Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 152. Jimmy Webb

Episode Date: April 24, 2017

Gilbert and Frank are joined by legendary songwriter Jimmy Webb ("Wichita Lineman," "Up, Up and Away"), who shares an entire career's worth of memories and anecdotes, including meeting Elvis, playing baccarat with Ol' Blue Eyes, turning down 40K a week to play Vegas and and sitting in on a recording session of the "White Album." Also, Jimmy parties with Paul Williams, crosses swords with Harry Nilsson, joins John Lennon on his "lost weekend" and pens megahits for longtime friend/collaborator Glen Campbell. PLUS: Father Guido Sarducci! The Nelson Riddle Orchestra! David Geffen offers advice! The musical genius of Johnny Rivers! And Jimmy plays "MacArthur Park" in...MacArthur Park! This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter (www.ziprecruiter.com/gilbert) and The Rant Is Due with Lewis Black (www.audible.com/lewisblack). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

That's the sound of unaged whiskey transforming into Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Around 1860, Nearest Green taught Jack Daniel how to filter whiskey through charcoal for a smoother taste, one drop at a time. This is one of many sounds in Tennessee with a story to tell. To hear them in person, plan your trip at tnvacation.com. Tennessee sounds perfect. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. We're once again recording at Nutmeg with our engineer, Frank Furtarosa. You know, every now and then we get a guest who's accomplished so much and witnessed so much

that we could easily do a seven-hour show. And today we're lucky enough to have one of those people. He's a musician, singer, record producer, author, and one of the greatest songwriters this country has ever produced, with numerous platinum-selling songs to his credit, including Wichita Lineman, Galveston, Up, Up and Away, The Worst That Could Happen, All I Know, MacArthur Park, and of course, By the Time I Get to Phoenix, which Frank Sinatra

called the greatest T tort song ever written. His original compositions have been recorded and performed by a who's who of popular music, including Johnny Cash, Rosemary Clooney, Kenny Rogers, Linda Ronstadt, R.E.M., Carly Simon, R.E.M., Carly Simon, Harry Nielsen, Tom Jones, The Supremes, Brian Wilson, James Taylor, Billy Joel, and Barbara Streisand, to name but a few. He's been a member of both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. He's the only artist to win Grammy Awards for music, lyrics, and orchestration. And in 2016, Rolling Stone named him one of the 50 greatest songwriters of all time. As vice chair of ASCAP, he continues to lead the fight to preserve and protect the intellectual rights of composers and songwriters the world over. His brand new book released today is called The Cake and the Rain, a memoir.

Please welcome a man Glenn Campbell once called the greatest musical poet of our time, Jimmy Webb. Wow. Wow. Wow. Did you get chills? Boy, you know. From your mouth to God's ear. I mean, that was wild. The only thing missing would be to end it with,

found dead in his Los Angeles apartment. with Crown Dead in his Los Angeles apartment. You know, when Gilbert occasionally breaks into MacArthur Park on this show spontaneously, Jimmy, without any prompting at all. Well, that's great. And we had a running joke in between us. We said, if it gets out there, now we'll never get Jimmy Webb on this show. And yet, here you are in the flesh.

I could sort of imagine what you're describing there. Hopefully you won't actually have to experience it. And just so the audience will know, Jimmy has been working since like 5 o'clock in the morning. That was my wake-up time. We're recording this at 6.30 p.m. And it's been a really exciting day. It started with Don Imus, you know, talking from Texas,

which I know very well. I was raised in West Texas, and I think we had established some rapport. Oh, good. A rapport there. Because he started out very grumpy and I think he sort of mellowed as we went on. That was fun. It was really fun. And I always wondered what it would be like to be

on IMAS. I like getting up early and doing show business things. And then I went over to Sirius. And I literally, I was like on show after show. Oh, you did Cousin Brucie? No, I did Steve Earle.

Okay. So you've been going nonstop since this morning. Yeah, I've been doing them one after another. Promoting the book. But I've been saving some extra energy for you. Oh, you flatter us. Now, and you started to tell us a story. Your friends, yeah.

Well, you said that Paul Williams had been here. Yeah. So I was, you know, going to, you know, as usual, blab about someone behind their back. This is the great songwriter Paul Williams. He's our chairman, chairman of the board at ASCAP. And it was very kind of you

to mention ASCAP, but I really have to say quickly in case any of my colleagues are listening that I'm not serving as vice chair right now. I'm on the board, very much on the board

and very interested in all things ASCAP, but I am not serving as vice chair. That honor belongs to Doug Wood. But Paul and I know each other from aeons ago. When we both used to use the same studio, A&M Recorders, which was really the old Charlie Chaplin lot. I mean, it's like a piece of old Hollywood, like a museum piece.

And, of course, that was A&M and Jerry Moss, Herb Alpert. Right. And a beautiful studio. And there seemed to be a certain moment in time when everybody recorded there. And so I remember that Paul and I would often be there at the same time. Sometimes the Carpenters would be there. Sometimes Joni Mitchell would be there. George Harrison.

It was an exciting place. Wow, that's cool. And one night we were doing a B.J. Thomas record, and they were sort of running a little behind, and they wanted me to play a piano part, and Paul and I came in, and we were ready to work at 7, and they said, you know, we need you guys about 8. And we said, okay.

So we go to this place across the street which i for like of a the real name i'll call it the dance of the seventh veil okay and it was uh it was a it was a strip club it was it was a full-on strip club and we sat there yeah paul and i and this is you know i, I'm 18 years sober now. We sat there and got drunk. And we got up and went back across the street to do this B.J. Thomas record. And there's a picture of us together standing beside the piano that is so ridiculously sad and strange. And somewhere along the way after that, if you guys are patient enough to hear this, we decided for some reason that we were going to Palm Springs. And we woke up in Palm Springs, I mean at two o'clock in the afternoon

and neither one of us knew where we were or who we were with and uh and that was just one of the one of of many? One of many little tears that we went on together. And that – I mean, I shouldn't be telling that story about the chairman of the board at ASCAP. That's all right. Sometimes we look at each other during a meeting and everyone's being really serious and everything, and we just laugh. It's just – we'll have him back. We're going to have Paul back anyway, but now we'll have him back to tell his side of that. Well, yeah.

I mean, he'll probably correct it. Those are the essentials. So those were the days, you know. Another guy you partied with a little bit is your old friend Harry Nielsen. That was another thing. Can you talk a little bit about Harry? He comes up on this show quite a bit. Well, Harry and I started out on the wrong side of the bed.

