Kenny Loggins: Taking Liberties with Rainbows (Re-Release)

What made you m move out of LA? I was living in East LA and a buddy of mine that I went to Pasadena City College with called me and said you gotta come up to Santa Barbara. I fucking love this. Welcome to literally. Uh with me, Rob Lowe. I love doing this podcast, as you guys hopefully know. And every once in a while, uh the best thing about it is that I get to fanboy out.

And you know, just be like, what? Wait, what? And today's one of those days, because I'm talking to Kenny Loggins. Come on. I mean, you know I'm I'm I'm I'm all about my yacht rock. Maybe you don't know it. And I'm telling you the first time. I am. But he's so much more than Yacht Rock and he's the soundtrack to my life and probably yours too. It's a tremendous career that has spanned so many moments. And I cannot wait.

To finally ask him if Michael Jackson ripped off his vocal style in uh This is it.'Cause I think he did. I'm gonna ask him, we'll see what he says. Anyway, so here we go. Now were you do you remember when Joe Walsh lived up here? Yeah. I can't believe Joe Walsh living I I d I A little too laid back for Joe? Y well, particularly at that time in his life, if you know what I'm saying. I played golf with Joe back then. Really? And we played at the Montecito Country Club, which was

Totally ironic that Joe was a member of the case. And uh and he never used a driver. He he always used an iron because he hated his drivers. You're probably in better shape than a a crappy wood. Wow. For th for those who actually play golf. This was the our th that was our version of Bushwood.

Uh oh my god. No, well yeah, right. W yes. Bush w when do you remember the first time you saw Caddyshack? I was uh driving up to Santa Barbara. I had worked with John Peters when he was with Barbara Streisand. And um when I met Barbara and John and I played some stuff that I was working on, ideas for Celebrate Me Home, um, she loved a bunch of melodies. So we started working on melodies for Star Hersborn. And then when they broke up, John went solo and his first project was to make caddysh.

And uh so he called me and I said, I need your help. Come on in and check this out. It was great. I mean he did he didn't need any help. He had the everything just fell into place for him on that. I was just bored. I'm like I'm gonna see how far I can go with this list, how long I can get it. And Caddy sh just for fun, it was really

a good exercise actually, if nothing else in film and um Caddyshack came up as the the first comedy. Oh really? F yeah.'Cause the way I did it was like movies that when they're on, you have to watch them. Uhhuh. That was like Like it was not about reviews or stature or just plain old if you see it.

You're watching it. Yeah. And Caddysh and then the quotability of it, forget it. Yeah, every every every line in Caddyshek. You can't help but wonder how much of that was improvised and how much of that was really Written or fleshed out. There's a book that came out two years ago about the making of Caddyshack, which is really it talks a lot about that.

But I think your song is a huge part of it. I really do I really do, because it's at the beginning and the end. Yeah. Because the gopher has to dance to it whenever possible. Whenever possible. I mean, and I love and I love that the gopher is just a bad puppet. You know I love that. When I first saw the movie it was it was not in the movie. It was John said to me, Oh, we're gonna have a a hand puppet in this party and I thought, That's a stupid idea. That'll never work.

Well, I think it works'cause of the song.'Cause of the go when the golf ball comes flying in. Yeah. And and the gopher ducks and then the song hits. I mean, come on. It's m I mean, dude, it's movie magic. Could look like Howdy Dooty there for a minute. I mean there's in in the canon of your movie smash songs. I mean, everybody has their favorite. Your I've heard yours is footloose.

Mine's for sure I'm all right. Yeah, I love I'm alright too. I I recorded the demo of I'm Alright here in Santa Barbara and the drummer I used was not an uh extremely adept drummer. So any kind of complication idea that I had he couldn't do. So finally I just boiled it down to foot snare, foot snare, foot snare. You're kidding. And it became the essential groove of of I'm all right. It's it's

Crazy how well that works. That's under the category of happy accidents. And as you know, you've probably had your share. It's it's really super true. It was like what could flummox a lesser artist, whether it's an actor, writer, producer, singer where the all of a sudden something doesn't work out and you could be really pissed or ruin it actually ends up making it better. Yeah. So sometimes that really does happen. Or just ending up.

showing up for something that you wouldn't have normally had to show up for. Mm-hmm. You know? So so that's what happened with Danger Zone. Um I was uh in the studio uh when w when I wrote for Top Gun, it was a cattle call and I was in uh a private theater watching a preview of the you know, what whatever edit they had with about Six or seven other big pop acts. Who else was there? There was a an R and B act that came in right behind us, about four guys.

