Stories to Tell

by Richard Marx

  43 “ALWAYS”

  Soon after Daisy and I got married, we were home cooking dinner in our kitchen (and by that I mean she was cooking a delicious feast, and I was attentively filling her martini glass and gazing at her longingly, but I digress) when from our trusty Sonos speakers came Diana Krall’s cover of “The Look of Love.” We both absentmindedly hummed along until I said, “This song is so perfectly written.”

  “It’s a Burt Bacharach song, right?” Daisy asked.

  “Yeah, and I remember when we were dating, I asked you what music you love and you immediately answered with his name. I’ve always wanted to write a song with him.”

  “So, why haven’t you?” she asked. “You’ve written with so many great writers.”

  I said, “That’s a really good question. And I just decided this second that I’m going to.”

  The next morning I sent a few emails out to people I thought might have a current contact for Burt, and one friend emailed back with the number of his tour manager and assistant, Sue Main. I texted Sue straight away and explained who I was and that I’d be so honored to write with Burt sometime if he had any interest. Within a few hours she responded:

  Hi Richard. Of course I’m very familiar with you and your work, as is Burt. He is interested but is touring quite a bit and working on a new Broadway show, so not sure when we can put you two together. But if you can be patient, let’s try.

  My insecurity thought it might be a very kind brush-off, but it seemed genuine enough, so every couple of months I would check in with her. Nearly every time I reached out, she would respond with a variation of “Still not a good time, but let’s keep at it.” I was not deterred. In fact, more than once, when Daisy might ask if there was any progress, I’d say, “Not yet. But I know I’m going to write with him. And it’s going to be great.”

  Finally, in November 2018, I received a text from Sue. I hadn’t reached out in a while, so it took me a second or two to recognize her name. “Ahh, it’s Bacharach’s assistant!”

  She wrote, “How’s next Thursday?”

  For a split second I had the usual, “I can’t believe it!” reaction, but I quickly settled into “You knew this was going to happen.”

  Suddenly, however, I was met with a request that I didn’t expect. Sue emailed and asked if I could send over either a completed or partial lyric. “Burt writes music to lyrics,” she wrote. In my years of reading various stories about Burt, I knew he was not a lyricist, but I didn’t remember reading about his creative process. So, when I pictured myself writing with him, I pictured us sitting in a room together, writing the melody and chords together and then me going off somewhere and writing lyrics to whatever music we came up with. In all my years of writing songs alone or with collaborators, that’s basically how I’ve done it. Occasionally I’ll have a title or a lyrical concept before any music is written, but that’s a very rare occurrence. For me, the musical ideas generally flow easily, and then I try to figure out what the music is trying to say. But I would never think of writing lyrics first and then putting music to them.

  Elton John has always done it that way, writing all those iconic melodies to words Bernie Taupin had given him prior. And long before that famous writing duo, Rodgers and Hammerstein did it the same way. I read an interview with Richard Rodgers who said, “The very first lyric Oscar finished was ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’,” and when he handed it to me and I read it for the first time, I was a little sick with joy because it was so lovely and so right. When you’re given words like ‘The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye,’ you get something to say musically.”

  So, despite having never worked that way, I poured myself a tequila on the rocks and sat down in a comfortable chair in my house, and within five minutes words began to reveal themselves in my head.

  I wonder if I ever passed you

  In a crowded room somewhere

  I’m sure I would’ve noticed

  If I’d seen you standing there

  ’Cuz I’ve been searching for you

  Long before I ever saw your face

  And this love I’ve found in you

  Is the love I wish I knew

  Always

  I stopped there, not simply because I wanted to see if this was something that Burt would be inspired by, but also because if he did like it and write a melody to it, I would then need to write another verse that could fit whatever melody he created.

  I emailed the verse to Sue, and the next day got a phone call from Burt. I was in a meeting and missed the call, but he left a voicemail.

  “Hi, Richard. It’s Burt. Got the lyric. Good lyric. I’ve written something to it I’m anxious to show you. See you tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing you. [Several seconds’ pause.] Really good lyric.”

  Hearing that voicemail was pretty amazing. The next day, I arrived at Burt’s beautiful home and after a brief round of small talk in his office, he sat at his piano and played and sang the melody he’d written to my verse. It was gorgeous. And classic Bacharach.

  I went home and by the time I slid into bed next to Daisy that evening, I had finished the lyrics. The song is a love letter to her. About how I wish we’d found each other so much sooner in life, but that all we can do is cherish every second we have together now.

  A couple of weeks later, Burt and I recorded a demo of the song at a studio in Malibu. Our good and mutual friend Greg Phillinganes came in and played piano at my request. Though I could’ve easily laid down a decent piano track, I’m no Greg Phillinganes. No one is, frankly.

  Daisy came by the studio, and I had the beautiful experience of singing the vocal while looking at her through the window of the vocal booth as she sat next to Burt. It really was quite a thrill. There I was singing this love letter to her via a melody written by Burt Bacharach, who was not only one of my heroes but someone whose music had strongly impacted her. And the three of us were all together in that room.

