musical for Broadway, yeah. Something like that.
-[Robert] Now, I have another question.
Okay, all right.
-[Robert] And again, I want you to think carefully before answering.
Okay, all right.
-[Robert] What key?
Yeah.
-[Robert] Do most house flies sing in?
Got it, the key of F.
The key F?
Yeah.
-[Robert] One flat key.
Yeah, one flat.
-[Robert] Now, do they run up the whole scale?
No, no, no, it's the middle octave.
-[Robert] Just the middle octave.
Yeah, yeah.
-[Robert] So.
You know, maybe towards the end of their lives, maybe they fluctuate, but you know.
-[Robert] There's no modulation in the life of flies is what you're telling me.
Well, I'm sure they have meaningful changes they go through, but you can't be determined by the tone of their voice. But if there was a fly in the room right now, we could check it.
-[Robert] There probably is a fly in the room.
I don't think so, not this time of year. It's a little too early for flies.
-[Robert] No, well, especially when you keep a place this neat. (Tom laughs) This just doesn't, you know, it.
Yeah, it's almost like a doctor's office in here.
-[Robert] It is, it's sterile, you know, would be my word for it.
Anymore questions?
-[Robert] Yeah, you have 16, no 15. No, but you left out six.
I hate the burn up all his tape, you know.
-[Robert] What did Joseph Stalin say about jazz?
You know what Joseph Stalin said about jazz? He said, today you play jazz and tomorrow you betray your country. And it was on a poster, I guess it was circulating in Russia at the time. It was up in all the subways and, you know, in theaters and beer halls. And he wasn't a big fan of jazz apparently.
-[Robert] Oh, well, I remember when Louis Armstrong had treason trial.
Oh, right.
-[Robert] The HUAC had him up for that spine thing, I think he was.
Yeah, he did like 30 years, I think.
-[Robert] Yeah, coded messages, solos on Lazy River, as I recall. It was a scandal.
Yeah.
Yeah.
-[Robert] Who do you go to for advice? Do you ever go, do you need advice?
Who do I go to for advice?
-[Robert] Yeah.
Gee, I don't know.
The Green Hornet, Fats Waller, Oscar Levant.
Actually the Green Lantern, I've gone to for advice in the past and the Silver Surfer. And of course The Eyeball Kid, you can always count on him for vision and clarity or, but yeah, Fats Waller I've looked at him for guidance for years and Oscar Levant, if you can get him outta your medicine cabinet.
-[Robert] Yeah, it's tough.
And, but I don't know, yeah, I do go to, I think I go to recordings usually for advice, you know, when I need guidance, you know.
-[Robert] Would you recommend your own recordings someone to look into a song like?
I don't know, I don't know about that, Robert.
I don't know, I don't know about that.
-[Robert] Misery is the river of the world for.
You mean, is misery the river of the world?
-[Robert] Well.
Is there a real river called misery?
-[Robert] Is there an actual misery river?
No, no, no, no, no. There is not a misery river, old girl in Illinois who said, old girl in Illinois who, who said, she brought a record of mine to school And she wanted me to come out there and defend her. And would I call her teacher? and would I call her teacher. And she left her teacher's home phone number and everything. And she says, she loves my songs and tells me that, for her, my voice reminds her of something between a cherry bomb and a clown. And I really, I really like that.
-[Robert] There's a lot of room between the cherry bomb and the clown.
Yeah. So we corresponded for a while, but we've drifted apart. We've lost touch, and I.
-[Robert] What is she 10 now?
She's much older now, and probably outgrew me. I'm probably like a turtleneck sweater for her now. And it's, but there was a period there
-[Robert] I'm gonna try and stump you again here.
-[Robert] I'll try and stump you again here.
Okay, I'm ready.
-[Robert] Do giraffes have vocal chords?
No they don't. (laughs) Well, it must have been a choice, you know, because god must have said at one point you can either have a, you know, like a 27 foot neck or you can have vocal chords and they made their choice.
-[Robert] If you had been given that choice, if god, when he had come back from being away on business.
Yeah, right.
-[Robert] Had god been in touch with you and said, Tom neck or voice?
I would've gone with a voice, yeah. It'd be nice to have both, you know. But I hear that they rarely offer the two of those together.