There were a couple of guys already in the theater. Mickey Thomas and the Starship was part of it. I know that uh Rio was part of it. O Toto was part of it. Mm-hmm. And um So I'm sitting there and I'm seeing all this competition around me and and and then about midway through the movie comes the volleyball scene. Mm-hmm. And I was writing at the time with Peter Wolf, a the Austrian producer. I nudged Peter and I said

Nobody's gonna write for this. Let's let's write for this scene. So that you know,'cause I knew from my experience that just being a part of the soundtrack album was gonna be pivotal. And it kinda didn't matter what scene you write for as long as you get in it. Wow. So we we I think we were the only ones who submitted a song for that scene.

So I was in the studio working on Playin with the Boys, which is the song we wrote, and uh I got a call from Giorgio Moroter's office. Giorgio was doing the bulk of the music for the movie. And he had a song and he didn't have a singer because the the band that was supposed to do it dropped out. The lawyers refused to agree about something, so they dropped out of the deal, and he said, I have to dub this song in tomorrow, and I don't have a singer for it.

So can you come in and sing it? And I I didn't even listen to it. I just said, Is it up tempo?'Cause I needed a rock and roll one for the for the show. And he said, Oh yeah, it's a rocker, so I I went, Good, I'm in. We went over lyrics and chords, I added some things, changed some words, we added a bridge. And then uh went in the next day and sang it. And you know everybody was writing for that scene. Just blind luck.

Is that the biggest of all of them? I mean they're all huge. Is that what is that the biggest? Of the songs you mean? Yeah. Actually no, that's I I found out just the other day by doing an interview that uh Danger Zone peaked at number two.

behind um Peter Gabriel. If you're gonna be behind somebody, might as well be Peter Gabriel. Right. I think it was Sledgehammer. Yeah and uh but it peaked at two. Footloose was at number one for a while. Have you seen are you involved at all in the new Top Gun? Oh have you seen it? I haven't seen it yet.

Danger zone in it? Yeah. Oh yes. Yeah. When I when I um I finally met Tom Cruise on Fallon about what slightly before twenty twenty. No way. You never met him. No way. Yeah. And so you know, I had I just

stopped him before we w went on and I said, So yes or no? Is danger zone in the in the new movie? He said, We can't do we can't do Top Gun without danger zone. Yeah, that's Tom. That's so cool. I can't I I'm M very few movies these days get me like excited to go to, but I'm I'm s I cannot wait for Top Gun to th they've got a great word of mouth. They let the press see it recently. Ooh. For the last year I was not allowed to tell anyone that Danger Zone was in the movie'cause he

loved it so much he wanted it to be the surprise element. Exactly, yes. And uh so that when it came on people would go crazy. Yeah, they go crazy. And then finally I found out that they they had to let the cat out of the bag. They did a private showing for maybe a dozen. And all the reviews were incredible. So I'm excited. Yeah, I hear it's I I've talked to people who've seen it and just said it's the aerial footage is beyond belief in it. Insane the stuff that they've invented for it. Um

Do you w wanna know my footloose story? No. No, it's your show, man. Come on.

So Dean Pitchford, uh, who wrote the script and s a lot of the songs, and the late great Craig Zaydan, and it was like their first sort of big movie. Yeah. And I read the script and I knew I would loved it.

I knew I I loved it. I know it sounds insane, but I loved it and and the music was a huge part of the script. I don't remember if they had C well, I don't think there were even CDs in those days, but somehow a lot of the songs were already done and you could kind of listen Yeah, Dean and I wrote a couple of the songs to the to the actual paper screenplay. There you go. You know, we there was nothing to see but you know, when we started on it.

He wanted me to write with him so that would cement him in not only as the screenwriter, but also as a songwriter. Okay, that makes pr so I'm right in this memory because I remember the music was in the script. Obviously it's about dancing. So they ha talk about cattle calls. There w they had a cattle call of all of the sort of, you know, appropriate fledgling movie stars of of that age group. And um You do movies? So how old were you how old were you when they when you went in to see that?

Uh, I would have been twenty. Wow. I would have been twenty. Right at the beginning. Perfect time for Rob Lowe to be. Oh yeah. No, I was like it was like teed up. Yeah. And they loved me. Craig Craig it was Craig's idea to and and and they we met at um I forget where we met, but they they were the ones who told me about it. I didn't even know about it. My agent didn't tell me about it and so I thought, well, this is gonna happen. So I started taking dance lessons.

