WEBVTT - Introducing So Many Steves, A New Audiobook from Steve Martin and Pushkin 0:00:15.476 --> 0:00:15.956 Pushkin. 0:00:18.436 --> 0:00:21.516 Hey everyone, it's justin Richmond. As a broken record listener, 0:00:21.596 --> 0:00:23.516 you get to hear from some of the most talented 0:00:23.596 --> 0:00:27.996 and creative musicians around. But every so often a performer 0:00:28.156 --> 0:00:32.556 feels just a cut above the rest. They're particularly fascinating, 0:00:33.196 --> 0:00:36.676 and I include Steve Martin in that category. He's an 0:00:36.676 --> 0:00:41.316 incredible actor, writer, comedic, performer, musician, and it turns out 0:00:41.396 --> 0:00:44.556 even has an eye for art. For decades now, Steve 0:00:44.596 --> 0:00:48.956 Martin's been a pure creative force, and now, through Pushkin, 0:00:49.156 --> 0:00:52.396 Steve has his own original audiobook that I'm excited to 0:00:52.396 --> 0:00:55.996 share an excerpt of with you today. It's called So 0:00:56.076 --> 0:00:59.236 Many Steve's, and it's an exploration of Steve Martin's many 0:00:59.276 --> 0:01:02.436 creative lives and conversation with his friend and New Yorker 0:01:02.476 --> 0:01:06.476 writer Adam Gotnik. In this preview, you'll hear Steve Martin 0:01:06.516 --> 0:01:09.836 and Adam talk about Steve's music career. You'll even get 0:01:09.836 --> 0:01:13.636 to hear him score their conversation on banjo. Check out 0:01:13.676 --> 0:01:17.516 the audiobook on pushkin dot Fm for the complete conversations, 0:01:17.636 --> 0:01:22.356 and in the meantime, enjoy this excerpt of So Many Steves. 0:01:38.436 --> 0:01:45.316 Chapter five Music Man, You did a whole record that 0:01:45.356 --> 0:01:47.156 had one whole musical side right in there. 0:01:47.196 --> 0:01:52.236 Yeah, but that's a long story. That's because that's because 0:01:52.236 --> 0:02:01.356 I was out of comedy material, just really out of it. 0:02:01.676 --> 0:02:06.156 And I was at a roadblock of writing more at 0:02:06.156 --> 0:02:08.796 that time in the early eighties, and I had these 0:02:08.836 --> 0:02:12.436 songs that I'd recorded like eight years earlier. Oh really 0:02:12.476 --> 0:02:16.116 they yeah, And I thought, well, maybe this will work. 0:02:17.076 --> 0:02:20.596 The record Steve is referencing is called The Steve Martin 0:02:20.636 --> 0:02:22.716 Brothers and it was released in nineteen eighty one. 0:02:23.516 --> 0:02:26.316 Yeah, And you know, it's not the smartest thing, because 0:02:26.316 --> 0:02:27.876 if you're buying a comedy record, you don't want a 0:02:27.956 --> 0:02:29.676 music record, and if you're buying a music record, you 0:02:29.676 --> 0:02:32.556 don't want a comedy record. But anyway, so I didn't 0:02:32.556 --> 0:02:35.876 consider myself a music act. And you know, while I 0:02:35.916 --> 0:02:39.036 was making movies, I just sort of kept the banjo enough. 0:02:39.716 --> 0:02:41.756 You kept it in the trailer with you, Yeah, kept 0:02:41.796 --> 0:02:43.876 it in the trailer and everything. Didn't write any songs. 