  44 “LIMITLESS”

  By the mid-’90s, there was an entirely different mind-set perpetuated by the music industry, and that was the “burnout factor.” If you released too many singles or put out albums too frequently, the audience would tire of you and your career would be toast. So, artists began releasing new albums after a three- or four-year break, sometimes longer. I adapted easily to this new practice as it simply gave me more time to not only write songs for whatever my next album would be, but songs I could pitch to or produce on other artists.

  Still, there was always a distinct moment when my brain said to me, “It’s time to make a new album.” Over the last two decades, I have sometimes gone five, six years or more between albums, but there’s always that “moment” when making a new album is the mission.

  That wasn’t the case following the release of Beautiful Goodbye in the spring of 2014. Though it was a moderate success, the thought of making another album was never on my mind. I hadn’t made any type of “recording retirement” decision—not consciously at least, though now I wonder if calling that album Beautiful Goodbye was more than coincidence. I just found that year after year would pass, and I was touring constantly and enjoying my new life in Malibu with Daisy. I also wasn’t signed to a record label and had basically decided that I would devote the rest of my career to performing shows around the world and trying to find new opportunities I’d never pursued.

  I started a podcast called Songtalks in which I interviewed musicians and celebrities about the music that affected their lives. I hosted a show on SiriusXM called Inside My Head, where I played some of my favorite songs by all types of artists and told some backstories about them. I was still writing songs here and there but always with or for other artists and with no intention of making a new album myself.

  Then, in early December 2018, I decided I would write a song as a gift for Daisy on our upcoming third wedding anniversary, which is December 23. I wrote “Love Affair That Lasts Forever” within an afternoon. The title was inspired by a framed photo Daisy has h
ad for many years. It sat on the counter of the master bathroom of the Hollywood Hills home where she lived when I met her. It is a headshot of Andy Warhol with his quote “I wonder if it’s possible to have a love affair that lasts forever.” I wanted to write a song that answered that question with a resounding and unwavering affirmative.

  The song finished, I needed to record it fairly quickly to have it ready to present to her by our anniversary. I called a friend of mine, Michael Jade, who’s a great arranger and keyboard programmer and has a studio in his house. We finished the whole track in a matter of an afternoon, and as I drove home, I must have listened to it in my car twenty times. I was quite proud of the song and my vocal performance and couldn’t wait to play it for Daisy on our anniversary. But as I pulled into my driveway, I also totally unexpectedly had that “moment” I told you about: I realized this was the first song of my next album.

  * * *

  This would be the first time I would write and record an album with absolutely no thought of the reception it would receive. No thought of commerciality, format, genre, critical acceptance, or chart position. I just decided to start writing and recording songs that I felt were well written and that I enjoyed listening to myself. As the writing process began to reveal itself, I remembered the song I’d written a month after my marriage to Daisy called “Last Thing I Wanted” and thought it would be good to include on this new album as I hadn’t remotely tired of hearing it over the past two years. I also decided to include “Not in Love,” which I’d written with the incredibly talented Sara Bareilles a few years prior, and a song from 2014 called “Let Go” to which I’d written the music with the DJ and producer Morgan Page (who has had a very successful career in the EDM world) and the lyrics with Daisy.

  There was absolutely no consistency between these songs or, frankly, any of the songs I was writing and recording for this new album. Some songs were very modern-sounding pop, some were more electric-guitar-driven “country-esque,” and then there was a simple, naked piano-vocal track like “Not in Love.” I didn’t care about the varied genres. The thread of consistency would ultimately just have to be my voice.

  I wrote two songs with my son Lucas. Over the past few years, Lucas has really come into his own as a songwriter and producer. Earlier in his writing career, he would routinely send me new songs he’d just written, and on very rare occasions I’d suggest a slight change, maybe a different lyrical line or a production idea. But for the most part I was just genuinely blown away by the work he was doing and finally called him and said, “Uh… how about writing a song with your old man?”

  I went to his townhouse and up to his bedroom, which is also his studio. I had an idea to write a breakup song despite the fact that I was immensely happy and in love with Daisy. Just because you may be currently in a very content place emotionally doesn’t mean you don’t remember the pain of being dumped or of falling out of love. We writers can call upon any life experience and write about it as if it’s happening to us all over again. Lucas and I wrote a really catchy and cool piece of music within an hour and then set about coming up with lyrics.

  I mentioned that in the modern age of technology, when someone breaks up with you, or a relationship begins to turn sour, it’s become instinctive to go read through the texts between you and that other person, looking for clues as to when and how it went wrong. I said, “Maybe the first line should be ‘Looking through the last ten days of texts you sent.’ ” Lucas loved that line and chimed in with “Wondering if all of what you said is what you meant.”

  Within the next hour or so we had not only finished “Another One Down,” but Lucas had created an incredible music track in his computer, and I was standing in front of a microphone singing what would become the actual finished vocal. It was an effortless and fun collaboration, and we had the same experience a few weeks later, writing a song called “All Along.” You can imagine my level of pride and joy at having created songs I truly love with one of my sons.