Uh Joe Tremain's dance studio and In uh I hear you do a hell of a foxtrot. Uh w well listen. Wouldn't have come in handy with no it was not good. Um but I worked really, really hard for for weeks. for the big dance audition, which was at Paramount Studios. And they had a big cattle call dance audition. All the Paramount Brass were there and Herb Ross, who I think believe directed the movie. And um every this is it. This is happening. This is what we're doing. And it was get this

I'll never forget it was to a sticks song of all why it wasn't too dancing to a sticks song. And we already had footloose in the can. Oh, it was definitely not to footloose. Yeah. For sure it wasn't. Which is so bizarre. And it ended with a big leap to your knees stage slide on your knees. That's what they Well everyone can do that. Not me. They didn't teach you that at the Tremaine dance studio. No. Well I

blew out my ACL. Doing doing this the slide on the slide. I left the soundstage on a stretcher. Oh my God. And as I'm being wheeled out Uh Craig Zaydon and Neil Marin and everybody are like standing over my stretcher and like Look, Rob, don't worry. I mean we we're really we're just gonna we're gonna hire a dancer.

We we need to hire dan we're gonna hire a dancer, we're not gonna hire an actor and two weeks later they hired Kevin Bacon. Yeah. Oh Hollywood. Anything they tell you is true. Of course. Okay, so I have a theory.

that on the song This Is It, I've always wanted to ask you this, particularly the opening the opening verses that you're singing, 100% Michael Jackson ripped that style off. Really? One hundred percent. And I and I I don't know what song it would be, but m for many of them, like when he sings in that kind of breathy, sort of quasi falsetto. thing. There's n just no doubt in my mind that he didn't just Steal it. I saw um Gerald Hall and John Oates recently.

told a story that Michael said that he Michael said, I stole uh he said, I hope you guys are okay that I stole your kisses on my lips And they're like, What? I didn't what when did you steal it? And then it was some song that they They never did the math either. So I bet you go back and listen to some of Michael's stuff'cause I know you worked with him. Yeah. Oh, well, you Michael called you for We Are the World. Right, right, right. That is my favorite. That video of We Are the World is

I mean obviously everybody saw it when it came out. But in the in the light of history and the legacies that were in that room watching Steve Perry coach Cindy Lauper to sing her line and st and you would s watch him behind her sitting on the And it's like gotta be one in the morning or something, two, maybe, and we're all exhausted. And he's sitting there just so frustrated because it's a line he could have hit his first try. And well anything is his first try. Right.

You know and she's struggling with with her line and he's like got his head in his hands and he's kinda hunched over like, Oh my god, we're gonna be here all night. It's funny. There are ver some very funny moments. Michael came to me. Prince was supposed to do that gig. And Prince, of course, snubbed his nose and s didn't show up. Yes. Which is so very Prince. So there's the space. There's that sort of semicircle of soloists.

At the end and there's an open space. And Michael doesn't know what to do and he comes to me and says, So uh who should who should stand in that place? And I said, Huey Lewis And he said, Okay. So he went and told uh Quincy and they asked Huey if he would do it and of course he jumped at the chance.

Wow. But uh you know, looking back now in the mo in a moment of legacy, what was for me I was I had just become a fan of Hughie Lewis in the news and I loved his voice and I thought this this this is gonna be an important voice. for rock and roll. I would love to know the politics of it because any b anytime like who gets what, who sings where, who gets m quote unquote more to do, you know, who's You know, someone's gonna be selling more records at that exact moment than someone else.

And so y all of that has to go into the equation. of of making it. Well I think it was entirely Michael and Quincy. Right. And I think they just sat down and talked it over. They may have had, you know, one or two friends in on it. But it really looked like Michael was in charge. And then Quincy was sort of The strong man in the background. Whatever Quincy said, everyone did. That was just the way it was.

One of the things that kinda makes me laugh, and it's maybe just'cause I'm I'm such a misanthrope is is uh Kim Carnes gets two words. She literally says, and we No. And then everyone goes, come together as one. But it may but it makes me laugh so hard because it's she's in a soul a a a line and people are throwing down. Yeah. And then it gets to her and she goes, And we That's it. She'll pull she'll point at that to her grandkids.

