by Richard Marx
I called Luther and stopped by his house, where we sat in my car in his driveway and I played him the track. He loved it. A few days later, he arrived to sing at A&M Studios in Hollywood at around 6:00 p.m. By 7:30, he and I were sitting in a nearby restaurant ordering dinner. If only every recording experience could be that easy. Few people know that before Luther started having massive success as an artist, he was a very successful jingle singer and background vocalist on many artists’ records. His experience behind the microphone and my knowing exactly what I wanted him to sing made it possible for our session to be fun, quick, and musically killer.
A few months later, I completed the album, which I named Rush Street (after the famous street in my hometown of Chicago), and delivered it to my label. They were a bit perplexed by how much heavy guitar rock was present but were placated by the more commercial tracks that rounded it out. We all agreed to go with “Keep Coming Back” as the first single. I was thrilled because I knew it would be an unexpected new sound and, hopefully, broaden my fan base.
The single went to number 12 on the Pop chart, gave me my first appearance on the R&B chart, and spent six weeks at number 1 on the AC chart. While I’m very proud of writing that song, I have no doubt that Luther’s presence on the track contributed greatly to its success.
26 “HAZARD”
I was well into the Repeat Offender tour and fast asleep in the back lounge of my tour bus. It was around 4:00 a.m., and we were somewhere between Illinois and Indiana when this piece of music woke me from my slumber. A bit groggy from the previous evening’s concert and post-show tequila shots, I had the presence of mind to immediately reach for my trusty Panasonic handheld cassette recorder. Because it was 19-fucking-90, and iPhone apps weren’t an idea, let alone a thing.
I started singing the melody and chord progression into the tape machine and realized this wasn’t just a snippet of a future song. It was the entire song. No lyrics. But I had written the verse, chorus, and bridge melodies in my sleep. There was a vibe to this music that was haunting. Almost ominous. Sad. Suspenseful. I could hear the whole production in my head. What the drum pattern sounded like, what the finger-picked guitar part should be, and even the sound of the synthesizer pad. But I had zero clue what the lyrics should be.
For weeks, I listened to the tape recording of this melody until it was simply etched in my brain. Then, one rare evening off with no gig, it occurred to me that this music could lend itself to a proper story. I had always loved great mysteries. I didn’t read much as a kid, but when I did, it was usually mystery fiction. Sherlock Holmes was a favorite, and I loved the old black-and-white films starring Basil Rathbone. I thought it could be really fun to try to create a murder mystery to this melody. I pictured a small rural town in the Midwest and immediately knew that my voice needed to not only tell the story but be a key character in it. The first line arrived.
My mother came to _____ when I was just seven
I had no idea where my fictional mother had come to other than, based on my melody, it was a town with a two-syllable name. Within a few hours, I had constructed a story that took place in the state of Nebraska. Again, the melody dictated the lyrics. As I sang, “and leave this old ba-bup-ba town” I knew I needed a state with three syllables. It could’ve been New Hampshire. It could’ve been Ohio. It would not have been Florida because that word sings so awkwardly against the notes of that melody.
You songwriters understand.
When I sang “Nebraska” to those notes, it just felt like magic. I finished the entire lyric that evening. A beautiful young woman meets a young man and they strike up a relationship, sharing their mutual dream of getting out of this small Nebraska town. Suddenly one evening the girl goes missing and is later found dead, drowned in the river that runs through the town. The young man, always viewed as strange by the townspeople, is assumed to be her killer and arrested. He proclaims his innocence but is resigned to a fate of misunderstanding.
There’s no escape for me this time
All of my rescues are gone, long gone
There were a few moments in the writing process where I nearly abandoned the song. It started sounding like a really stupid episode of Twin Peaks. But self-doubt is an often unwelcome guest in creativity, and one needs to overcome it. So I carried on.