I had written something on a Richard Harris album about a lyric. It was about skipping like a stone through the garden or something like that. And I had written, I think somewhat capriciously, not in a mean way, I'd put B-N and then an asterisk down at the bottom. It said, Before Nielsen. But it was really a Fred Niel song. It was like, and skipping over the ocean like a stone. And he got wind of it somehow. And one day I'm sitting at home and David Geffen calls me and said,

Harry Nielsen's over here and he wants to see you. He's got a bone to pick with you. And just the way he said it, I knew that it was like a serious thing. And I got in my car and I drove over. And Harry was down. The pool was covered and he was shooting baskets down there. Thin as a rail, skinny guy. And whoosh, whoosh, putting him right through the net.

He was a good basketball player. And I walked up there, and he said, well, what an asshole you are, you know. Something like that. And I said, hey, hey. And he said, ah, you're a are, you know, something like that. And I said, hey, hey. And he said, ah, you're a prick, you know. And I said, no, no, no. I said, what about that before Nielsen thing, before Nielsen? He thought you were taking a shot at him. What does that mean?

I said, no, no, that was good spirited. I said, that was comrade to comrade bullshit. You know, you're like taking the piss out of me. No, no, no, I'm not, I'm not, man. That was good-spirited. I said, that was comrade-to-comrade bullshit. You're like taking the piss out of me. No, no, no, I'm not, I'm not. Man, I just meant, you know, like I didn't want you to think I was writing something that you had already written. I wanted you to know that I wrote it before I heard your record. Well, I think you better think about that. I think you better think about your motivation.

You're going like intellectual on me right and so it started rough but we like got into a groove together and uh before it was over we we were close friends and i went over to london and i was there for the whole making of nielsen Schmielsen, which may be Harry's greatest record. There are so many great records. And I was there with Richard Perry and in the studio with him every night. And I got to tell you guys, we burned London, man. We tore that city down, the two of us. It was never the same and uh and uh it should it sort of went that way and i

i'll tell you i'll tell you a good harry story and then maybe we will maybe we'll move on but yeah one day harry comes over to my house with a english producer who produced for the bbc named stanley dorfman and uh it was a series called In Concert. And I'd done one of them and Harry had done one of them. A very, very young Elton John had done, I believe, had done one of them. And he came over and he says, listen, you know, I want take uh um stan i want to take him on a side seeing tour and um he said i want to borrow your xj6 i had a brand new jaguar xj6 burgundy i mean immaculate car and he said I said why do you need my XJ6

and he says well it's just nice I want to be nice and I want to take him to Palisades and I want to run him out to you know Malibu and I said oh okay he says we'll bring it back in a while and I said alright and I tossed him the keys and they split

and they dropped off the map and i didn't see my car again for two months and what they were doing is they drove across the united states in my car unbelievable and then one day like two months later, Harry called me and said, Hey, Jim, he said, I'm sending your car back. And he said, it's going to be on Union Pacific, like flat car number, you know, X one zero zero zero was in his head, you know? And he said, you need to be down there at three o'clock on Fridayiday afternoon and this is like the union pacific yeah and so and and i didn't even i said where what who what what click you know friday afternoon came i went over to the train yard i found this guy max he took me he found a car he found the the flat car and there's my there's my xj6 my my prize my beauty and it

looked like it had been in around the world demolition derby it had like some kind of a weird thing welded to the to the radiator to keep the hood down and it was all beaten and battered. He just trashed it. Oh, they destroyed my car. And that was Harry's idea of a fun thing to do. Okay, just when the show was starting to get good, we're going to throw a monkey wrench into the works with this commercial word. And now back to the show now you met with the Beatles and spent a little time with them at a time when all of them hated each other it seemed well you were present for some of the recording of the white album yeah it's it's almost

like uh it's it's almost like an embarrassing story. But in fact, it's an embarrassing story because I was under the impression that I'd been invited over there. And it wasn't Abbey Road. It was Trident. It was in Queen Anne's Court. And I don't know why they were there, but they were there. And you could check it out. And they were cutting honey pie. pie and that's what i call it i think it has another title but it was honey pie right from the white album yeah and um so this friend of mine and i walked

in under the impression we'd been invited and walked in and um it it was a it was it was an interesting tableau because on the right the right part of the studio to my right belonged to john lennon he had a persian rug and he was burning incense and he was kind of sort of banging at a at an old acoustic guitar and yoko was there sitting cross-legged and and in the middle, George Harrison was standing upright and sort of, I would say, lackadaisically plucking at a bass, a Fender bass. And in the left, to the left, Paul and Linda. And Paul was sitting on the piano and was trying to play the piano, and Linda was wrapped

around his neck. She had her arms around his neck. And he was sort of like this, and he's the honey pie. And somewhere down below my feet, because the drum booth is under the control room at Trident, booth is under the control room at trident was ringo saying is anyone there you know can you hear me can i get out of here you know he's he's he's i don't do a very good liver but that's okay but basically he's sort of saying is anyone there you know i mean it was it was crazy because it was kind of what was happening to the band. Kind of surreal. You know? And then they came in to listen to a track,

and suddenly Paul is introducing me to George Martin and Jeffrey Emmerich, who were later close friends of mine, was introducing me to these icons of, you know. And he introduced me to them as Tom Dowd from Atlantic Records. And I was so tongue tied. I knew who Tom Dowd was and I knew that I wasn't him, but they were the Beatles. And I sort of like, but I'm not, I'm not Tom Dowd. And Paul's going, and Tom Dowd, Tom, come over here, Tom. You know?

And he says, I want to play a guitar solo for you. And they got a guitar solo up on. They're playing at maximum volume. I mean, ear splitting, painful volume. He said, what do you think of that guitar solo? And I said, oh, I said, I think it's really good. Thanks, Tom. I've got another one I'd like for you to hear.

And he plays another one. He said, which one i'd like for you to hear and he then he plays another one he said which one do you like best tom and of course he's taking the piss out of me of course right right right but i don't know this shy kid and um finally when he was finished with me i guess uh they sort of went back into the booth. And George Harrison came over and whispered in my ear and said, that's a great arrangement on MacArthur Park. And I knew that George knew who I was. And I walked out of there going, what the freaking hell just happened?

Right. What happened, you know just happened right what happened you know and then i found out that they did it to everybody oh i see that it was they would just if you came within range uh you know you were fair game and um that a lot of people having you on as a lot of people you know taking the piss out of you a lot of people had similar experiences with them and i i don't know how i mean i don't think you knew them all that well no i didn't i actually got to know them better after that but um it was hard i mean you know and i don't i loved the beat Beatles. They were so seminal to me. And Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was such an important record to me and to everybody else.