Is me. That's me. Um that was at the top of Bru Bru that's when Bruce was the biggest star in the history of music at that very moment. Yeah. That he pulled up in some old clunker Rental or something. That's what I heard. That's the legend. He pulls up late in some piece of shit, rent a wreck. Right? Yeah. And and I wonder if he did that on purpose. For sure. It wasn't a car he happened to have handy.

One of the things that people forget about ev about everybody is that we're all showmen. And if we weren't showmen, we wouldn't have lasted as long as we certainly wouldn't have signed up for the for the gig in the first place. Right. And and and and Bruce is one of the ultimate show and that's part of the show. Yeah. Part of the show is the man of the people. Every man. Some did it better than others. Yeah.

So Steve Perry, you brought him up. Huge fan. He almost makes me like the s the uh uh San Francisco Giants. That's how much I like Yeah. That's how much I like him. Yeah, just to hear that song. Just to hear that song and to go to the stadium when they play it. And he stands up and lip synks to it. You know that, right? He he does it. It's amazing'cause he's a huge baseball fan. He's there all the time. Yeah. And I went to a World Series game and and

That song comes up and you're like, oh, this is pretty cool. And then you and then you see everybody's looking in one direction. And then there he is like leading like Harry Carey at the Chicago Cubs leading Take Me Out to the Ball Game. The Giants have Steve Perry. Doing um The mascot. Yeah. And it's what a voice. Yeah.

I I recorded with Steve years ago. We did a duet that we wrote together called Don't Fight It. Great song. And I went into the went up to San Francisco to record the vocal with Steve. So we're recording both of us live simultaneously, as opposed to normally You know, he'll do his and then I'll do mine or whatever. We were both requ and then between takes, he would imitate other people. And the guy was amazing. He went into of course of course he's gonna do a perfect Sam Cook.

We hear that in every one of his records. But then he goes into Rod Stewart. And it does a perfect Rod Stewart. And God knows w how many other voices he could do, but he certainly found his own. I mean, it's not like a only a chameleon who can only be a chameleon. He He was i he he was already imitating the the classic rockers of our era and at the same time becoming one, you know, looking back in hindsight, I think.

That's that's amazing. My son Cody, he went on the road with me as a as a crew guy. And about two or three shows in, after watching me and the audience, he goes, Dad, you're a rock star. He had no idea he was like seventeen years old. And had no idea'cause in our you know how it is in your home life, in your real life.

You're not a rock star. You're not nothing but dad. You're the guy who takes out the trash. Usually. Yes. For sure. Oh yeah. That's so great. And then uh and then a a couple of years later he said, Dad You recorded with Steve Perry?

Like uh well yeah, son. Uh as a matter of fact. We hung out together. As a matter of fact I did. You had great collaborations though. You had great collaboration. Michael McDonald is my all time favorite. I was just talking to somebody the other day. Have you ever seen the hilarious

Uh it's not Saturday Night Live, it's um SC TV sketch. That's based around the r recording of this is so obscure but it's so f you know. Yeah, well he runs from gig'cause he was singing on everybody's record. Yeah. And imagine that that the record c mourners, I think it was, would probably have freaked out saying you're diluting What do you call it? The The brand? The brand. You're diluting the brand by singing on everybody else's records.

But uh I was really grateful that he sang on mine. I think What a Fool Believes, which you wrote with him, pr it might well it is for sure my top five songs of all time. Man, the night we wrote that we were up all night. Um, when I he when I first heard his voice was on the Doobie Brothers Living on a Fault Line.

The soon as I heard it I went, This is gonna be one of the great voices and I was really fascinated by his style of writing and I wanted to write with him. And I heard got a message that Michael was looking for me. So because he was looking for collaborators too. And I'm unpacking the guitar uh out of the trunk of the car, and the door to his house is open and I'm hearing him singing things through the door, and I hear him crying.

Going bump bump bum bum bum bump bump bump. Two branches all same brothers Which ended up being the actual lyric. And uh I'm hearing this melody come out and then And he stops. And my imagination keeps going. And I'm imagining gee. And so I knock on the door and we say, Hey man, how you shake hands. You know that thing you were just playing? I think I know how the next part goes.

And you so look just like that. So we immediately sat down at the piano and I I sang the thing I was hearing and he worked out the chords and it was like so we were writing together before we actually met. W well it's a great melody, but also it's a just a great concept. The concept of the song itself. Really? He had to explain it to me about sixteen times. Three sentences long.

