Chords for Lesley Gore - 1997 Interview
Tempo:
77.925 bpm
Chords used:
G
D
Eb
Ab
C
Tuning:Standard Tuning (EADGBE)Capo:+0fret
Start Jamming...
Rock music's roots took hold in the 60s.
That generation's stars were the ones who influenced the first top 40s with their 45s.
They will forever be part of the history of rock and roll.
I'm Bob Serrat.
You're about to see three legendary hit makers of the 60s
and hear the stories behind their songs.
[Eb] Donovan, [Ab] the Scottish folk rocker whose guitar playing influenced John Lennon.
He turned the Beatles on to the Maharishi, or as he called them, the hurdy-gurdy man.
[G] [Eb]
Gene [G] Pitney.
Not only did he have more than [Dm] 20 singles on the charts,
he wrote the [Bb] rock classics Hello Mary [Dm] Lou, He's a Rebel, and Rubber Ball.
[C] [N]
But we'll begin with Leslie Gore.
She would become one of the first female singers to write her own songs.
Record producer Quincy Jones heard her demo disc of a song about a teenager's independence.
He liked the 16-year-old's voice.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
We went into the studio at 2 o'clock in the afternoon
and came out at 5 o'clock on budget, on time, with three songs cut and mixed.
Now that's unheard of today.
I read somewhere that originally It's My Party was going to have—
I'm not a musician, so I'll use the layman's term, but
originally it was like six or seven downbeats before you would begin singing.
And then you listen to the record today and it's like boom, boom, and you're singing.
Klaus Ogerman, who's an absolutely fantastic arranger, did the arrangements to the song.
[Db] And we ran It's My [G] Party first.
And I believe his intro went something like
And then I was supposed to [G] start.
Quincy immediately came in, and I understood the importance of a producer, and said,
too much wasted space, let's just do
[E] And that really taught me a lot [Eb] about making pop records.
[Ab] [Db]
[Eb] Can you remember what it was like the first time you heard your first hit, It's My Party, on the radio?
I was coming home from school.
It was a Friday afternoon.
I was driving my own car, living in New [Ab] Jersey at the time, so I was able to drive.
And [Abm] a record went on the air on WINS, [Eb] which is now All Talk.
[E] In New York.
In New York.
And [Abm] it [Bb] sounded like my record, [Eb] but I really wasn't sure.
How [N] could you think even for a second, this isn't me?
Because I never knew it was going to be released that quickly.
I had no idea.
I mean, I just heard it on the radio by chance.
The night that we had recorded It's My Party, that afternoon we had recorded,
that evening, he had gone to Carnegie Hall because Charles Aznavour was performing.
And Quincy was, I think, vice president in charge of A&R of Mercury.
So he was going kind of as a representative to the company.
And he was standing on the steps of Carnegie Hall, beautiful, beautiful evening.
And Phil Spector jumps out of his limousine and flies up the stairs with the cape and the red lining and the whole thing,
and says to Quincy, Quincy, I'm cutting a song that's the most incredible thing I've ever cut.
I'm doing it with the Crystals, who were just coming off of Doo-Doo Run Run.
And Quincy said, what's the name of the song?
And Phil said, it's called It's My Party.
So if they didn't act quickly, It's My Party could have been
Would have come out with the Crystals.
Yeah.
And you would have been sitting here talking to three women instead of me.
Did you ever find out, by the way, was there ever a party where Johnny and Judy had got together?
I'm actually still researching this, Bob.
Yeah, because we're not sure.
There have been so many rumors about these two, you know.
I often think if Judy and Johnny were around today, who would they be?
And all I can think is they might be Crystal and Blake Carrington.
[D]
[Bm] [G]
[A] [D] I frankly thought it was kind of nerdy to put out a sequel.
But the [Bm] record company was really making all the moves.
Here I was, 16, with one record out.
[G] They weren't exactly asking [D] me what I thought the next single should be.
So I had no input.
[Bm]
[A] [D] [G]
1964, the record that you do and you have great success with, now is looked at by some feminists as maybe the first sort of, you know, rock hit where the woman was [G] saying, I'm not dependent.
I'm independent.
[Gm] You [Cm] don't know me.