And I'm also an Anglophile. I'm a hopeless, helpless Anglophile. And, you know, I fell in love with two English girls in a row. And both of them just chopped me up like a, you know, like a Julianne. and both of them just chopped me up like a, you know, like a Julianne. I couldn't get over the accent. All they had to do was say hello, you know. No, I loved all things English, and I loved the Beatles,

and I loved the whole experience. I don't mean to come off as critical, but they then they i would say as a whole they were not the warmest people in the world because of their you know their very special standing which was really far above i mean the rolling stones could claim to be somewhere near the same cloud that they perched on. So they were detached. They were almost deliberately detached. I always wondered how much of the way we all think of John Lennon is true and how much he just created like an advertising man well he to me he was he was the most unemotional of them um and uh if if you read the book you're going to read a couple of things in there where uh during the lost weekend i was i was sucked into that orbit, really was not seeking to be a part of that scene at all.

And, in fact, I was kind of jealous of John because Harry was my friend then. And he would call me up and I'd say, where are you? And he'd say, I'm in the studio with John. And I'd say, what are you guys, joined at the hip now? You know, I'd say snarky, like bitchy little things like that. Because they were always together. And a couple of things happened. One night they got in a real jam because John was on the verge of being thrown out of this country.

I remember. was on the verge of being thrown out of this country because of, I believe it was a marijuana charge on the other side that sort of had him in hot water, but really the government, Nixon, was after him and was waiting to pounce on, waiting for him to make a mistake. Well, he made the mistake. Him and Harry got into a sort of heckling match with the Smothers Brothers at the Troubadour one night. Yep, famous.

And to make a long story short, on the way out through that little cramped hallway in the back, some sort of altercation ensued with a photographer, and John was accused of striking this female reporter and breaking her camera. Now, that's the news story. Well, the next morning at 4 o'clock in the morning, those guys are at my house. And Harry woke me up. The phone rang and he said, hello. And I said, can I say this on the podcast? Fuck you. Because I knew it was him. And I knew it was something. I didn't know what, but I knew it was something. And he said, come on now. You know, he says, I've got John Lennon out here. I said, sure, sure, sure.

I said, look, I'll open the gate, but I said, just can it, will you? And he comes up the thing, and he comes in through the kitchen door, and I'm down there in my bathrobe, and he says, I'm not kidding, man. He says, I've got John Lennon outside. I said, right, right. He said, come on, come on, I'll show you. He pulls me out the back door. He opens the come on, come on, I'll show you. He pulls me out the back door. He opens the back of the limo, and there's John, very sort of pale and quiet.

And he slams the door, and he says, listen, here's what you got to do. And he lays this plan out for me where I'm going to go downtown to John's attorney's office now, right now, five o'clock in the morning. And I'm going to tell his attorney, I'm going to be deposed that I was at the troubadour with Harry and John, which I was not. And that I saw the whole thing and that John never touched the bitch and he never broke her camera either, you know. And I'm going to swear to this, right? And I did.

Now, I don't know whether to be proud of it or ashamed of it, but I know that there was a certain code of behavior. It was like there was a world that they lived in and people just fell into line and you found yourself doing things and I rode all the way downtown with them gave my dep, I got out of the car and it was like, there was no wham, bam, thank you, ma'am. It was like, boom, they were gone. Nothing. Nothing. And it wasn't like when my birthday rolled around, I didn't get a little card that say, you know, love John and john and yoko you know it was like

out of sight out of mind it was like you know you you could perjure yourself if you want to wow that's really what i think you would do for us you almost got yourself in legal problems i could have been uh serious legal problems and they just took it as such. The county attorney, I think it was either the city of Los Angeles or the county of Los Angeles dropped charges against John for lack of evidence. So was I part of that evidence? I might have been. I don't take credit for keeping him in the country, and I am not crazy. I just – I recount that in the book, and I say that you didn't really expect thanks.

You didn't really expect to be coddled in any way. It was a very – It was a strange situation. How strange? They could have at least scribbled on a piece of scrap paper. Something. Something. An FTD bouquet.

Something. No, you could send anything. You could send like a baby llama. Right. Speaking of the Beatles, speaking of the Beatles and George Martin, Jimmy, there's a connection between MacArthur Park and Hey Jude. Well, here we go. These are, again, these are the sort of borderline self-incriminating Beatles stories. But George Martin became a very, very

close friend of mine. He would tell me on more than one occasion that MacArthur Park, which was 7 minutes 21 seconds long, had kind of caused a shakeup in the

top 40 world because they really did have to reschedule commercials and things like that to fit this in. I used to get paid three times every time that record played. Really? Yeah, three times. Three for one. That was the good, really good part of that. And the radio stations wanted you to shorten it originally. Yeah.

I was asked more than once i just wouldn't do it yeah um so there it was seven minutes 21 seconds and they're putting out a new record called hey jude it's going to be their masterpiece up to that date and they get to listening to macarthur park and they see that it's this has really never been done before on Top 40, and they want Hey Jude to be as long as MacArthur Park. So they took George into the studio. They made some kind of a tape loop, and they overdubbed some other stuff, and they worked on the ending a little bit and they developed this long fade

and everybody's heard the long fade on hey jude they just don't know you know why it was done exactly did it come from and they timed it out and george said they stood at the console and looked at the clock and they timed it out to seven minutes, 17 seconds. That's cool. And it's just one of those interesting things. They felt competitive. They felt like somehow or other that making Hey Jude longer would – I don't know exactly what the motivation would be except to have a record almost as long as MacArthur Park.

A friend of mine, who I used to call, and sometimes I would get his answering machine. You can say who it is. Yeah, you wouldn't even know. Huh? Yeah. Oh, I thought this was Penn. No, no.

I thought this was something you did to Penn. It was, and just to be a prick, when his answering machine would come on, I'd immediately click on MacArthur's Park until old space on his machine ran out. I love that he says it like Richard Harris. That's funny. That's a good one. That's funny. Hey, Big Grande fans, listen up.

Gil, I know you're a fan of the show Big Grande on Howl. He's staring at me quizzically. Yes, I am. Your favorite improv group is back for season two of Big Grande's Teacher's Lounge. Are you familiar with this show? No. You should be. Join Big Grande for more behind the scenes at the goings on at Hamilton High School.

The second season is coming up of the show fans called one of the funniest miniseries released yet. And the second season features all-star guests including Seth Morris, Lauren Lapkus, ooh, Lauren Lapkus, Ben Buzz the Wonder Heel, PFT, and more. Find out and hear an episode free at stitcherpremium.com slash teacher.