Yes. What a fool believes he sees is the actual line, but a not just what a fool believes. What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away. And what seems to be is always better than nothing. It's amazing. It's amazing. I know so we finished And tr by the way, and tr so true. Exactly. Universal truth. Yeah. And it uses his favorite word. Fool. Which if you listen to his early work there's the word fool in every song. Really? Yeah,'cause he loved the

The shape of it. That's his thing. when music survives like that and more than survives it like is becomes an iconic thing, it always has a place in your life. And for for me, that song

I'll always be and I don't mean to to age you, but I will always be You can do that effortlessly. Here we go. I will be fifteen years old and it's my very first network television show filmed in front of a live audience and as the audience is filling in, I know the audience is coming because they put in the walk in music and the first song is What a Fool Believes and I'm like, Man, my career is maybe happening

At fifteen. At fifteen. God. So we you know, we we we've kind of had I I mean, well, listen, it's like the it's like the bad cliche and it's uh the soundtrack of your life, which is

the point of your tour. It's the songs of movies. Yeah. Which is where I finally decided to put them all together and put'em in the show. And it's an interesting show for me in that way because It's not as emotionally centered as it is movie centered. Mm-hmm. And um what it ends up being though is a pretty rock show. And I haven't really done a straight ahead rock and roll show in a long time'cause I've got a lot of acoustic guitar material from the early days and

and ballads and things like that. But I lean very heavily on There's only one movie that I wrote for, which was the Tigger movie that I wrote with the Sherman Brothers. The Sherman Brothers Go way back in Disney legacy. And they wrote Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh, Fuzzy Little Kamiya. And they even wrote earlier stuff too. But simultaneously or almost simultaneously with that, I wrote my Winnie the Pooh song. You wrote it in high school?

I wrote it as a senior in high school. Yeah. We were I was supposed to be studying for finals and instead I wrote the song about leaving my childhood behind. Stuff that happened I wrote Danny's song in high school too. From my brother Danny. It's it's it from a very innocent place, you know, you're just kinda sitting on my bed. playing chords and and hypnotizing myself. That's the not really, really, but I mean in that way where you get so deep into a melody and so deep into a vibe.

that that's all there is. And it in that moment you can be there for six hours and not know it. But um a woman working for Disney decided to put me and the Sherman brothers together. Because those two circles had never been connected. Mm-hmm. And her name was Bambi. Oh my god. How Disney how Disney can it get? Yeah, you can't make that up. The The lullaby album. Again, oh my God, I put my second son to bed to that album every night. Every night. Yeah, it it works. Oh. It's so good. Thank you.

And and you know, the the parents usually go to sleep before the child. Yeah, it's and I I listened to it last night. Yeah. And it and it put me you know right back there. Which one are your kids?

Uh John Owen, my youngest. Uhhuh. Yeah. My twenty three year old uses it if she gets an anxiety attack when she's off at school, she would put the record on to help her go to sleep. There are a lot of great songs on it. The reworking of Pooh Corners f is killer. It's Ki I mean, if you're a if you're a dad.

If you're if you if you're listening out there and you're a dad, we've all heard Pooh Corner, great song in and of itself, but the reworking on the on the what's the title of the of the album? Return to Pooh Corner. Return to Pooh Corner. There you go. Um, listen to that one. It's it's

Killer. Um, the other thing though, why is the song Rainbow Connection so powerful? What is it about that song? It's a great song. That's a Paul Williams song. Yeah, I know. I heard I first heard that song where I really heard it, really got it, was listening to the like first or second grade class at Montecito Union sing that song. Oh my gosh. And I went, Oh, that's that's a perfect song.

You know why? It's just lyrically brilliant. But two things I had to do to change the song. It was originally recorded by Kermit. Kermit the Frog. Jim Henson. Noted vocalist. So I changed that. I changed it to a more straight melody over those same chords. And then Um The Bridge, which I don't remember because I didn't record it. I didn't record the whole lyrical bridge on it, because I didn't feel the song needed it.