0:02:44.596 --> 0:02:47.316 Steve is a man of many ambitions, but if one 0:02:47.436 --> 0:02:51.556 electric current or strand of DNA, depending on your pet metaphor, 0:02:52.116 --> 0:02:56.436 runs through it all, it's his love of music, in particular, 0:02:56.516 --> 0:02:58.996 his love of the kind of American music we more 0:02:59.036 --> 0:03:03.476 ignorant folks call bluegrass. I have already learned that the banjo, 0:03:03.756 --> 0:03:06.756 which I had foolishly imagined as a kind of deliberately 0:03:07.196 --> 0:03:10.596 camp instrument, was in fact a source of passion and 0:03:10.676 --> 0:03:14.996 satisfaction to Steve. He loved its tone, the American trail 0:03:15.036 --> 0:03:18.516 that left behind, its jangling sound and its Civil War 0:03:18.676 --> 0:03:22.476 campfire integrity. And yet, as you just heard, at the 0:03:22.516 --> 0:03:26.156 height of his conventional fame, he had stopped playing the 0:03:26.196 --> 0:03:30.156 banjo entirely. I want to know why he'd stopped, and 0:03:30.196 --> 0:03:33.756 how this improbable instrument had made him begin again and 0:03:33.916 --> 0:03:37.156 drawn him back in and then opened him to an 0:03:37.236 --> 0:03:39.836 even larger world of music and composition. 0:03:40.916 --> 0:03:45.756 So around two thousand, Earl Scruggs was doing some kind 0:03:45.756 --> 0:03:47.956 of anniversary record and he said, would you. 0:03:47.916 --> 0:03:51.076 Earl Scruggs, Master of the American that's. 0:03:50.956 --> 0:03:54.916 A great master. Changed the instrument, absolutely changed the instrument. 0:03:55.116 --> 0:03:58.596 And he said, I'm doing a seventy to fifth anniversary album. 0:03:58.596 --> 0:04:01.436 Would you play Foggy Mountain Breakdown with me? You know, 0:04:01.436 --> 0:04:04.556 we're getting a lot of celebrities. I said, sure, you know, 0:04:04.636 --> 0:04:06.956 because I can play Foggy Mountain Breakdown, and. 0:04:06.996 --> 0:04:10.796 Remember Steve had performed this very same song with Scruggs 0:04:10.996 --> 0:04:12.036 earlier in his career. 0:04:15.756 --> 0:04:18.916 So I go to this recording session and they put 0:04:18.956 --> 0:04:21.396 it on. They have the track I'm gonna play along with. 0:04:22.836 --> 0:04:27.476 It was so fast I couldn't believe it. 0:04:28.396 --> 0:04:28.516 Now. 0:04:28.556 --> 0:04:32.156 I could get it back up to speed, but it 0:04:32.196 --> 0:04:36.236 took some doing, and I thought I'm rusty, and so 0:04:36.316 --> 0:04:40.356 I started getting back into the banjo. That began the 0:04:40.396 --> 0:04:47.956 second period of my musical life. And so I started 0:04:47.956 --> 0:04:52.596 writing these songs. But I didn't write songs with lyrics 0:04:53.636 --> 0:04:56.476 because I didn't know how. I thought, Okay, I can 0:04:56.516 --> 0:05:00.516 write a banjo song with a melody, but I don't 0:05:00.596 --> 0:05:03.076 understand how the next melody lays on top of that. 0:05:03.996 --> 0:05:06.196 So if I'm playing in CEA, I don't because I 0:05:06.196 --> 0:05:08.236 don't know music. I don't know what note, I don't 0:05:08.236 --> 0:05:10.556 know what fits. I don't And then I was talking 0:05:10.556 --> 0:05:13.036 to Earl Scruggs. I heard him be interviewed one time 0:05:13.236 --> 0:05:16.916 and he said, well, he said, I'd just play the melody, 0:05:17.556 --> 0:05:22.196 and I thought, oh, my songs have melodies. Why don't 0:05:22.236 --> 0:05:24.756 I make that the melody and just find lyrics that 0:05:24.836 --> 0:05:28.396 go along with that, and then subordinate the chords the 0:05:28.436 --> 0:05:30.996 top line. Just take off the top line, and then 0:05:31.036 --> 0:05:33.516 I was able to write songs. I don't think I 0:05:33.556 --> 0:05:35.156 wrote some pretty good ones for the genre. 