Big Grande's Teacher's Lounge. What do you think of that title? Yeah, I just heard the title. I just heard the word free. Yeah, that's usually where you perk up. Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's free? Okay.

Big Rondé's Teacher's Lounge, season two. And now back to the show. Talk a little bit about the song, which, by the way, you recently performed in MacArthur Park. Yeah, I did. I've done it during the last three years. I think I've done it two summers. What was that like? It's kind of weird, but it reminded me.

I mean, it was very, you know, this is going to, some people would just laugh at this, but it was very emotional for me because the song really does, you know, with all the, I mean, everything. It's been on Saturday Night Live. It was in Airplanes 2. Oh, Weird Al did it. Weird Al Yankovic.

It's really been down the comedy road a few times. Yeah. And it's okay. Because it's iconic. I signed off on most of those parodies myself. But I'm kind of emotional about what it means to me and being there in MacArthur Park. And it's a free concert. People come in.

And I play a show. And usually I have somebody with me. Like I had Billy and Marilyn, Billy Davis and Marilyn McCoo with me last time I did it. Sure, Fifth Dimension. And I do this song, and it makes me remember that everything that I wrote about, I saw. I remember where the old men played checkers by the trees, and I remember where the cake was in the rain.

I remember everything, because everything in there is literally it's literal you know um and i always joked with the crowd there and i say you know what's going to happen is that there may be a tear in the time-space continuum when I play this because the last time because the last time I did it here several people disappeared and uh have never been heard from again that's funny so um you know we kind of made it made a joke about it it was both times it was beautiful it was in the summer and there was a big moon over the Pacific and I'm in MacArthur Park and I'm playing MacArthur Park and everybody is so quiet

and they're listening to every word. And, you know, dare I say it was kind of a special moment both times I did it. And I would go back and do it again. Your life flashing before your eyes

as you're reliving the imagery. So there actually was a cake out in the rain? Yeah, there was. See, all these years, I thought this is some, like, deep meaning. No, my girlfriend and I used to have lunch in the park every day. lunch in the park every day and um and one particular day we were we were interrupted by rain and um it sort of scattered our lunch and we weren't running for the for the the Aetna life insurance building for the steps and we sort of left our picnic you know scattered across the lawn um so it's just i mean there was never any deep mystery about any of it it's prosaic um and it's just me taking images

and kind of presenting them in a surreal way um how it came to life as a record is interesting too because do i have this right that you were going through things you had you'd worked on a charity event with richard harris you knew him or an anti-war show you knew richard harris and you were going through your your bag of songs and do i have this right it was was that MacArthur Park was the last one in the bag? That's right. And he said famously, I'll have that Jimmy Webb. I love that. I'll have that Jimmy Webb. I love that.

He called you Jimmy Webb. Yeah. He always called me Jimmy Webb. Yeah, I love that. He never called me Jimmy and he never called me Webb, but he always called me Jimmy Webb. What a character he sounds like. I just can't believe that these people who either baked or bought that cake,

that how, how like, what an important thing this would be. You know what? It was life for 50 years. It was like a couple of slices of cake. I mean, it was, people have of slices of cake. People have this image of a big... Actually, you'll see if you look on the title page of the book, there's a quote by W.H. Auden that I remember. We have Jimmy's book here, The Cake in the Rain?

Yeah, right in the middle. The opening quote in the book is something that I... My face looks like a wedding cake left out in the rain. And that's something that he wrote that I sort of remembered from school and was sort of borrowed and alluded to, you know, trying to sound literary. But, yeah, I mean, who would think that it would become a hit? Who would think that? And I didn't. Twice.

Yeah, it was, well, it was a hit. It was number two in the United States with Richard. And then almost ten years later, it was number one with Donna Summer. Yeah. And it was on the UK chart twice. Both times it was, you know, better than halfway up. One time it was number one. One time I think it was in the 20s.

And it was just a re-release. Somebody said, let's re-release MacArthur Park with Richard Harris. It was a hit again. And it was international. It was a hit in Germany. It was a hit in Italy. There were versions of it in Italian that were hysterical. Really?

They were just the funniest thing you've ever heard. And then, of course, the comedy guys got a hold of it. Sure. I remember Father Guido doing it. Don Novello. Don Novello. And he was like going, he had his wallet. I remember.

He'd take out his wallet and he'd go, and after all of the loves of my life. And then he would drop this sort of accordion of pictures of chicks, you know, like in bathing suits. After all of the loves of my life. I mean, he was merciless. I mean, he did it on SNL one night, and literally a wave of green icing came on. I guess it was blown on. It must have been with huge fans.

I never asked Lorne Michaels about that, but somehow they made a wave of green icing. It's got to blow your mind. And it, like, pushed everything off stage. Does it blow your mind that this is a song, this was very deeply personal to me, it was about a breakup, and now it's become this monster,

it's become this thing that's in the culture for so long. I used to get irritated about it. Sometimes I'd get mad because people would be believe it or not they'd be angry with me and like someone would come up to me after a show and say what do you mean cake out in the rain you son of a bitch demanded explanation all right yeah exactly and they would be so angry, and I was taken aback because I've gone through all kinds of stages of grief over MacArthur Park. But I'm at a point in my life now where I'm going, hey, look.

Some nice versions of it. It's what it is. But Waylon Jennings did a nice version of it. Waylon Jennings recorded MacArthur Park four times. Four times, Waylon? All right. I was going to wait until the end of the show. You're going to torture the guy?

Yes. Didn't you just hear him say he was in mourning? Now I feel like, fuck it. Why have sympathy toward another human being? Can we sing a duet of MacArthur Park? Well, I guess. I'm just going to, we'll just do the chorus, all right? All right, Gil.

Okay, so you take the melody. What? We can't do Spring Was Never Waiting for a Spring? No, no, no. Why not? Just go to the MacArthur part. Fuck you, Jimmy. I'm only gonna do the chorus. Okay. Let me find the chorus like I don't know it.

Okay. Where's your note? This one? He doesn't have a note. You obviously Like I don't know it. Okay. Where's your note? This one? He doesn't have a note. You obviously have never heard me sing before. Should I just start playing then? Okay, yes.

Give him a cue. Here we go. MacArthur Park is melting in the dark All the sweet green icing's flowing down Someone left the cake out in the rain I don't think that I can take it Cause it took so long to bake it, and I'll never have that recipe again! Oh, no! Oh, no!

Oh! Fantastic. You are a brave soul, Jim. Yeah, I knew it was going to be good, though. Wow. I have seen it all. We sat here weeks ago. He broke into song.