So I took some liberties. There's a bridge and rainbow connection in the Kermit version that's not in your eyes. And so I finally I heard from Paul Williams after the record came out. And I said, So Paul, what'd you think? And he said So why did you drop the bridge? It that reminds me of a story that uh that Glenn Fry tells about Tom Waits when the Eagles redid Ole fifty five. Oh yeah. Tom Waits song, Tom hated it. Hated it. I mean

And Tom waves it like this, and the Eagles are those packed, stacked, gorgeous harmonies in that song. Mm-hmm. And he goes, and Glenn goes, he hated it. He liked it a lot better when he got the royalties. Yeah. He loved the check. Yeah. Um, you and I ran into each other once a while ago and you had done um Bridge Over Troubled Water at our mutual friend Bobby Smith's

Funeral? Funeral. Yeah. Yeah. And you crushed it. And it was like, How d how can you still hit the voice? And you said, Because I never really stopped singing. You like Yeah. Okay, you said it. I didn't want to say it, but that's exactly what you said. I knew you w what you were thinking though. Yeah. You said well I've got to pay for those divorces, so I've never stopped singing.

pulled way back like so many artists from the seventies and eighties, but I just kept going'cause you know, you gotta pay whatever you gotta pay. The great David Foster, who I know you know. I mean that's He's like he he in his act he says, you know, this is the song that paid for this to bring you right. Which song what did you do with I know you did a couple of things, David?

Oh God. Well forever, you know, forever in my heart and the the live version, forever dude. Yeah. Right. And uh um That was one of the notes I was afraid of actually. Stevie Nicks. Mm-hmm. That's was a great collaboration. That song was m massive. Yeah. Well Stevie was at the peak of her power at that time. That was after rumors.

And she was incredibly generous, uh you know, offering to sing on You'll Call Me When You Have a Song That You Think Will Work and I just finished that song up. I that's a an interesting story for ab about tenacity or or or knowing your own have hearing your own star whatever. I'm words to me or a plaything. And that I had this melody. And I thought this really feels like a Mike McDonald melody to me, so I'm gonna sing Well I call you friend.

So the bad Michael McDonald. It was Michael McDonald. And um so I took the song, the melody idea to Michael. And I said, What do you what do you think? He said, Oh, I don't hear it, man. No, that's and so he didn't like it. So I put it away and I thought, God, I I thought it was good, but Maybe it's not'cause I trust him so much. Yeah. And then a few der few days later, I'm riding with Melissa Manchester.

And I said, Well, I got this she what else do you have? I said, Well, I've got this one melody I I really liked, but I'm not sure about it anymore. She said, Well, let me hear it. So I sang it to her and she started blocking out the chords and the next thing it was whenever I call you friend. She loved it. Wow. But I said, You gotta forgive me on this one.

Stevie Nick said she wants to sing something with me, I think it would be a good idea to take this to Stevie. Right. And uh and she was totally cool with that'cause, you know, Stevie was the biggest female vocalist in the world. And the w and guess what? She liked the check.

There you are again. That's a voice. You know it's her when she opens up her mouth. I love Stevie and and I will say I give her the cred for really breaking my solo career.'Cause I had just gone solo It was okay, things weren't working exactly the way I'd imagined, and then she did the duet with me. Outlanders strid genom tiden. Streama sista säsongen exklusivt på via Pi.

I loved your book by the way. Oh thank you. Yeah. That was is an influence for me now as I'm writing mine. Really? Yeah, the the level of humor and candor. Oh thank you. But I I really appreciate that. And I wanna try and bring as much humor to my book as I can. I can And that's again when you think about all those ridiculous things that happened, a lot of them are pretty funny. Yeah. The reason I wrote it was and if you haven't read it, I would highly recommend reading David Niven's

book The Moon's a Balloon. Is uh obviously David Niven was the great character actor and sort of bon vivant of the fifties, sixties and seventies. And he wrote what what is pretty much considered the ultimate Memoir. And it was huge success. Number one, sold forever. It was did he do Empty Horses? Yes, he did. That was number two. That was the second book, Bring on the Empty Horses, which is also good.

But that bring on the empty horses is him writing about specific people. Like there's a uh there's a Errol Flynn chapter and there's a which is great, but The other, you've gotta read it. It's brilliant. And and what my takeaway was he figured out a way to hit the bullseye that I tried to hit about being dishy and giving the stuff that people are like, Whoa, no way. But in a way where it's completely um the high road, nobody gets hurt, and if anybody ends up looking like an idiot, it's him.

Yeah. That's the secret sauce. You're right. Um, and and you must have insane stories. Like I would r I could read an entire book of you talking about the We Are the World recording. Honestly, the w that could end up being my my biggest issue with this book is that there's so much shit I don't remember. And it pisses me off because I I know there were

great moments that I was so busy moving on to the next thing that I wasn't as present within my life as I wish I'd been. But there was so much going on, you know, in my life that there were things like that that people may find really interesting years later that for me was just a gig. I just was showing up to do my vocal on that song.