0:05:37.996 --> 0:05:41.796 With that inspiration from Earl Scruggs, Steve felt newly empowered 0:05:42.196 --> 0:05:45.756 with the ability to write the top line for his songs. Soon, 0:05:45.876 --> 0:05:49.036 Steve's next record came out, his first in decades, and 0:05:49.156 --> 0:05:52.556 it was all music, no comedy at all. Released in 0:05:52.596 --> 0:05:55.876 two thousand and nine, it's called The Crow New Songs 0:05:55.916 --> 0:05:57.036 for the five String Banjo. 0:05:57.316 --> 0:06:00.116 I was very proud that they were new songs for 0:06:00.156 --> 0:06:11.556 the five string banjo. So we recorded them and John 0:06:11.596 --> 0:06:15.796 mckewan produced it. And then my agent, a great agent, 0:06:15.796 --> 0:06:17.716 Mark Geiger, said you've got to go on the road. 0:06:18.196 --> 0:06:21.516 I said, I can't go on the road, and he said, now, look, 0:06:21.516 --> 0:06:24.476 you got to go on the road. So here's the options. 0:06:24.876 --> 0:06:27.396 You're going to either hire a pickup band, which means 0:06:27.396 --> 0:06:28.636 every time you go on the road you have to 0:06:28.636 --> 0:06:30.796 find five new players who to learn all the songs, 0:06:30.796 --> 0:06:33.476 et cetera, which is possible because these players are great. 0:06:33.956 --> 0:06:37.756 Or you just team up with an existing band because 0:06:37.756 --> 0:06:41.316 they'll either be all available or not all available. And 0:06:41.356 --> 0:06:45.036 I said, well, I only know one band because I 0:06:45.036 --> 0:06:47.276 had met the Steep Canyon Rangers in North Carolina at 0:06:47.316 --> 0:06:51.476 a party. I thought, wow, they sound great, so I 0:06:51.476 --> 0:06:53.836 asked them if they wanted to team up not lugging Away. 0:06:55.316 --> 0:06:59.236 My best friends all had worn not blugging Away. Even 0:06:59.276 --> 0:07:03.316 your mom said you were nuts and dreams. You wear 0:07:03.316 --> 0:07:05.476 a red cape ban a pitch, not wlugging away. 0:07:06.516 --> 0:07:07.356 Jumilationday. 0:07:08.316 --> 0:07:11.596 And then I'm talking to this other friend, Pete Warneck 0:07:11.836 --> 0:07:13.916 is a banjo player, and he was helped me out 0:07:13.956 --> 0:07:18.316 quite a bit early on with the negotiating the bluegrass world. 0:07:19.396 --> 0:07:21.916 And I said, I don't know what to do in 0:07:21.956 --> 0:07:25.196 the show. I guess we just play the songs. He said, no, no, no, 0:07:25.676 --> 0:07:28.156 he says, you've got to do comedy. I said, I 0:07:28.196 --> 0:07:29.836 don't have any. I don't have any. Well, if you 0:07:29.836 --> 0:07:32.676 don't do comedy, they're gonna be disappointed. I said, why 0:07:32.996 --> 0:07:35.716 it's a music show. Why He says, because they'll be 0:07:35.756 --> 0:07:39.916 disappointed if they're expecting you to do comedy. And I went, oh, 0:07:40.236 --> 0:07:48.076 I mean, like I should have known that. Yeah, But 0:07:48.156 --> 0:07:50.756 it worked out because I loved and eventually just loved 0:07:51.116 --> 0:08:00.676 working out humor for that touring banjo show. This actually happened. 0:08:01.476 --> 0:08:05.916 I had a book call it was an omnibus of 0:08:06.596 --> 0:08:08.956 bad poetry. It was a big, thick book. 0:08:09.196 --> 0:08:09.836 It's called The Stuff. 