[D] Two guys wrote the song, which is why I never [G] actually thought of it as a feminist song.
I kind of thought of it as a humanist [D] song, but I love the message.
It was something that [G] came out of my mouth very easily.
[Em] [C]
[D]
[Gm] You once said in an interview, anyone who [Eb] thinks I could retire and buy a house in the south of France is badly mistaken.
Why are we [G] mistaken about this?
Because you had seven top 20 singles in, what, a couple of years?
And you appear in movies and you're on television.
So I think there's this impression that you made a lot of money.
In 1967, when Mercury let me go, I was in debt to them to what they claimed was $175,000.
It took 25 years for me to ever see a penny from Mercury.
I didn't see money from Mercury [A] until 1989.
That's incredible.
And I'm one of the lucky ones.
By the way, this is something that I have to ask you.
Is it true that your classic flip, they call it flip hairdo of the 60s, [E] even withstood the winds of Chicago?
Oh, it did.
As a matter of fact, my body would be parallel to the sidewalk, but my hair was always perfectly configured.
Talk about what you've been doing the past 10 or 15 years.
I had the good fortune of working with my brother Michael on the film Fame, [G] which we wrote out here on my own.
And that was a real good shot in the arm in terms of starting a new [Bm] writing career.
[G] Oh, that rising star [Am] to guide me far [G] and shine me [C] home.
How do you want [D] [C]
[D] to [N] keep performing?
Do I get that little house in the south of France?
No, I'm too real.
Exactly.
I want to because it's the best part of the whole thing.
I mean, it's always great to talk to people and meet fans and [Abm] that, but performing [F] is what it's all about.
So I think at the [Ab] point where I don't think I sound good anymore, I'm too fat to get into [Eb] my clothes.
I don't know what it'll be, but something will tap me
That generation's stars were the ones who influenced the first top 40s with their 45s.
They will forever be part of the history of rock and roll.
I'm Bob Serrat.
You're about to see three legendary hit makers of the 60s
and hear the stories behind their songs.
[Eb] Donovan, [Ab] the Scottish folk rocker whose guitar playing influenced John Lennon.
He turned the Beatles on to the Maharishi, or as he called them, the hurdy-gurdy man.
[G] [Eb]
Gene [G] Pitney.
Not only did he have more than [Dm] 20 singles on the charts,
he wrote the [Bb] rock classics Hello Mary [Dm] Lou, He's a Rebel, and Rubber Ball.
[C] [N]
But we'll begin with Leslie Gore.
She would become one of the first female singers to write her own songs.
Record producer Quincy Jones heard her demo disc of a song about a teenager's independence.
He liked the 16-year-old's voice.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
We went into the studio at 2 o'clock in the afternoon
and came out at 5 o'clock on budget, on time, with three songs cut and mixed.
Now that's unheard of today.
I read somewhere that originally It's My Party was going to have—
I'm not a musician, so I'll use the layman's term, but
originally it was like six or seven downbeats before you would begin singing.
And then you listen to the record today and it's like boom, boom, and you're singing.
Klaus Ogerman, who's an absolutely fantastic arranger, did the arrangements to the song.
[Db] And we ran It's My [G] Party first.
And I believe his intro went something like
And then I was supposed to [G] start.
Quincy immediately came in, and I understood the importance of a producer, and said,
too much wasted space, let's just do
[E] And that really taught me a lot [Eb] about making pop records.
[Ab] [Db]
[Eb] Can you remember what it was like the first time you heard your first hit, It's My Party, on the radio?
I was coming home from school.
It was a Friday afternoon.
I was driving my own car, living in New [Ab] Jersey at the time, so I was able to drive.
And [Abm] a record went on the air on WINS, [Eb] which is now All Talk.
[E] In New York.
In New York.
And [Abm] it [Bb] sounded like my record, [Eb] but I really wasn't sure.
How [N] could you think even for a second, this isn't me?
Because I never knew it was going to be released that quickly.
I had no idea.
I mean, I just heard it on the radio by chance.
The night that we had recorded It's My Party, that afternoon we had recorded,
that evening, he had gone to Carnegie Hall because Charles Aznavour was performing.