  * * *

  Right around that time, my manager, Diarmuid Quinn—whom I’d first met back when he was the head of marketing for Warner Bros.—had a meeting with BMG, one of the last remaining major record labels, about it taking over my previous ten years of digital content. During those years I’d recorded and released several albums independently, and BMG wanted to make those albums more visible on the various streaming and downloading platforms like Apple Music and Spotify.

  As the meeting with Diarmuid was ending, one of the BMG executives asked if I was recording anything new these days. Diarmuid said, “He is and it’s really good stuff. Wanna hear a track?” He played them “Let Go,” which they loved and asked to hear more. He then played them “Last Thing I Wanted,” and they asked if we’d be interested in teaming up with them to release the new album. We worked out the terms of the deal fairly quickly, and I was now a BMG artist.

  As I neared the completion of the new album, I decided to name it Limitless not only after one of the new songs, but as a metaphor for what I feel is my capacity to grow, learn, and become a better person. I had eleven songs finished and mixed and felt the album was done.

  As we started thinking about album cover art and release dates, I went back to doing the mundane chores of life like responding to countless emails and deleting old files from my laptop. One afternoon as I was doing the latter, I came across a folder on my desktop labeled “Demos.” In that folder were about seven songs I’d written over the last decade that had never found homes on any of my indie albums or with outside artists. One title in the bunch was a song I had no recollection of, whatsoever. It was called “This One.”

  Rather than just drag it to the trash, I clicked the icon and listened to it. By the first chorus I remembered it was a song I’d written with my pal Matt Scannell about eight years prior. By the last chorus, I had tears in my eyes because it moved me so deeply. Why had I forgotten this hauntingly beautiful song? Why had I not recorded and released it? It’s gorgeous!

  A few minutes later, when Daisy came home from walking our dog, I played it for her. She flipped out over it.

  She said, “That’s a really incredible and special song. You have to put it on the new album.”

  After listening a few more times, I decided that despite hearing a couple squeaks of my fingers on the guitar strings and a piano sound that I wish had been chosen differently, the track was magical and I’d add it to the Limitless album just as it was. I’ve since performed “This One” quite a few times in concert, and the reaction from every audience is as powerful as I’ve ever experienced.

  EPILOGUE NOVEMBER 2020

  The Limitless album was released on February 7, 2020, and I set out on the road a week before to do a monthlong tour to promote it. In that month, I would do eighteen shows in eighteen cities along with a stopover in New York to do The Today Show. The week of the album’s release, the first single, “Another One Down” was in the Top Fifteen of Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart and the album itself hit the number 2 spot on the iTunes Pop Album chart, right behind Taylor Swift and her album Lover. It was quite a rush to see the album received so well, and I felt that on it were some of my best compositions, which could give the album legs to justify promoting it all year.

  During the last week of my US run of shows, the news began being dominated by reports of a mysterious and potentially deadly virus that seemed to have begun in the wet markets of Wuhan, China. At the time, some precautions were recommended, but the threat of the virus becoming a genuine problem in the United States was downplayed as only a remote concern.

  When the news of the virus began disseminating across every news channel, I still had a couple more shows to play on the West Coast, and I took it upon myself to use caution when it came to interacting with people. I usually meet fans after every show, whether it be in what we call a VIP Meet and Greet (where folks have arranged to come backstage and take pictures with me) or when I see a group of fans hanging around my limo and I go ove
r and shake hands and snap photos. Regardless of the situation, I stopped shaking hands or hugging people, explaining that as much as I’d like to, we should all be careful until we have a clear picture of what this virus is and how it spreads. Everyone was very understanding, and I practiced this safety precaution at the last few gigs, including in San Francisco, where I wrapped up the US run on March 1.

  I flew home to Malibu the next morning but with no time to relax as I was still in full “promotion mode” with an appearance in LA at the Grammy Museum and then flew back to New York where I would perform on Live with Kelly and Ryan. Two days later, I was scheduled to fly to Estonia, where I would begin a twenty-two-show European tour to include shows in London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Germany, among other territories. Daisy had joined me in New York solely to steal some time alone together before I headed to Europe. I’d be gone five weeks, and we had never been apart for more than two. The plan was for her to meet me in Paris at week number three and stay with me through the end of the tour and we would fly home together.

  Within that forty-eight-hour window in New York, the news media was in full red-alert mode about what was then called the coronavirus. The reports were harrowing. While the United States had only a small number of cases, Europe was a hotbed of infection. When I read there was an outbreak in Estonia, where I’d be arriving in two days, I called an emergency phone meeting with my manager and my booking agents. The situation with the virus seemed to be heading in a frightening and potentially dire direction, and although I wasn’t really concerned about my safety but more for the safety of audience members gathering to see me as the virus continued to escalate by the hour.

  In a collectively pained decision, my team and I decided to postpone the entire tour. Despite mine being one of the first tours to reschedule shows due to the virus, the European promoters were incredibly understanding and had moved virtually all twenty-two concerts to the end of the year. I was and am deeply grateful for their collective cooperation, especially knowing it was a costly decision for them. They would now have to eat the costs of having promoted the shows on their original dates and spend even more money getting the word out about the newly rescheduled ones.