0:08:09.916 --> 0:08:13.796 Now, yeah it is. That's right, that's right. So I thought, 0:08:13.876 --> 0:08:16.516 just as a joke, I thought, I'm going to write 0:08:16.516 --> 0:08:21.956 some bad poetry. So I wrote some bad poetry about 0:08:22.196 --> 0:08:24.796 a kid and his dad played the banjo and blah 0:08:24.796 --> 0:08:26.516 blah goes on and on and on and on. 0:08:26.516 --> 0:08:26.716 You know. 0:08:27.516 --> 0:08:29.556 And I looked at it and I thought, you know, 0:08:30.956 --> 0:08:34.676 this is some pretty bad poetry, but it might make 0:08:34.716 --> 0:08:40.796 a good country song. It actually did. It was called 0:08:40.836 --> 0:08:41.956 Daddy Played the Bad Joe. 0:08:42.716 --> 0:08:48.876 Daddy played the band, Open the Yellow Tree. It right 0:08:48.956 --> 0:08:51.956 across the backyard and old town mellow. 0:08:53.516 --> 0:08:55.196 Bad poetry often makes good lyrics. 0:08:55.356 --> 0:08:57.956 I mean that absolutely absolutely. 0:08:58.996 --> 0:09:01.836 Steve was about to meet someone who would become central 0:09:01.876 --> 0:09:05.236 to his work as a musician, and that was Edie Brokel. 0:09:05.836 --> 0:09:08.796 Edie Brokel, as you probably know, is a pop and 0:09:09.276 --> 0:09:13.476 tree star, and latterly she had gotten married to Steve's friend, 0:09:13.716 --> 0:09:15.516 the great songwriter Paul Simon. 0:09:16.036 --> 0:09:20.516 One time I was at a dinner party and Edie 0:09:20.596 --> 0:09:22.596 came up to me and she said, you know, I 0:09:22.636 --> 0:09:25.756 heard a song you wrote I think it was Daddy 0:09:25.756 --> 0:09:28.516 played the banjo, I think, and she said, it's so 0:09:29.916 --> 0:09:31.956 kind of knocked me out. Would you ever like to 0:09:31.956 --> 0:09:35.276 write songs together? And I didn't know anything about writing 0:09:35.276 --> 0:09:37.076 songs together, and I said, well, sure, you know here 0:09:37.156 --> 0:09:39.876 yeh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think We met at 0:09:40.036 --> 0:09:44.116 Edie's house and I didn't know anything about collaborating at all, 0:09:44.636 --> 0:09:48.716 and kind of got a few things. But eventually it 0:09:48.836 --> 0:09:54.676 worked out that I would send the banjo line line, 0:09:54.716 --> 0:09:58.716 the form and everything, and then she would lyricize it 0:09:59.756 --> 0:10:02.036 and often change the licks so it'd have the two 0:10:02.076 --> 0:10:04.756 counter melodies. You'd have the banjo counter melody and her 0:10:04.796 --> 0:10:06.916 melody on top of it. And that's how we started 0:10:06.916 --> 0:10:09.476 writing them. And she was the exclusive writer of the lyric. 0:10:10.036 --> 0:10:10.196 You know. 0:10:10.236 --> 0:10:11.996 I thought we were going to collaborate on lyrics, but 0:10:12.156 --> 0:10:14.756 she had an insight. Yeah, she has had an insight 0:10:14.836 --> 0:10:18.196 into lyric writing, you know. So that's how that happened. 0:10:18.756 --> 0:10:22.276 She had a child by that man from the bank. 0:10:23.116 --> 0:10:29.196 He was married with the song. All of her family 0:10:29.356 --> 0:10:32.396 said give that child away, chat. 0:10:32.316 --> 0:10:33.956 To erase what you do. 0:10:34.796 --> 0:10:37.636 We went on a tour with Edie and the Rangers 0:10:37.636 --> 0:10:40.476 and worked in comedy and it was a big show 0:10:40.916 --> 0:10:41.236 and it. 0:10:41.196 --> 0:10:44.676 Did well, you know, and traveling bluegrass, yeah, but in 0:10:44.756 --> 0:10:45.236 a bus. 0:10:46.316 --> 0:10:48.076 And then one day we were just talking and we 0:10:48.196 --> 0:10:50.556 said how much we both like musicals. 0:10:53.476 --> 0:10:57.356 Now Steve loves musicals. We talk about them all the time. 0:10:58.076 --> 0:11:08.716 West Side Story, the Bernstein Sondheim Classic, Gypsy, the Julie 0:11:08.756 --> 0:11:11.276 Stein and Son Time Classic were have. 0:11:11.436 --> 0:11:18.476 Always I wept through the whole thing, just from oh 0:11:18.596 --> 0:11:20.796 this song, Oh that song, Oh this song, you know, 0:11:20.836 --> 0:11:21.676 it's so sweet. 