And Quincy was, I think, vice president in charge of A&R of Mercury.
So he was going kind of as a representative to the company.
And he was standing on the steps of Carnegie Hall, beautiful, beautiful evening.
And Phil Spector jumps out of his limousine and flies up the stairs with the cape and the red lining and the whole thing,
and says to Quincy, Quincy, I'm cutting a song that's the most incredible thing I've ever cut.
I'm doing it with the Crystals, who were just coming off of Doo-Doo Run Run.
And Quincy said, what's the name of the song?
And Phil said, it's called It's My Party.
So if they didn't act quickly, It's My Party could have been
Would have come out with the Crystals.
Yeah.
And you would have been sitting here talking to three women instead of me.
Did you ever find out, by the way, was there ever a party where Johnny and Judy had got together?
I'm actually still researching this, Bob.
Yeah, because we're not sure.
There have been so many rumors about these two, you know.
I often think if Judy and Johnny were around today, who would they be?
And all I can think is they might be Crystal and Blake Carrington.
[D]
[Bm] [G]
[A] [D] I frankly thought it was kind of nerdy to put out a sequel.
But the [Bm] record company was really making all the moves.
Here I was, 16, with one record out.
[G] They weren't exactly asking [D] me what I thought the next single should be.
So I had no input.
[Bm]
[A] [D] [G]
1964, the record that you do and you have great success with, now is looked at by some feminists as maybe the first sort of, you know, rock hit where the woman was [G] saying, I'm not dependent.
I'm independent.
[Gm] You [Cm] don't know me.
[D] Two guys wrote the song, which is why I never [G] actually thought of it as a feminist song.
I kind of thought of it as a humanist [D] song, but I love the message.
It was something that [G] came out of my mouth very easily.
[Em] [C]
[D]
[Gm] You once said in an interview, anyone who [Eb] thinks I could retire and buy a house in the south of France is badly mistaken.
Why are we [G] mistaken about this?
Because you had seven top 20 singles in, what, a couple of years?
And you appear in movies and you're on television.
So I think there's this impression that you made a lot of money.
In 1967, when Mercury let me go, I was in debt to them to what they claimed was $175,000.
It took 25 years for me to ever see a penny from Mercury.
I didn't see money from Mercury [A] until 1989.
That's incredible.
And I'm one of the lucky ones.
By the way, this is something that I have to ask you.
Is it true that your classic flip, they call it flip hairdo of the 60s, [E] even withstood the winds of Chicago?
Oh, it did.
As a matter of fact, my body would be parallel to the sidewalk, but my hair was always perfectly configured.
Talk about what you've been doing the past 10 or 15 years.
I had the good fortune of working with my brother Michael on the film Fame, [G] which we wrote out here on my own.
And that was a real good shot in the arm in terms of starting a new [Bm] writing career.
[G] Oh, that rising star [Am] to guide me far [G] and shine me [C] home.
How do you want [D] [C]
[D] to [N] keep performing?
Do I get that little house in the south of France?
No, I'm too real.
Exactly.
I want to because it's the best part of the whole thing.
I mean, it's always great to talk to people and meet fans and [Abm] that, but performing [F] is what it's all about.
So I think at the [Ab] point where I don't think I sound good anymore, I'm too fat to get into [Eb] my clothes.
I don't know what it'll be, but something will tap me
Key:
G
D
Eb
Ab
C
G
D
Eb
Rock music's roots took hold in the 60s.
That generation's stars were the ones who influenced the first top 40s with their 45s.
They will forever be part of the history of rock and roll.
I'm Bob Serrat.
You're about to see three legendary hit makers of the 60s
and hear the stories behind their songs.
[Eb] _ Donovan, [Ab] the Scottish folk rocker whose guitar playing influenced John Lennon.
He turned the Beatles on to the Maharishi, or as he called them, the hurdy-gurdy man.
_ [G] _ _ [Eb] _ _
Gene [G] _ _ Pitney.
Not only did he have more than [Dm] 20 singles on the charts,
he wrote the [Bb] rock classics Hello Mary [Dm] Lou, He's a Rebel, and Rubber Ball.
_ _ [C] _ _ _ [N] _ _
But we'll begin with Leslie Gore.