-[Robert] They're not like, well, and in fact, not at all, like your, no, exactly, like your records that are coming out because they're not being offered together.
No, they're not, they're separate entities. Buy one by 'em both, but you know, you're not obligated to buy them both. Well you're not obligated to buy either one of 'em for that matter.
-[Robert] That's true, unless maybe members of your family, no.
No obligation necessary.
-[Robert] Do you dance when you sing?
I do actually dance when I sing. Don't we all? I sing and dance, you know? I mean, I'm like a, you know, I guess I'm part of that whole tradition on certain level. I'm like a.
-[Robert] Gene Kelly?
Like gene Kelly.
-[Robert] Fred Astaire?
Yeah, I'm in the circus business, I guess. This business we call show.
-[Robert] And when you're on stilts.
Yeah.
-[Robert] You were very agile on those, I have to say.
Thanks, Robert.
-[Robert] Have you've ever been on stilts before?
No, no, only as a child and I haven't been on stilts since. And, but it all came back. It's like a stilt memory. I think we all have certain kind of primal. Like, I thought I'd forgotten all about how to, you know, fix a kite, you know, and all that comes back. You know, if you haven't flown a kite in years, you'd be surprised. It comes right back.
-[Robert] Well, there's that phrase, you know, like, it's like walking on stilts, you know, that they say, people there remembering how to do things.
Yeah, exactly, yeah.
-[Robert] How do you know when a song is finished, Tom?
You don't always know when a song is finished, and I'm not sure if a song is ever finished, to be honest with you. You know, they're constantly evolving and it's like jump rope songs, you know? I mean, when are they done? They're never done. You know, people are always changing them, changing the tempo and adding new verses, getting rid of old versus, you know, so, I mean, when you're ready to record, I mean, there's a certain finality to that. It's time to, you know.
-[Robert] Commit.
To commit, yeah. To cut the head off the fish, but that's not really the right.
-[Robert] No.
Analogy for it. (laughter) It's more like, why do people say, you really captured something on that? You know, 'cause there's something alive in a song. And the trick to recording them is to capture something and have it be taken alive, you know. So it's always a trick in the studio to.
-[Robert] The world is just a wild kingdom for you, isn't it? I see you as the Euell Gibbons of songwriting.
Oh, thanks, thanks.
-[Robert] Up to your knees and nonsense syllables grabbing them as they fly by.
Okay.
Now Tom, if you didn't do this and by this, I assume that you mean sit in a room talking to me.
Yeah, yeah.
-[Robert] What would you do?
Oh, Jesus, I don't know, you know. You mean, what do I have as backup?
-[Robert] What's in the back pocket? What's in the back room? What's what's down that hallway waiting?
Well, you know, I had a mail order, night crawler business when I was a kid, I sold night crawlers, you know, and I always think back on that and think, well, I could always get that cranked up again, and of course there's motel management, you know, keep your present job.
-[Robert] Well, I look around and I see that, I see that you have a gift for decorating for.
Simple is best, don't you think?
-[Robert] I think, why clutter up a room with things that you might run into?
That eventually you're gonna be getting rid of anyway.
-[Robert] It's true, and.
Just start simple.
-[Robert] And be the mind, empty the room.
That's what they say, yeah.
-[Robert] And start again.
Yeah.
-[Robert] Well, I think I've asked you, oh no, I haven't asked you all your own questions. (Tom laughs) You collaborate with your wife and you're still married.
Very good question. No, it's not really a question, it's a statement, isn't it?
-[Robert] It's both a question and a statement.
Okay.
-[Robert] It's a statement in the form of a question.
I do collaborate with my wife and I think that's why we're still married. She was a blackjack dealer at a card room out in Emeryville when we first met and she's, you know, she's done everything really, you know. She was a, she does motorcycle repair. She does it all, you know, and high finance, you name it, deep sea fishing, has a pilot's license. She's a barber, you know, and everything.
-[Robert] When did she find time to work with you?
Exactly, that's why I got a book early, you know, she's.
-[Robert] Is that why so long between records then?
There you go. Now, you're starting to see the picture, yeah.