0:11:22.276 --> 0:11:25.756 And Meredith Wilson's one of a kind nineteen fifty seven 0:11:25.836 --> 0:11:27.236 show The Music. 0:11:26.956 --> 0:11:28.476 Man was. 0:11:33.196 --> 0:11:38.036 What did you ever pursue the idea of playing Harold Hill? 0:11:38.556 --> 0:11:39.956 You know, it was always in the back of my mind. 0:11:39.956 --> 0:11:42.196 But I have a big problem. I can't sing there 0:11:42.196 --> 0:11:44.636 were bells on the Hill. I don't have that voice. 0:11:50.596 --> 0:11:54.996 Steve is a true connoisseur of classic musicals, and yet. 0:11:55.196 --> 0:11:58.836 I still don't really understand Oklahoma in what sense the 0:11:58.916 --> 0:12:04.236 story is so weird it's insane. 0:12:05.596 --> 0:12:09.956 Oklahoma, I should say, was the first Rogers and Emerstein show, 0:12:10.476 --> 0:12:12.636 and it was based on a play called Green Grow 0:12:12.676 --> 0:12:16.916 the Lilacs. The spirit of Oklahoma is all very Americana, 0:12:16.996 --> 0:12:20.356 but the play itself has some very weird and strange 0:12:20.356 --> 0:12:23.556 turns within it. There's a whole sequence where the hero 0:12:23.876 --> 0:12:27.676 accidentally murders the very misunderstood villain. 0:12:27.956 --> 0:12:29.956 I mean, when I saw it recently, I really enjoyed it, 0:12:30.196 --> 0:12:35.396 and I still thought, so they kill him, and I 0:12:35.396 --> 0:12:35.716 don't know. 0:12:36.356 --> 0:12:40.276 It takes such a bizarre turn into darkness and then 0:12:40.356 --> 0:12:44.236 sort of leaves unrecognized the turn that it's taken at the. 0:12:44.276 --> 0:12:58.756 End, and that it ends with Okay. 0:12:59.516 --> 0:13:00.636 But the songs are great. 0:13:00.796 --> 0:13:01.996 The songs are great. 0:13:02.436 --> 0:13:05.196 You know. The song out of My Dreams gorgeous, such 0:13:05.236 --> 0:13:18.076 a gorgeous Oh my God. Tis The musical Steve went 0:13:18.076 --> 0:13:21.196 on to write with Edie Brokel is called Bright Star. 0:13:21.756 --> 0:13:25.756 It premiered on Broadway in twenty sixteen. Steve wrote what 0:13:25.916 --> 0:13:29.036 musical theater people call the book, in other words, the play, 0:13:29.596 --> 0:13:32.916 and he and Edie Brokell wrote the music, while Edie 0:13:32.956 --> 0:13:34.956 wrote all the lyrics to those songs. 0:13:35.596 --> 0:13:38.476 You know the best part of any of these things 0:13:38.556 --> 0:13:42.116 is the rehearsal and you're hearing your song sung by 0:13:42.556 --> 0:13:45.756 really good voice. Yes, you know. I was never happier 0:13:45.756 --> 0:13:48.116 than when we were working on Bright Star. And I'd 0:13:48.116 --> 0:13:51.076 get on a bicycle in the summer and bike downtown 0:13:51.156 --> 0:13:54.076 to the rehearsal hall and get to see things brought 0:13:54.116 --> 0:13:56.676 to life. And that's the thing. You write a song 0:13:57.276 --> 0:13:58.996 and you're just staring at it and it's like a 0:13:59.076 --> 0:14:02.276 banjo melody in your stupid little voice, and then you 0:14:02.276 --> 0:14:04.596 hear somebody who can really you can really do it, it, 0:14:04.596 --> 0:14:06.916 can really play it, who could kill it? And you go, wow, 0:14:06.996 --> 0:14:10.196 I can't believe that happened. I mean, our ears, you know, 0:14:10.236 --> 0:14:26.276 the writers were going genius. You know, we actually based 0:14:26.276 --> 0:14:29.836 it on a story that Edie discovered, a true story 0:14:30.476 --> 0:14:33.156 about a baby in a suitcase thrown from a train 0:14:33.196 --> 0:14:36.956 in a suitcase and a couple heard the cries walking 0:14:36.996 --> 0:14:38.796 along the railroad track, found him, took him home and 0:14:38.876 --> 0:14:40.556 raised him, and he became the boy from the train. 