She would become one of the first female singers to write her own songs.
Record producer Quincy Jones heard her demo disc of a song about a teenager's independence.
He liked the 16-year-old's voice.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
We went into the studio at 2 o'clock in the afternoon
and came out at 5 o'clock on budget, on time, with three songs cut and mixed.
Now that's unheard of today.
I read somewhere that originally It's My Party was going to have—
I'm not a musician, so I'll use the layman's term, but
originally it was like six or seven downbeats before you would begin singing.
And then you listen to the record today and it's like boom, boom, and you're singing.
Klaus Ogerman, who's an absolutely fantastic arranger, did the arrangements to the song.
[Db] And we ran It's My [G] Party first.
And I believe his intro went something like
_ _ _ _ And then I was supposed to [G] start.
Quincy immediately came in, and I understood the importance of a producer, and said,
too much wasted space, let's just do
_ [E] _ And that really taught me a lot [Eb] about making pop records.
[Ab] _ _ _ _ _ [Db] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Eb] Can you remember what it was like the first time you heard your first hit, It's My Party, on the radio?
I was coming home from school.
It was a Friday afternoon.
I was driving my own car, living in New [Ab] Jersey at the time, so I was able to drive.
And [Abm] a record went on the air on WINS, [Eb] which is now All Talk.
[E] In New York.
In New York.
And [Abm] it [Bb] sounded like my record, [Eb] but I really wasn't sure.
How [N] could you think even for a second, this isn't me?
Because I never knew it was going to be released that quickly.
I had no idea.
I mean, I just heard it on the radio by chance.
The night that we had recorded It's My Party, that afternoon we had recorded,
that evening, he had gone to Carnegie Hall because Charles Aznavour was performing.
And Quincy was, I think, vice president in charge of A&R of Mercury.
So he was going kind of as a representative to the company.
And he was standing on the steps of Carnegie Hall, beautiful, beautiful evening.
And Phil Spector jumps out of his limousine and flies up the stairs with the cape and the red lining and the whole thing,
and says to Quincy, Quincy, I'm cutting a song that's the most incredible thing I've ever cut.
I'm doing it with the Crystals, who were just coming off of Doo-Doo Run Run.
And Quincy said, what's the name of the song?
And Phil said, it's called It's My Party.
So if they didn't act quickly, It's My Party could have been_
Would have come out with the Crystals.
Yeah.
And you would have been sitting here talking to three women instead of me.
Did you ever find out, by the way, was there ever a party where Johnny and Judy had got together?
I'm actually still researching this, Bob.
Yeah, because we're not sure.
There have been so many rumors about these two, you know.
I often think if Judy and Johnny were around today, who would they be?
And all I can think is they might be Crystal and Blake Carrington.
[D] _ _ _
_ _ [Bm] _ _ _ _ [G] _ _
[A] _ _ [D] I frankly thought it was kind of nerdy to put out a sequel.
But the [Bm] record company was really making all the moves.
Here I was, 16, with one record out.
[G] They weren't exactly asking [D] me what I thought the next single should be.
So I had no input. _
_ _ _ _ _ [Bm] _ _ _
_ _ [A] _ _ _ [D] _ _ [G]
1964, the record that you do and you have great success with, now is looked at by some feminists as maybe the first sort of, you know, rock hit where the woman was [G] saying, I'm not dependent.
I'm independent.
[Gm] _ _ You [Cm] don't know me.
[D] Two guys wrote the song, which is why I never [G] actually thought of it as a feminist song.
I kind of thought of it as a humanist [D] song, but I love the message.
It was something that [G] came out of my mouth very easily. _ _ _ _
_ _ [Em] _ _ _ _ _ [C] _
_ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _
[Gm] You once said in an interview, anyone who [Eb] thinks I could retire and buy a house in the south of France is badly mistaken.
_ Why are we [G] mistaken about this?
Because you had seven top 20 singles in, what, a couple of years?
And you appear in movies and you're on television.
So I think there's this impression that you made a lot of money.
In 1967, when Mercury let me go, I was in debt to them to what they claimed was $175,000.
It took 25 years for me to ever see a penny from Mercury.