That in and of itself though is interesting. Really. Yeah. I mean be because people will think Stories I Don't Remember. Stor story Stories I I wish my mind were but but but that's what's Part of your life that that makes it interesting is it was and continues to be so big that What would be a headline to someone else you would think for you is just a gig. Yeah. Do you have a title yet? Still all right. It's great.

I mean sitting there with the with the canon of titles and you want to do something with the titles, yeah, that would be fun to be like Is it you know Celebrate Me Home? Is it something like that? Celebrate Me Home was one of the contenders, yeah. It's a great one. Yeah. That's so my m my mother wore that album Out. And I kind of ignored that song. Originally it's in six eight, like sort of the rock and roll gospel Waltz time.

And but it was originally I wrote it in four four. Really? Yeah. And it was like three We celebrate me on two, three, four. And and then when I showed it to Phil Ramon, when Phil produced my first album, I showed it to Phil and he said, That should be in six eight. That's that's a gospel tune.

And it certainly was. And and then I all I had was that line which I thought was like a filler line, like scrambled eggs was a filler line for McCartney's yesterday. Yep. So I thought'cause no one had ever put it that way, no one ever said Celebrate me home. It's not a normal sentence and he said, Dude, that's how they'd say it on the street. So I ran up to his office upstairs and wrote the whole lyric. How many filler lyrics survive?

In general. Not very many. Um but what happens is uh the spaces that they take, I like to I like to consider them gospel. You know, for example, celebrate me home, please, two, three, four, celebrate. So if I replace that lyric, it would still be da ba dum bam bum, so I would have those syllables become the important

elements of that melody. That's what syncopates the melody. When I'm mentoring mm, teenagers and stuff, young songwriters, I come up with things that I think, yeah, that's that's kind of a rule I've I've written by. I've never really said it out loud. 'Cause, you know, as we get older I think we become masters at whatever trade we're in. And for me, I hadn't really thought of myself that way, that I am now like a a master at what I do.

And it's ironic because that's when they put you out to pasture. I know the minute you're a master they're not interested. It's but it's really t that's by the way, you could just do an an entire chapter on on that in the book. Just do a a segue of Like deep dive songwriting stuff. I would love that. People find that stuff inter some people find it interesting. Listen, I wrote a uh an in the second book I did, an essay about sending my kid to college, and I was like

It's not really the tone of the book. It's it's not I I first I don't think anybody I had to write it just I wrote it as a car cathartic exercise for myself. And I was like, who cares? it became the thing that launched the second book and people share it now. Every year. Yeah, it's it's like p parents and p they they like I just the other day I said, Oh I gotta read your rest about sending my kid to college. I just sent my kid off and you you just don't know. Yeah. You know what I mean?

is when my f first son was out of high school, Crosby, And he was hanging out with the wrong kind of people, you know. The monoceto rats. Yeah, I was. I surely was. On the big rat of all. He set the tone for the rest of us. Anyway, uh he so We were building a home in Hawaii. So to get him away from the drug culture and send him to Hawaii of all places, he went kicking and screaming.

And it was the first of my children to really leave the nest. Mm-hmm. And I wrote a song uh with um Mark Manchina called Always and Always. And it was basically a really sad goodbye song. Little did I know that he'd be back in six months. But when he went he was like kicking and screaming and don't make me leave and my life is here in Santa Barbara and then he the day he landed in Hawaii he called me and said, What was I crying about? You just sent me to Hawaii? Right.

Like, oh, welcome home. That's the kind of stuff that you you just you just never know. I mean, I know I would love to hear The Ten Commandments of Songwriting by Kenny Loggins, are you fucking kidding me? I would definitely love that. I'll I'll work on it. Who do you think give me your top five songwriters from the sixties to today. Well, Jimmy Webb would be one of the top. Wow. Yeah, because he just wrote some

Such great songs. Yeah, he did. We could just spend half an hour breaking down his tunes. And I I know people would go, Jimmy Webb, really? Yeah, Jimmy Webb. Mm-hmm. And of course Lennon McCartney and Dylan and the the the go to's. I think Tom Petty. Yes, me too. Great rock writer. Mm, I agree. Hard to really delineate. But uh my era

is slightly ahead of yours, of course. And it was male dominated. So there weren't a lot of female songwriters. But Carol King was a bit of a sort of thing. I was gonna say Carol King. Carol King is up there as one of the top. Yeah. Uh I took my daughter, Hanna, who at the time was sixteen

to see beautiful. Oh, I never saw it. I I wanted to really good. And the girl that plays Carol King is so good that people by the end of the play they believe she is Carol King. Wow. And they stand up and applaud for her as if she was. Mm-hmm. Amazing. But uh um my daughter was very shy about per performing, Hana, her name is, as in Hana Maui. And so was Carol when she was young.