0:14:40.996 --> 0:14:43.596 So we wrote a song about it. She wrote the 0:14:43.676 --> 0:14:46.076 lyrics Sarah Jane and the Iron Mountain Baby. It's called 0:14:46.116 --> 0:14:47.236 the Iron Mountains. 0:14:46.836 --> 0:14:54.756 Sarah Jane being the mother, who is Sarah Sarah. 0:14:53.596 --> 0:14:57.116 A moment of the Boy from the train, and that's 0:14:57.156 --> 0:15:03.596 our big closer, and eventually we cut that song. Yeah. Well, 0:15:03.956 --> 0:15:05.956 the problem of course with the song is that it 0:15:06.036 --> 0:15:07.956 told the story that we just told. 0:15:10.076 --> 0:15:13.236 Bright Starr had only a short run on Broadway just 0:15:13.276 --> 0:15:16.836 about three months, but in the years that followed, a 0:15:16.956 --> 0:15:21.196 national tour gave it a second vibrant life. In twenty sixteen, 0:15:21.356 --> 0:15:24.876 it was nominated for multiple Tony Awards, including Best Musical, 0:15:25.556 --> 0:15:29.156 and those awards are in line with Steve's successful career 0:15:29.196 --> 0:15:32.436 as a musician. He really wasn't a comedian, just dabbling 0:15:32.516 --> 0:15:36.156 with melodies and top lines. He won three Grammys, performed 0:15:36.156 --> 0:15:39.516 a duet with Paul Simon on SNL, and even wrote 0:15:39.596 --> 0:15:41.996 a song of his own for Vince Gill and Dolly 0:15:41.996 --> 0:15:57.196 Parton to sing they Nevertheless, when it came to making 0:15:57.236 --> 0:16:00.676 Bright Star, I think Steve was, if not exactly repelled, 0:16:01.156 --> 0:16:04.036 then at least a little stunned by how much coordinated 0:16:04.076 --> 0:16:06.796 teamwork has to go into the creation of a musical. 0:16:07.636 --> 0:16:11.476 It's the exact opposite it of, for instance, stand up comedy, 0:16:11.796 --> 0:16:14.876 which is essentially you and at most to microphone and 0:16:14.956 --> 0:16:18.356 an audience. In a musical, every single time you make 0:16:18.396 --> 0:16:21.356 a change, two hundred other things and two hundred other 0:16:21.396 --> 0:16:25.716 people have to change with you, because the second bassoon 0:16:25.796 --> 0:16:28.516 in the orchestra has to change its note, and the 0:16:28.556 --> 0:16:31.236 singer has to change her syllables. And on and on 0:16:31.316 --> 0:16:34.076 and on. A musical is a kind of great ocean 0:16:34.116 --> 0:16:37.356 liner of a work of art. And I think Steve 0:16:37.476 --> 0:16:40.396 was in some respects, if not short tempered, then at 0:16:40.476 --> 0:16:44.196 least stubborn in the face of all of that composite resistance. 0:16:45.196 --> 0:16:48.356 As a comedian, you want everything to work, everything to work, 0:16:49.116 --> 0:16:52.756 and so you know, you're patching holes and fixing this, 0:16:52.876 --> 0:16:55.156 and that's why it's always been on everything. By the way, 0:16:55.196 --> 0:16:59.516 it's nothing made that wasn't fixed to some degree. But 0:16:59.796 --> 0:17:01.996 like you say, there's so many moving parts to it. 0:17:02.196 --> 0:17:04.036 If you want to change a line in a musical, 0:17:04.356 --> 0:17:07.716 the director will say, legitimately, well, we'll get to it 0:17:07.756 --> 0:17:09.676 next week, and I say, no, it's just one line. 0:17:09.676 --> 0:17:13.436 It's just one line. No, Yeah, because their focus is 0:17:13.476 --> 0:17:17.476 somewhere else, or it's authoritarian, and often means well, we 0:17:17.556 --> 0:17:19.396 have to change the music, we have to cut two bars, 0:17:19.396 --> 0:17:21.076 we have to think it scene as longer though thought. 