He spontaneously broke into MacArthur Park. And now I have witnessed the great Jimmy Webb accompanying Gilbert on MacArthur Park. I can die a happy man. There's a nice version on Letterman, too, that Will Lee did with you guys. Yeah, he was so nice about that, David. Also good. He always liked that, and he said,

I'm going to do this before I go off the air. We started talking about it, and the next thing I know, they're talking about strings. And then they called me up, and they said, we're going to have our band, plus we're going to have brass, and we're going to have strings, and Willie's going to sing it, and Daveave's gonna do a whole i guess like a 15 minute segment about you know harry he told a long story about his son harry and harry wanted to know about macarthur park and so he's trying to explain it to him and he says heck i'll just do it for you know he He seems to have a wonderful affection for his son, which is natural. And so for Harry, he laid this on, and we all went on there.

And it was always an amazing band. I loved being on that show. I was on there with Carly Simon. Oh, yeah. I was actually on there with Glenn. I remember. And so many memories. Just so many memories.

And that night, Will Lee, I mean, he was absolutely tremendous. But at the very end of MacArthur Park, there's a cake and behind it is a ladder. And Will Lee

is singing what you just sang. Oh no! He's climbing the ladder and playing the bass. And I'm looking at that and I'm going, this could be the biggest disaster in the history of show business because this

is live television. And if he falls off that ladder, he'd go, oh, no, and hits the floor. I mean, he's going to be hurt. And there were people before the show saying, well, don't climb the ladder. Don't climb the ladder. He did it. He has a great voice. Have you seen the Fab Four?

Have you seen the Beatle? Have you seen the Beatles? Yeah, I love the Fab Four. They play the stuff live that the Beatles never played live. They are great. I was just going to tell our listeners, check out the Fab Four, Will Lee and Rich Pagano. Oh, yeah, and the Hogshead Horns. Yeah, they're absolutely wonderful. And they'll do a whole Beatles album in a show.

And when was the last time you saw Glen Campbell? Well, let's see. It's been about, I think it's been about three or four months. Every time I go to Nashville, I go see him. He's at a facility that's operated and was actually created by Vince Gill and Amy Gill, especially with musicians in mind. And it's quite lovely. He has someone with him 24 hours a day at the stage of this disease that he's in.

And he, what I can tell you is that Glenn was always an upbeat guy. He knew 10,000 jokes. He loved jokes. He loved comedy. Anybody who ever saw the Glenn Campbell show knows that he loved comedy. We remember. Oh glenn campbell show knows that he we remember loved oh yeah he loved glenn campbell good time hour and um he uh he always looked at the upside of things and that part of him hasn't changed at all the very core of his personality which is buoyant and upbeat, is still buoyant and upbeat.

And he says, hi. And he's glad to see you. He can't exactly remember who you are. I mean, this is, you face these issues as a friend. But I feel embarrassed talking about what I've gone through. Of course. As a friend, because I have been humbled by the heroism of the family.

The family has been absolutely tremendous. And through, I mean, some of the roughest stuff that you can go through. I'm sure. I'm sure. And I know eventually we're probably going to get to this anyway, but on May 3rd. I'm going to mention it now. Yeah, go ahead. Well, go ahead. Well, Ashley Campbell, Glenn's daughter, will be among the performers that are going to be doing a tribute, a celebration of the music of Jimmy Webb, The Cake the cake and the rain at carnegie hall on may 3rd and uh also amy grant hansen toby keith

the great art garfunkel uh you met judy collins you mentioned your friends marilyn mccoo and billy davis jr love them graham nash johnny rivers what a lineup uh dwight yokum yeah dwight's what a what a lineup and the and the proceeds proceeds from the show will be donated to? The Glen Campbell Foundation is called the I'll Be Me Foundation. And the traditional recipient of these kind of benefits go to the National Alzheimer's Foundation. So those two will split the money. Good. And it just started out as, you know,

Laura sort of wanting to give me a 70th birthday thing. Your wife, Laura Savini, who was here with us. Yes. And it sort of became, to me, it became more important as it took on this role of raising the profile of this disease and focusing attention on the families. Because the families really go through unbelievable rough times. And they hang in there. They hang in there. The love is always there.

And, you know, I'm grateful that Glenn is alive. Sure. And I never, I never, oh, oh yeah, I have to tell you this. This thing is sponsored

by Michael Dorff and the City Winery. Oh, City Winery, sure. I'm sorry I left that out. And, you know, they've been so great to me. I started playing City Wineries around the country and they very quickly, they became, they've been so great to me. I started playing city wineries around the country, and very quickly they became – actually, this whole thing happened one day. I was riding along on an airplane coming up north from Nashville, and I looked across the aisle, and this guy was looking at me.

He said, you're Jimmy Webb. And I said, yeah. And he says, I'm Michael Dorff. He says, you know, I'm city winery. And I said, oh, I've always wanted to play City Winery. He said, well, now you're playing the City Winery. Oh, that was a nice piece of serendipity. There's a great one here.

So, yeah, and it's a great gig. It's a fab folder. All the artists will tell you that it's a great place to play. Yeah, great room. And so they've waited in, and they're actually sponsoring the concert hall. And people can get tickets to the show by going, I assume, to the Carnegie Hall website. We'll tell people at the end of the show. We'll get the information.

Yeah. And we'll tell people before we sign off. We'll make sure everybody has that, and we'll put it up on social media okay okay good tell us about your your relationship with glenn which goes way back and how many jimmy webb songs is glenn campbell recorded 150 130 i'm doing a show uh which uh we kind of tour around the country that's multimedia it's good it's got big screens in the back and stuff. And it's films that I've taken and recordings that I've made and saved and personal pieces of memorabilia.

And it's all in sync with this, with really the story of how lynn and i came together uh and how diverse we were at the beginning because i was lefty left and he was righty right sure and the first thing he ever said to me and people say wow how'd you meet lynn gamble first thing he ever said to me and was I came walking over to him in the studio at Sound Recorders at Yucca and Argyle in Hollywood. And I said, I'm Mr. Campbell, I'm Jimmy Webb. And he was ignoring me, basically. He was turning his knob.

Because I'd just gotten back from the Monterey Pop Festival. My hair was down to my shoulders. I was wearing a red bandana. I had on these beaten up moccasins and these, you know, I had a yak vest. Like Sonny Bono. Yeah. That's great. And not to put too fine a point on it, but my yak vest hadn't cured out just right.

You know, hilarious. And I walked up to him and about the second time I said, Mr. Campbell, I said, I'm Jimmy. I wrote by the time I get to Phoenix, and he looked up at me with those penetrating blue eyes, and he said, when are you going to get a haircut? Just like that. It was really a challenge. Friendship was born. Oh, go ahead. No, no, no.