So I called Carol up the next day and said, Would you text my daughter and just give her some words of encouragement? Oh my God. That's the that's the advantage that we have being in the business that we know these people. So the next day my daughter runs up to me and says, Dad, I j I just got a text from Carol King. Oh my god, that's amazing. That's that now that is some proper fathering. She's that that's fathering. Yeah, that is proper fathering. Yeah, I think f for for me it's

You know, it's it's uh Paul Simon, Dylan, I gre I gre Tom Petty, um Jackson Brown. Jackson, great writer. You know who else is great? Like s I mean it's it's Form it's got a formula, but in he came in and w we I talked it was John Fogarty. Oh yeah. John wrote some I mean Yeah. There was a movie, was it Bad Moon Rising that was they used his song as the theme song? Well first of all, I don't think any character in a movie can go to Vietnam.

without one of John's songs playing. And now you're talking about Jim Morris. Yes. Well that was the ultimate. That's the ultimate. That's the altar. Sometimes in concert I'll just break into Love me to time baby. Love me twice today. Yeah, that was not necessarily a great songwriter, but a great personality like John Wayne was to movies. And he's to me. When he sang like John Wayne, when you think about it. I mean he sang music the way John Wayne acted.

If you really think about it, it's all all while I'm gonna tell ya Love me too, maybe. We've we've we've cracked a lot of the codes today. But I knew we would. I knew you and I would have a great talk. Um thank you for coming in. This is so much fun for me. I I've been looking forward to it forever'cause I'm a huge fan and I've kno I know you as a as a Wow, I gotta talk to Kenny for another five hours and gone even deeper into my nerddom.

on uh 70s, 80s yacht Rocky pop. Oh so uh thanks for listening everybody. What a fun, what a fun one. I hope you had as much fun as I did. Um and now let's let's have a little gander at the low down.

Hello, you've reached literally in our lowdown line, where you can get the lowdown on all things about me, Rob Low. 323 570. four five one. So have at it. Here's the beep. Hi Rob, this is Virginia personal chef here in Charlottesville, Virginia. Yep, I'm Virginia and Virginia. And I was wondering, I've kind of been dying to know, the character that you played on Californication, I'm wondering how much of that is ad lived and how much is scripted.

And even if there was a script, like what did this script include? Because there's no way that someone can script out the character that you wrote in there. And also, coincidentally, I was watching um View from the top or something like that from with Quintus Paltro in it? And you were

you had like a cameo on there as the pilot and I was wondering how do you get a spot like that? Did you just happen to be in the stage next door and they were filming and they said, Hey, do you want to be a spot in the movie? or like how does that work? So I'll talk to you soon. Okay, bye. Thank you for checking in. Um okay, so Eddie Nero and Californication, it might be my favorite character I've ever played. It might be.

I mean it's certainly up there with Chris Traeger on Parks and Recreation and Sam Seaborn on the West Wing. Um so uh a lot of it was written. I have to say they did a really good job with the dialogue, but I definitely improvised. A bunch of stuff. Mostly the physical stuff, which can w cannot be even described on a family podcast. Um View from the Top with Gwyneth Paltrow.

I did because Gwyneth is um one of my oldest friends. I've known her since she was sixteen and Mike Myers and I are old, old, old, old friends and he was in it too. So it was really just we're all doing a movie, do you want to come in and do something and and we had fun and um One of the most uncomfortable things I've ever had to do was make out with GP, because it's like making out with my sister. Thanks for the question. I will see you next week.

to download the entire season, uh by the way. Um of literally with me, Rob. You've been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced and engineered by me, Rob Schulte. Our coordinating producer is Lisa Berm. The podcast is executive produced by Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Jeff Ross, Adam Sankks, and Joanna Solitarov at team. Coco and Colin Anderson at Stitcher. Our talent bookers are Gina Batista, Paula Davison.

Make sure to leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, and we'll see you next week on Lit. Går mot ett episkt. and the James Fraser. Streama sista säsongen exklusivt på via Play.