0:17:21.876 --> 0:17:24.196 And it goes on and on and on, and you know, 0:17:24.316 --> 0:17:26.716 if it was a gigantic, monstrous hit, by the way, 0:17:26.756 --> 0:17:30.156 it's still being done. It's done a lot, but I'm 0:17:30.236 --> 0:17:32.476 sure I think differently about it. Yeah, but there's a 0:17:32.516 --> 0:17:35.276 struggle a struggle, a struggle, you know, and then nine 0:17:35.276 --> 0:17:40.556 months later you're closed. Yeah. 0:17:40.636 --> 0:17:42.516 I hate to say this, Steve, because you'll reject anybod 0:17:42.556 --> 0:17:45.636 it occurs me. Three Amigos would make a very effective musical. 0:17:45.276 --> 0:17:48.796 There on it. Oh really yeah? Yeah? John Mulaney's been 0:17:48.836 --> 0:17:50.036 signed up to write it. 0:17:50.076 --> 0:17:50.636 Is that right? 0:17:52.316 --> 0:17:55.316 Three Amigos, of Course is a nineteen eighty six comedy 0:17:55.436 --> 0:17:59.956 directed by Jonathan Landis. Chevy Chase, Martin Short, and Steve 0:18:00.276 --> 0:18:04.156 star as actors mistaken for gun slinging heroes in Mexico. 0:18:04.956 --> 0:18:05.156 Oh. 0:18:05.196 --> 0:18:06.276 I had no idea that, but. 0:18:06.356 --> 0:18:08.596 That was my instant response. Would say, would you like 0:18:08.636 --> 0:18:12.276 to write it? Said? No way, yeah, because I know 0:18:12.316 --> 0:18:15.356 what that means. It's like three years every night down 0:18:15.396 --> 0:18:16.196 there with heartbreak. 0:18:22.036 --> 0:18:24.516 Steve is adamant that he does not want to do 0:18:24.676 --> 0:18:27.996 another musical. So why I wonder had Steve chosen to 0:18:28.036 --> 0:18:33.356 write a musical in the first place. Some of it, 0:18:33.396 --> 0:18:35.796 I suppose, was part of his usual search for the 0:18:35.836 --> 0:18:39.316 next thing, the new self. The musical comedy was a 0:18:39.396 --> 0:18:43.196 kind of great white whale of American entertainment. Everyone wants 0:18:43.196 --> 0:18:45.916 to write or perform in one sooner or later, But 0:18:46.116 --> 0:18:49.036 it also involved a kind of fascination with a particular 0:18:49.116 --> 0:18:53.916 line of Americana. That kind of music represents an authenticity 0:18:54.116 --> 0:18:57.516 that largely escapes us. Now Bright Star, the musical that 0:18:57.556 --> 0:19:01.436 he and Edie Brokel would write together represented an attempt 0:19:01.556 --> 0:19:05.196 to summon up some of that authentic American musical energy, 0:19:06.076 --> 0:19:11.276 and it was part I felt, however, subliminally, of Steve's 0:19:11.276 --> 0:19:14.516 place in what I always think of as the comedy 0:19:14.676 --> 0:19:18.556 of American Resistance. You see, I have a unified theory 0:19:18.596 --> 0:19:22.196 of American comedy in the twentieth century, which is doubtless 0:19:22.196 --> 0:19:25.956 as flawed is all unified theories of anything always are. 0:19:26.716 --> 0:19:29.036 But it's one in which two kinds of comedy made 0:19:29.116 --> 0:19:32.156 themselves felt in the first half of the century and 0:19:32.196 --> 0:19:35.836 then on through the rest. One was the comedy of invasion, 