-[Robert] When I'm done with this Yamaha. (Tom laughs)
It works, I don't know how it works. I guess if it's not broke, don't fix it, right. It works, it's like, yeah, just works. You wash, I'll dry. We have a good rhythm together, so, and I trust her opinion, you know. If you're not careful, it gets like the emperor's new clothes, you know, you have to have somebody say, honey, what is this hog wash? Is this crap, is this, you know? What is this? And then, so it's good. You know, and she's got a great sense of melody. She's the only one who plays the piano actually, and reads music, you know. So, and yeah, she's excellent.
-[Robert] How have you kept her from going solo?
Yeah, exactly, she doesn't like the limelight see. She doesn't like it, so it works, you know.
-[Robert] It's a good choice of a partner then.
Yeah, right, yeah, yeah.
-[Robert] Stay in the background.
Stay in the background, put a muzzle on and chain her to a fire hydrant.
-[Robert] Now these records that you've made.
Yeah.
-[Robert] Seem to be full of different forms of music.
Yeah, oh yeah, like, park.
-[Robert] Cake walks.
Oh, cake walks, yeah.
-[Robert] Now the barcarolle,. I haven't heard of anybody writing a barcarolle, since Offenbach in The Tales of Hoffmann.
Oh, right. Well, barcarolle, you know, is just a, it is just a ship's waltz. I mean, barca being coming or the root word for ship and then roll. And then that's why there's so many waltzes written by sailors because there're always waltzing, you know, moving from one side to the next. And so barcarolle, there you have it.
-[Robert] Barcarolle.
-[Robert] Mark roll.
-[Robert] And the cakewalk, what does the cakewalk mean to you? what does the cake walk mean to you?
Gee, I don't know. there was always a cakewalk and they put on the record there was always a cake walk and they put on the record and then you go around in circles. If you land on the right number, you win a cake.
-[Robert] Is that the turns.
(laughs) I don't know. song forms are just like jello molds, you know, you know, I dunno. I like goofing around with them.
-[Robert] You pour a flavor in there.
Yeah, and wait for it to set.
-[Robert] Now, is there anything you'd like to say about any other members of the animal kingdom before we send you back to the emus?
No.
-[Robert] The crows?
The crows?
-[Robert] The termites, anything?
The crows, you mean the teenagers of the bird world?
-[Robert] I've heard that they are.
They are the teenagers of the bird world because they, what happens is they get all their work done by like 9:00 AM just to, so they play rugby with a white rock just so they play rugby with a white rock or play keep off the nest. That type of thing, have a little races around town. Kill bugs, have bug killing contests, you know,
-[Robert] They ever get in trouble with the bird authorities.
(laughs) It's probably very likely. Yeah, they do. But when they have time to themselves, they'll sit on anthill and they'll wait till all the ants in the ant hill have completely engulfed them. And they say, there's no true biological reason for it, except that it must give them pleasure. And it's like a, their eyes kind of roll back in their head and they kind tip to one side and ants crawling all over them.
-[Robert] So there's no authority figures in their lives to keep them in line?
Apparently not.
-[Robert] What are you doing your life?
Apparently not, no. So, but they say it's understandable though that they would choose something like that because they have a lot of time on their hands. They have the largest brain proportion to their body than any other bird. And it's kind of a slow dissent into, it's almost like a form of drug abuse after they've done their work in the morning they'll. after they've done their work in the morning. You're looking at me like you don't believe me.
-[Robert] I don't believe you. (Tom laughs) I've seen crows.
Yeah.
-[Robert] Do do work, I've seen them work
I've seen them with real jobs.
-[Robert] I've seen them out there taking care of business.
Okay, well maybe this was just a particular crow.
-[Robert] Maybe. More, shall we?
I think we're fine.
-[Robert] Go on.
You know, I think we've covered it all and.
-[Robert] We're not thinking of, this is something else that we need to do.
That's something else, yeah.
-[Robert] And there we go. Oh, any strange suggestions for your musicians? Did you wanna cover that one?
All musicians?
-[Robert] Do you, when you're working with these musicians.
Yeah, right.
-[Robert] That you hire to play your records, do you have any strange suggestions for them?
Well, I wouldn't call it strange, no. But I try to tell them