That's it. That's it. That's it. But he hung out with Bob Hope and John Wayne and the Orange County Republicans. And he played golf. And I wouldn't be caught dead with a golf club in my hand unless there was a poisonous snake nearby. So, I mean, I played. Very different people, but brothers in music, I've heard you describe. Very different. We found this place where we could communicate. You've said he was the best singer for your kind of writing.

That was just... It was some kind of divine intervention to bring the two of us together. I want to do some Jimmy Webb stuff that I really do like because I think Jimmy Webb is probably one of the best contemporary songwriters in the world. Thank you. By the time I get to Phoenix She'll be rising She'll find the note I left hanging on her door And she'll laugh when she reads the part

That says I'm leaving. Because I left that girl so many times before. By the time I make Albuquerque She'll be working She'll probably stop at lunch And give me a call And give me a call But she'll just hear that phone Keep on ringing Oh, for once

And that's home Now, you probably because you're prolific and you've had so much success, you've been talked down on by a lot of like they call you middle of the road and someone said uh the cold porter of the 60s and what what was some of the things the jabs i don't know no i read i i you know i remember well, you know, it was generally people trying to say something good who did the most damage. Interesting. They used to – I mean, somebody called me pop music's Mozart. That was just humiliating. But I think that by and large what they tried to do at the beginning was really tag me as a middle-of-the-road guy, as belonging to – as probably a Republican and probably four-square straight arrow, probably not what I was, which was crazy.

Yeah. You know, and it took a while. But, I mean, I say in my book, you know, that somewhere I ran across a quote in a magazine that was talking about me. And it said, and Harryil nielsen was there with stoner friend jimmy webb stoner friend and and and i and i said to myself now we're getting somewhere they didn't do their homework yeah you know uh they just wanted so badly to be able to just pin me down in that middle of the road slot. And I had this, I had an offer because I'd gone up and I'd played Wilbur Clark's Desert Inn with Connie Stevens. And I got great reviews there. And so did she. And we flew down and did a Stars and Stripes show in Oklahoma City, and I met Tom Stafford. I played MacArthur Park with the Oklahoma City Symphony. And then we had a private jet, and we flew back to L.A., there was an offer with my agent to play Caesar's Palace for eight weeks a year for $40,000 a week, which in those days was, it's like a quarter of a million dollars.

Incredible amount of money. And all I had to do was play MacArthur Park. I would come out on the stage, sit at a white piano, play MacArthur Park, and the dancing fountains would come up. And then, oh, the dancing, no, I would sit at the piano. And I'm not on stage yet. I'm below the stage. And the dancing fountains come up. And then the piano comes up as I'm playing MacArthur Bar.

And I do this once a night for a week, and I said, and you want me to sing? And they said, no, no, no, no, no. We don't want you to sing. We couldn't pay you that much if you sang. Forty grand. that much if you say 40 grand okay for for eight performances for they wanted to give me eight weeks a year 40 grand a week yeah 40 40 grand a week eight weeks a year to play MacArthur Park at Caesars Palace. That's a real, that's offers for real. And I was going through a real crucible in terms of who I wanted to be

and not so much what other people thought of me, but what did I think of me. me but what did I think of me and um I I sort of that that was when I first touched base with with David Geffen and I sort of broke down in his living room one day and said I know what I want to do but I don't know how to get there and he was he was this magician, you know, because he had Joni Mitchell. He had – Sure. He was – he had Crosby, Stills, and Nash. He was creating the Eagles. He had Jackson Brown ready to go. And I said, what do I do? And he said, you can't play Vegas.

And that was it. Yeah. He said, you can't play Vegas. And he agreed to manage me. He managed me for a while. And he was a good manager. And by far, he was the most influential guy I ever worked with in the business.

I mean, he could make a phone call and some magical freaking thing would happen. you know, Joni wrote a song about him called The Star Maker Machinery. And he was that guy. He could make that happen. And I made an album for Asylum.

And I really, really tried hard to, you know, in a sense, put my past behind me. But with a few more years on it, I looked back and I said, what am I trying to put behind me? I'm trying to put Frank Sinatra behind me? I was just going to say that. How many people?

I'm trying to put Glenn Campbell behind me? How many songwriters had Frank Sinatra come and sit and just say play for hours? I'm trying to put Barbara Streisand and Tony Bennett behind me so I can go out and be underappreciated by, you know. But that's what I did. I went out, I played the Coffeehouse Circuit. I played, and here in New York, I played The Bitter End. And here in New York, I played The Bitter End. I loved playing The Bitter End, even in August when it was like 150 degrees in that little basement because Bill Evans was playing across the street. I'd take my breaks and go across the street to the Vanguard and listen to Bill Evans and have a hamburger.

And I was in heaven. And we'd play the main point in Philadelphia. We'd play the cellar door in Washington, D.C. It was a place in Denver called Marvelous Marv's. And then, of course, there was the Troubadour. Of course. And so, you know, that's what you did. You played those gigs and you sort of waited for something to happen and in my case album after album gig after gig after gig it never really sparked for me i never really caught on with that audience but i was determined to make my own records go my own way write my own songs um it's interesting because for somebody who's had such phenomenal success,

and I'm reading in Tunesmith that you don't, you don't refer to yourself. You don't think of yourself as a commercial songwriter. You said, you said at one point in the book, you wish you were, I wish I was, I,

I, let me, let me put it this way. If I had been a commercial songwriter and if I could have talked myself into it, uh, commercial songwriter and if I could have talked myself into it, I would have a boat as big as David Geffen's now. But I didn't go that way because it was, you know,

and I've made a good living and I've had a good life. I would not go back and change it. I'm glad I did what I did because at some point in my life, around about the time I met David, I declared myself an artist. I just declared myself an artist. You know, like whether you think so or not, I'm an artist. That leads me to an important question. You turn down $40,000 a week to play one song. This is going to kill him.

My question is, what are you, an asshole? No. He turned down Elvis Presley, too, ultimately. Well, the thing is, see, you would agree to that deal, and you'd play that gig, and you'd get all that money, but then you're stuck there. You're never going to move off that spot. You're always going to be on the strip playing.