The song was complete except for one single and extremely vital piece of information: the name of the town. This would also be the song’s title, so I kinda needed to figure it out. I had a few days off from the tour at home and it being the pre-internet age, I called the state of Nebraska’s Chamber of Commerce and asked if they would fax me a list of every town in the state. (You under-twenty-fivers can Google “fax” now, too.) About an hour later, my fax machine began spitting out page after page of a two-column list of names. I gathered the eight or nine pages and shuffled them like cards. I then laid them out on my home-office desk, closed my eyes, and dropped the end my index finger to the desk.
My finger landed on the name Ogallala, which clearly wouldn’t work and not only because of having more than two syllables. I closed my eyes and dropped my finger again, and I honestly don’t recall what it landed on, but in the column directly to the left I saw the name Hazard. I immediately knew it was right.
My mother came to Hazard when I was just seven.
I couldn’t wait to record this song. But I had several more months of concerts ahead so that day didn’t arrive until early the following year.
Whereas I almost always prefer to record with a live band, I chose to record “Hazard” with synthesizers and a drum machine. The keyboard player in my touring band, Mike Egizi, had been teaching himself drum and synth programming, so we got together one afternoon and I painstakingly attempted to verbally convey the sounds I was hearing in my head to Mike’s fingers on his keyboard. Eventually, the track came together except for the guitar parts, which I wanted to be played by my friend and master acoustic guitarist Bruce Gaitsch. I had written a very intricate arpeggiated guitar part for the chorus, which Mike had programmed on synthesizer just as a guide. Bruce learned the part note for note.
But upon hearing it played by a real acoustic guitar, I found I preferred the sound of the synthesized “fake” guitar. Even Bruce agreed. I asked him to play a nylon string solo, the melody of which he and I constructed together. I recorded my lead and background vocals later that evening, and “Hazard” was fully realized.
Much as I personally liked it, I honestly expected the song to be one of those tracks known as an “album cut.” It certainly didn’t sound like anything pop radio was playing. But as I began to play the song for people, everyone from my manager to various friends, I was aware of a uniquely strong reaction. People were fascinated by it. And much to my surprise, my record company not only liked it, but they wanted to release it as a single.
The first single from Rush Street was “Keep Coming Back.” When that song peaked on the charts, “Hazard” was released, so it was time to make a video to promote it. I met with several music video directors, including Michael Bay and Dominic Sena, both of whom I’d worked with before. Their concepts for the video were okay but not anything I felt was deepening the existing story.
I then took a meeting with a young indie filmmaker named Michael Haussman. Michael hadn’t done much yet, but what he had done was impressive in its look. I saw this video in black and white, and Michael agreed. We storyboarded ideas together and fleshed out the plot to include additional characters. In doing so, we chose to abandon the idea of being faithful to my song lyrics literally.
My character is arrested for the murder of Mary but is ultimately released due to lack of evidence. Upon returning home to the small trailer he calls home, he finds it engulfed in a fire set by the townspeople who wanted him gone. We included the character of the town sheriff (a role my longtime friend actor Robert Conrad of the classic ’60s TV series Wild, Wild West fame graciously agreed to portray) which created a plot twist. Did my character kill Mary? Or was it th
e sheriff? Or did she drown accidentally? The video, just like the song itself, never answered those questions.
As the song became a hit back in 1992, people began to ask me, “So, who killed Mary?” Journalists would ask me in interviews. Fans from the audience would yell it to me onstage. Waiters serving me breakfast would softly whisper to me. “Dude. Who killed the girl in your song?” It was terribly fascinating to me that anyone cared. I wrote the story deliberately as an unsolved mystery and never even formed an opinion myself on what really happened to Mary.
The song became a Top Ten single on America’s Billboard Hot 100 and a huge hit around the world, hitting the Top Ten in the UK and going to number 1 in Australia and several other countries. The song drove sales of the Rush Street album past three million, and I won an ARIA Award (the Australian equivalent of a Grammy) for Best International Single.