0:19:36.116 --> 0:19:39.676 and the other the comedy of resistance. There's the immigrant 0:19:39.796 --> 0:19:44.676 and yes mostly Jewish comedy of energy, entrepreneurial mischief, anything 0:19:44.756 --> 0:19:49.436 Goes anarchy, a comedy of enterprise and noise. The Marx 0:19:49.476 --> 0:19:52.836 Brothers are obviously supreme here, but it's a vein that 0:19:52.956 --> 0:19:56.836 runs right up to Phil Silver's Sergeant Bilko swindling the 0:19:56.876 --> 0:20:00.316 simpleton officers at the army base, and it's telling that 0:20:00.356 --> 0:20:04.236 Steve trying to become Bilko never really worked. But in 0:20:04.316 --> 0:20:08.156 response to that comedy of invasion comes the comedy of 0:20:08.236 --> 0:20:13.556 an older American resistance to all that immigrant energy and explosion, 0:20:14.116 --> 0:20:17.836 struggling to hold on to order and decency and gallantry. 0:20:18.436 --> 0:20:21.956 It's a comedy exemplified by W. C. Fields struggling to 0:20:22.076 --> 0:20:24.996 sleep on his sleeping porchain. It's a gift while the 0:20:24.996 --> 0:20:30.516 neighborhood around him explodes refuses to quiet down. The division 0:20:30.596 --> 0:20:33.596 extends even onto the written humor of the period, with 0:20:33.836 --> 0:20:38.116 James Thurber the model of the uncomprehending and baffled midwesterner 0:20:38.556 --> 0:20:42.916 nostalgically watching Civil War values passing, and S. J. Prowman, 0:20:43.076 --> 0:20:47.636 the cynical navigator and of necessity commercial participant in the 0:20:47.756 --> 0:20:52.956 endless ocean of American vulgarity. Steve Martin has a place 0:20:52.996 --> 0:20:55.476 in this story, I think as the model of the 0:20:55.516 --> 0:20:59.796 modern wasp resistor. It's there everywhere. It's in the double 0:20:59.876 --> 0:21:03.796 takes he offers at the accented extravagances of the Martin 0:21:03.916 --> 0:21:07.396 short wedding planner character in the Father of the Bride series. 0:21:07.516 --> 0:21:10.916 A kick, Frank is flower and water. My first car 0:21:10.996 --> 0:21:12.436 didn't cost twelve hundred dollars. 0:21:15.116 --> 0:21:17.516 Welcome to the nineties, mister Baum. 0:21:18.476 --> 0:21:21.076 It's there in the dumb doggedness of his character in 0:21:21.116 --> 0:21:25.596 the La story, who accepts the absurdities of La as 0:21:25.636 --> 0:21:28.076 a fact to be coped with, not something to be 0:21:28.236 --> 0:21:29.316 polemical about it. 0:21:29.476 --> 0:21:31.076 With a great lunch and animum thanks. 0:21:31.996 --> 0:21:35.756 It's there in the weary, beautiful bafflement he offers us 0:21:35.756 --> 0:21:39.116 again and again. It's there even in the underlying cheerful 0:21:39.196 --> 0:21:42.716 premise of the guy in the white suit, an entertainer 0:21:42.996 --> 0:21:46.316 who doesn't know that what he's doing no longer quite 0:21:46.436 --> 0:21:48.036 counts as entertainment. 0:21:48.596 --> 0:21:50.676 Because I am a wild and. 0:21:50.956 --> 0:21:57.836 Crazy making a bluegrass musical might be a way of, 0:21:58.316 --> 0:22:01.676 at however unconscious a level, a way of participating in 0:22:01.716 --> 0:22:05.396 this tradition. It referenced the mystic past to Lost America 0:22:05.476 --> 0:22:09.956 trains and banjos and steamer trunks another time, not at 0:22:09.956 --> 0:22:13.916 all in a reactionary manner, but out of deep affection 0:22:14.076 --> 0:22:18.396 for disappearing sounds and stories, or at least that's what 0:22:18.516 --> 0:22:35.476 I chose to think.