You're just going to play as the star of fame sets. You're going to be at a cheaper joint and then a cheaper joint and then a cheaper joint, and you're just going to move down the strip, and you're always going to be coming out of the stage work, playing MacArthur Park. You're never going to get to sing. You're never going to get to be coming out of the stage work, you know, playing MacArthur Park. You're never going to get to sing. You're never going to get to work with any of the people you really want to work with. And as it is, I have to tell you, man, my life has been rich with musical diversity

and the different characters. I've had hits with Art Garfunkel, with Judy Collins. And I've had the respect of the people I wanted respect from. Everybody. I learned that there was nothing wrong with Glen Campbell's music and there was nothing wrong with The Fifth Dimension. There was nothing wrong with Frank Sinatra. There was nothing wrong with all that.

And I've learned to embrace both sides of the coin and say, okay, what I've got here is I've got a story that's worth telling, and you've got it right there in your hands. And it's like it's sort of getting to play on both sides of the street. And, you know, yeah, if I had it to do over, Gilbert, I would turn it down again. It's going to kill him. I'm not going to fucking talk to you ever again.

I'm sorry I had you on as a guest. Please get out of my studio. Speaking of Caesars, Jimmy, tell us about being summoned to Caesars by Mr. Sinatra. Well, it was always invited. He was a man with impeccable manners. But it was like no invitation that you would ever get from anybody else because you'd arrive and...

I used to drive my car up. I would drive probably my Cobra, and I'd take a sports car up there because you could drive as fast as you wanted to drive in Nevada. I'd get up there and pull up in front of Caesar's Palace. They knew I was coming. They said, good evening, Mr. Webb. It's good to see you. Take my luggage luggage walk in on the way in the bellman would probably say are you going to be needing any company tonight mr webb and i would say no thank you

and um uh walk up to the desk and the lady would say, Mr. Webb, we've been expecting you. Your room is taken care of. Um, and then I would find out gradually over the next couple of days that I couldn't spend a, I couldn't spend a dime in the casino and that I had a marker for, you know, a couple of thousand dollars. So I could play, you know, if I wanted to play 21, I wanted to play at 21, I could play. And I wouldn't really worry about anything. I'd take my father up with me. I was just going to say your papa was with you. He would be covered too.

I remember one night that Mr. Sinatra took my father and I to the jockey club. And they got into this big discussion about World War II and about how ugly the Andrews sisters were. Fantastic. And, I don't know, a bomb in Pearl Harbor and all this stuff. Here's your dad, a Baptist minister from Oklahoma, and now he's sitting with old blue eyes at the casino, and they're talking about the Andrews sisters. Eventually, I sort of felt like left out, and I said, listen, I'm going to run.

You guys talk. And they went out later, I guess, and played baccarat, tremendous air or something. Wild. Which I think probably wiped my father out on the first bet because Sinatra would literally bet 50 grand a pop on that crazy baccarat you know it's a great I mean it's a great game in a way but man you know that's a lot of money and um so he my father after that he was like I say in my book he was like a maid guy. That's great. He walked the walk. He talked the talk.

He just had a bounce in his step. I mean, from then on, you know, and he started wearing a big pink, like a big diamond on his pinky finger. I love that. By then, he had moved out of the ministry. He wasn't a preacher anymore. He'd sort of become a record guy. That's interesting. A man who told you that songwriting was going to break your heart one day.

Yeah, he came over to my side. That's nice. That's a nice piece of redemption. And how did it work? This was fascinating that I found in my research. Frank would pull up a chair, and you'd sit at at the piano and he'd just say, play another one. Play another one. He liked songwriters.

He always did, long before I came along. It was Sammy Kahn. He recorded like a hundred Sammy Kahn songs. James Van Heusen. Yes, yeah. And he'd always credit the songwriters. Harold Arlen. He was always anxious to credit the songwriter,

which is different from just crediting the songwriter. He was excited to do it. And I would be sitting, you know, he would have a table for me right beside, right snugged up close to the stage. And he would come out, and the excitement was unbelievable. I kind of get into it a little bit in the book. There was Nelson Riddle standing there holding a stick, you know,

and every music stand said, Nelson Riddle, Nelson Riddle. Jack Teagarden is there. You know, all the great brass players from L.A. And like 30 strings. Hal Blaine playing drums and this great big. Another wrecking crew. Timpani. Timpani and bells and chimes and things.

And then a little woodwind section. It was like a little symphony orchestra. He would come out and sing I Got You Under My Skin. There would be women passing out, I mean literally passing out, and the show would just keep rolling. They would come in and roll the ladies out, and the show would just keep going. And they were just, you know, he was, you know, he was such an impressive performer. Here's some love songs played beautifully by our string section.

This is Jimmy Webb. This time we almost made those pieces fit. Didn't we, girl? This time we nearly made some sense of it didn't we girl and this time

I held the answer right here in my hand Then I touched it And it had turned to sand This time We almost sang our song in tune. Didn't we, girl? This time we nearly made it up to the moon.

Didn't we go? Vegas was a great place in those days. It was. Because you could get up close to the animal, you know? You could practically get Sinatra's sweat on you, you know? I mean, it was very visceral. It was like, you know, you should have seen, like, the kind of money that was changing hands to get closer to the stage. Wow.

Anything to get closer to the stage. And you met with Elvis Presley. Oh, several times, yeah. Did you see him live in Vegas, Elvis? I saw him when he opened at the International Hotel. Uh-huh. Yeah, and a lot of people from L.A. went up thinking nobody really knew what Elvis was going to do. It had been a long time since he played a live show, and even Elvis didn't know what was going to do. It had been a long time since he played a live show. And even Elvis didn't know

what was going to happen. He was very nervous about it. And I think that a lot of cynics went up kind of hoping, gee, I hope he falls on his ass. You know. There's that thing, you know, there's that thing. I kind of went up dispassionately, and I'm saying, you know, I never really got this guy when I was a kid, but I'm just going to check this out, you know, and walked into this gorgeous showroom, brand new, Probably 1,500 or 2,000. I think they served 2,000 dinners for every show at the International. It became the Hilton International. And then I don't know what it became after that.

I think they might have torn it down by now. But that first night, I was sitting up next to the stage. I was sitting at a long table, but I had the seat next to the stage, and about six seats down this guy was glowering at me like he was giving me a bad face, and it was Jim Brown. Wow. The great fullback. Sure.

And I said, hi. And he went, you know, like you're closer to the stage than I am. How did you get closer to the stage than me? And Elvis came out, and he did the whole Elvis thing. And, man, I just became Elvis fan to the core. I mean, there's no doubting that there was this magic, there was a magnetism that just permeated the room and just got inside you.

James Burton playing guitar, great, great drumming. He was very solid in the rhythm section, man. He knew what he was doing there. And he was a rocker. He really was the king of rock and roll. And you might sit there for a little bit. First thing you knew, and your behind was moving. You were patting your foot.