Writing that song was a great experience for me all around. But I’ll let you in on something I’ve found pretty perplexing. From the time “Hazard” became a hit in 1992, right up to literally nine days ago as of this writing, I’ve had person after person after person come up to me, to my face, and ask me if this song is autobiographical.
I just stare at them.
I think, “You actually believe I killed a girl in Nebraska years ago, and wrote a song about it?”
27 “SUDDENLY”
In the early 1990s, I was asked to sing a couple of songs at a charity event in Malibu. I agreed and was thrilled to arrive at the sound check that afternoon and find that Olivia Newton-John was there and would also be singing.
In my teen years, I, along with the rest of the world, had a mad crush on Olivia. In 1980, her film Xanadu was released, along with the soundtrack. For reasons I can’t recall now, I didn’t see the film but bought the soundtrack the week it came out. “Magic” was the big hit single, but it was her duet with Sir Cliff Richard, “Suddenly,” that I was crazy for. Still in high school, I spent countless days in my parents’ basement, cranking my father’s stereo to that song. I had learned Cliff’s part perfectly, and would imagine myself looking into Olivia’s beautiful eyes, singing this gorgeous love song with her.
By my nineteenth birthday, I was singing background vocals on her Two of a Kind soundtrack album and writing songs with her. One night when I was around twenty, she invited me to her home in Malibu and cooked me dinner. We hung out and talked and laughed, and somehow the conversation turned to her film career.
I said, “You know, I’m embarrassed to tell you but I’ve never seen Xanadu.”
She laughed and said, “You’re not alone, love.”
I said, “No, I’d like to. I just haven’t remembered to rent it.” (This was back when renting a movie on VHS tape from a video store was the barbaric equivalent of Netflix now.)
Olivia said, “I have a copy here if you’re really that keen on seeing it.”
So we popped some popcorn, poured a couple glasses of wine, and sat in her living room in front of a big-screen TV and Olivia Newton-John showed me one of her movies. Personally.
Now, I realize I set the scene for what you readers might’ve thought would be a different kind of story that night. And I won’t sit here and lie and tell you that I wasn’t mad for Olivia and full of all kinds of fantasies. I was twenty and single, but she was in a relationship at the time, and though her boyfriend was out of town that night, she never led me to think she was open to outside advances. And therefore, I felt making a move on her would have been disrespectful on multiple levels. I just sat next to her and watched her film, breathing in her beauty, kindness, and perfume.
The benefit in Malibu was the first time I’d seen Olivia in years. She looked so beautiful. Olivia has this radiance that is like a constant glow of moonlight. She’s had a tough go of it throughout her life, battling multiple cancer diagnoses, and remains nothing but the epitome of grace and elegance.
We were in the midst of catching up with each other when her musical director said, “Hey, why don’t you two do something together tonight. How about ‘You’re the One That I Want?’ ”
I said, “I don’t think that one’s for me. But how about ‘Suddenly’?”
With a big smile, Olivia said, “Ohhhh, I love that one! Haven’t sung it in a while.”
So the house band worked up the arrangement from the original record and we performed it as a duet that evening. Imagine how I felt. I’d sung this song in my parents’ basement as a teenager, and now here I was, on a stage, singing those words to Olivia, who was singing and looking back into my eyes.
Just a few years ago Olivia and her husband, John, came to my show in Jupiter, Florida, where she was living at the time. She came up onstage that night and sang “Right Here Waiting” with me as a duet. And the circle was complete.
28 ELTON AND THE DISAPPEARING TOOTH
I made lots of mistakes in my early days as live performer. One of them was handling the microphone properly. It’s a learning curve. (Trust me, Steven Tyler didn’t do his first gig with perfect rock-star moves and those awesome scarves wrapped around the mic stand. That developed over time.) And my learning curve included a few shows where I misjudged the distance from mic to mouth and banged the ball of the mic into my teeth.