You were into it. And after the show, he walked all the way down the front of the stage and was giving out silk scarves to all the girls. Because by now, there's hundreds of girls. He's putting a scarf around their neck and kissing them. And he gets down and he bends over me and I think, oh, God, he's going to kiss me. He thinks I'm a girl. I had long hair.

He bent over and he dropped a note. He actually dropped a piece of paper on the table and it said, Jimmy, come backstage, Elvis. Wow. And, you know, and after the show, these two big burly Nevada, like highway patrol guys, police, I guess they were Clark County sheriffs, they got me on both sides and just half carried me through this crowd and back through the kitchen.

And I went through all these little, like, double doors and these little confined spaces and finally came up to this kind of a drab looking um dressing room and they pushed open the door and colonel tom parker was standing right in front of me and he said he says you jammy way up he said i guess you're here to see elvis and if not do i have this right if not for the the colonel wanting... He moved me out. Yeah. After about the fourth time, Elvis and I were together because we were getting along. Elvis wanted to record MacArthur Park.

That's what I was going to say. And Tom Parker was not going to let that happen. Elvis had to have all the publishing on everything he recorded yeah yeah and i wasn't going to make that deal anyway but he he you know what he told lieber and stoller to to piss off as well i mean he's the guy who said nah elvis don't want to record with the Beatles. I mean, he was the guy. You know, Elvis never toured Europe. Never. There was never a London concert.

Because of the Colonel. Because of the Colonel. Because the Colonel's background was so dubious in the immigration department that people thought maybe that he was afraid to go back over there. He was a carny. Yeah, if you know what that means. Oh, yeah. We had Steve Bender on the show. Do you know Steve? Yes, I know him.

He told us some Elvis stories, but also some Colonel stories. Did he tell you the one about Elvis standing on the corner on sunset and waiting for people to recognize him? I don't think he did. Elvis told Steve Bender one time. Steve was a good friend of mine. He told him, Steve says, let's go to lunch. We'll go over to the Hamburger Hamlet.

And Elvis said, I can't go down there. They'll tear me apart. And Steve said, I tell you what. He says, I'll bet you that you can stand on this corner right down here at the bottom of the stairs. I bet you you can stand there for 20 minutes, and they won't tear you apart. And he finally, you know, twisted his arm and I guess shamed him into it. He got Elvis out there on the sidewalk, Elvis stood there for 20 minutes and nobody said a freaking word. Oh, that's fantastic.

That's fantastic. That's a Steve Bender story. That's great. Well, this man has had a very long day. Oh, yes. So we're going to cut him some slack. You should tell us if you have anything to plug

right now. He does. You got your book? He's got the book and we have anything to plug right now. He does. You got your book? He's got the book and we're going to plug the Carnegie Hall show again. A celebration of the music of Jimmy Webb,

The Cake and the Rain. And what a lineup, Jim. Ashley Campbell. Oh, we have another plug that came from outside. Yes, musicof.org. Tickets are available.

Also at jimmywebb.com and the Carnegie Hall website. Thank you, yes. Musicof.org. Tickets are available. Also at JimmyWebb.com and the Carnegie Hall website. Thank you, Frank and Jimmy Webb team. And then to show that I have no respect for you and your work and your fatigue. Oh, geez. And his phone's going off. Yes, yes. That's the show, really. And his phone's going off.

Yes, yes. That's the show, really. Can we please, please, we have to sing a little of Wichita Lineman. Oh, my God. Okay. He's going to indulge you again. Just nod to me when it's time for me to start. Okay, here you go.

He doesn't have a key, Jim. I am a limerick for the county And I drive the main road Searching in the sun For another overload I hear you singing in the wire I can hear you singing in the wire. I can hear you through the wine. And the Wichita lineman is still on the line.

Is he too far ahead, Jim, or is he too far behind? He's lost in space. He's kind of in a John Cage. Yeah, John Cage. He's a performance artist. Oh, God. By the way, I love how Billy Joel describes Wichita linemen. An ordinary man having extraordinary thoughts.

Yeah, he got to me when he said that. He actually, like, punched a button and, like, a tear went squirting out of the side. But I got control of myself very quickly. But he actually kind of got to me when he said that. If we ever get you back, we'll talk more about the songs and the history. Some of the stuff that you do in your show is just so fascinating. Yeah, it'd be great to come.

Okay. And also, one last thing. But only if we get to do some more duets. He also wrote another song we've talked about on this show, The Worst That Can Happen. Oh, wow. Johnny Maestro and the Brooklyn Bridge. Yeah, do you hate that one too? We love them.

He has a strange way of showing his affection for the songs, too. I'm going to plug the lineup of the event again. Ashley Campbell, the daughter of... I'm glad you came. Ashley Campbell, Glenn's daughter. Judy Collins, Art Garfunkel, Amy Grant, Hanson, Toby Keith, Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis. We love them. Graham Nash, Johnny Rivers.

God, we love Johnny Rivers. We should ask you Johnny Rivers stories next time. I want to say this while we're on the air. I want to say this. It's a freaking shame, man, that Johnny Rivers isn't in the rock and roll thing. Oh, how can that be? That's all I gotta say. Love him.

Wait, wait, why does... With something else on the glass. Oh, and Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Of course. We'll be hosting. A very, very important part of the evening, and dear friends, and everyone there is a friend and a good person. So your life will be flashing before your eyes yet again.

I'm definitely going to get emotional. I haven't gotten emotional yet, but I know that I'm going to get emotional about it. Well, this was a thrill. Because it will never happen again. No. And I will never happen again. We will never happen again.

No. We will never pass this way again. You lived out a lifelong dream there. You got to sing Wichita Lightning with Jimmy Webb. And I want to plug the book, too. The Cake and the Rain, Jimmy Webb, a memoir. I apologize for not reading it. I tried desperately to get my hands on it.

No, no. But it just came out. And so I'll wrap up by saying I'm Gilbert Gottfried. This has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre. Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre, and we've been talking to a man who turned down $40,000 a week to play one fucking song. The asshole, Jimmy Wynn. Jimmy, this was a thrill. Thanks for coming and doing it.

Thank you. Okay, buddy. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Passion flow like rivers through the sky And after all the loves of my life After all the loves of my life I'll be thinking of you And wondering why Thank you. The Garter's Pond

Melting in the dark All the sweet green icing Flowing down Someone left the cake out in the rain I don't think that I can take it Cause it took so long

to bake it And I'll never have a recipe again Oh, no Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Give me Webb. Give me Webb. Oh, I loved it. Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody. Thank you so much.

Paul Schaefer. 545. 545. 545.