On the first tour, I chipped one of my front teeth (at an outdoor show at Knott’s Berry Farm to be precise), and during the second tour I chipped the other one at the Detroit venue then known as Pine Knob. I remember it being a euphorically great audience, and at one point I stood on top of my grand piano, mic in hand, and leapt about eleven feet down to the stage and—bang!—right in the teeth with the fuckin’ mic. (Those jumps off my piano were also the reason I had both my hips replaced in 2015. Which didn’t bother me as much as it could have because I was finally able to hear the words Richard Marx and hip in the same sentence.) So at the end of the second world tour, I went to my dentist, who supplied me with two veneers over my then shorter and tour-ravaged front teeth.
About a year and a half later, in 1992, I was in London doing concerts and a few television appearances. “Hazard” had become a bona fide smash in the UK. I was invited to perform the song on Britain’s biggest music show, Top of the Pops. The show could prove a huge catalyst in either turning a song into a hit on the charts or taking a song already on the way up and rocket-lifting it higher.
Having done the show previously a couple times, I was aware of both the benefit it could provide and the mind-numbing boredom doing the show ensured. You see, the show is shot out in the middle of Bum-fuck, England, and you have to be there really early in the morning for the first sound check. You then wait about an hour and a half, and then go back onstage and sound check again. Another ninety minutes and they have you stand in place in front of cameras. Ninety minutes later, another camera block. Same freakin’ thing! Then you come back two hours later and have a dress rehearsal. Then after dinner, they bring in an audience and tape the show. It’s a very long, very boring day, and you’re stuck there. You can’t leave in between. Part of the deal.
But this show was different. Instead of the usual six to eight performers on the hourlong show, this show was dedicated to Sir Elton John (not yet a Sir at this point), and I was the only other guest. Elton had a new album that he was promoting, Made in England. The first single, “Believe,” was headed up the charts, and I really loved it.
Having never met him, and being a true lifelong fan, I was just thrilled that I might at least get to shake his hand. But after we had settled in to our dressing room that morning, Elton’s assistant came over and said, “Elton would love to meet you and said if you’d like to come and hang out in his dressing room with him and his band, please come on over.”
As you can imagine, unlike my six-foot-by-six-foot mirrored closet of a dressing room, Elton’s was much larger. Still Kremlin gray and ugly, but bigger. And he had his staff put up curtains on rolling stands, and they had candles lit.
I walked in and Elton greeted me like an old friend. Warm an
d charming, he immediately engaged me with questions about my travels and shocked me by complimenting me on specific songs of mine he had heard and said he liked. He put me so at ease, as did his band, and in between each tedious rerun of sound and camera blocking, he’d have me back to his room and we’d pick up the conversation where we left off. We laughed a lot, and he told truly entertaining stories while never clearly dominating the discussion. A true gentleman. More than once I found myself thinking, I’m sitting here hanging with Elton Fucking John.
It was a few minutes before the actual performance taping, and I was in my dressing room making sure that each chest hair—visible because I was wearing only jeans and a black vest with no shirt (and, yeah, thinking this was a cool look, by the way)—was strategically in place, when my tour manager walked in and said, “Dude, have you eaten anything today?” I was, and occasionally still am, pretty bad at looking after my metabolism, especially when I’m on the road and busy. I’ve also been either vegetarian or pescatarian since I was eighteen, and strictly vegan since 2014, which can make eating while traveling extra precarious in meat-heavy parts of the world. I was getting pretty scrawny, and my TM was concerned.
Looking like an ashamed twelve-year-old, I said, “Nope.” So he bolted next door and came back with a small tuna sandwich wrapped in plastic wrap. As I tweaked my lion’s mane of a coif (the mullet long gone but still huge hair), I wolfed down a few bites of the sandwich. And as I did one last quick mirror check, I noticed that one of my veneers from a front tooth was gone. I had just swallowed it along with a mouthful of tuna, lettuce, and wheat bread. And as this sickening realization hit my brain, a British voice over a loudspeaker yelled, “Places!”