I didn't see money from Mercury [A] until 1989.
That's incredible.
And I'm one of the lucky ones.
By the way, this is something that I have to ask you.
Is it true that your classic flip, they call it flip hairdo of the 60s, [E] even withstood the winds of Chicago?
Oh, it did.
As a matter of fact, my body would be parallel to the sidewalk, but my hair was always perfectly configured.
Talk about what you've been doing the past 10 or 15 years.
I had the good fortune of working with my brother Michael on the film Fame, [G] which we wrote out here on my own.
And that was a real good shot in the arm in terms of starting a new [Bm] writing career.
[G] Oh, that rising star [Am] to guide me far [G] _ and shine me [C] home.
How do you want [D] _ _ [C] _
[D] to [N] keep performing?
Do I get that little house in the south of France?
No, I'm too real.
Exactly.
I want to because it's the best part of the whole thing.
I mean, it's always great to talk to people and meet fans and [Abm] that, but performing [F] is what it's all about.
So I think at the [Ab] point where I don't think I sound good anymore, I'm too fat to get into [Eb] my clothes.
I don't know what it'll be, but something will tap me
That generation's stars were the ones who influenced the first top 40s with their 45s.
They will forever be part of the history of rock and roll.
I'm Bob Serrat.
You're about to see three legendary hit makers of the 60s
and hear the stories behind their songs.
[Eb] _ Donovan, [Ab] the Scottish folk rocker whose guitar playing influenced John Lennon.
He turned the Beatles on to the Maharishi, or as he called them, the hurdy-gurdy man.
_ [G] _ _ [Eb] _ _
Gene [G] _ _ Pitney.
Not only did he have more than [Dm] 20 singles on the charts,
he wrote the [Bb] rock classics Hello Mary [Dm] Lou, He's a Rebel, and Rubber Ball.
_ _ [C] _ _ _ [N] _ _
But we'll begin with Leslie Gore.
She would become one of the first female singers to write her own songs.
Record producer Quincy Jones heard her demo disc of a song about a teenager's independence.
He liked the 16-year-old's voice.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
We went into the studio at 2 o'clock in the afternoon
and came out at 5 o'clock on budget, on time, with three songs cut and mixed.
Now that's unheard of today.
I read somewhere that originally It's My Party was going to have—
I'm not a musician, so I'll use the layman's term, but
originally it was like six or seven downbeats before you would begin singing.
And then you listen to the record today and it's like boom, boom, and you're singing.
Klaus Ogerman, who's an absolutely fantastic arranger, did the arrangements to the song.
[Db] And we ran It's My [G] Party first.
And I believe his intro went something like
_ _ _ _ And then I was supposed to [G] start.
Quincy immediately came in, and I understood the importance of a producer, and said,
too much wasted space, let's just do
_ [E] _ And that really taught me a lot [Eb] about making pop records.
[Ab] _ _ _ _ _ [Db] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Eb] Can you remember what it was like the first time you heard your first hit, It's My Party, on the radio?
I was coming home from school.
It was a Friday afternoon.
I was driving my own car, living in New [Ab] Jersey at the time, so I was able to drive.
And [Abm] a record went on the air on WINS, [Eb] which is now All Talk.
[E] In New York.
In New York.
And [Abm] it [Bb] sounded like my record, [Eb] but I really wasn't sure.
How [N] could you think even for a second, this isn't me?
Because I never knew it was going to be released that quickly.
I had no idea.
I mean, I just heard it on the radio by chance.
The night that we had recorded It's My Party, that afternoon we had recorded,
that evening, he had gone to Carnegie Hall because Charles Aznavour was performing.
And Quincy was, I think, vice president in charge of A&R of Mercury.
So he was going kind of as a representative to the company.
And he was standing on the steps of Carnegie Hall, beautiful, beautiful evening.
And Phil Spector jumps out of his limousine and flies up the stairs with the cape and the red lining and the whole thing,
and says to Quincy, Quincy, I'm cutting a song that's the most incredible thing I've ever cut.
I'm doing it with the Crystals, who were just coming off of Doo-Doo Run Run.
And Quincy said, what's the name of the song?
And Phil said, it's called It's My Party.
So if they didn't act quickly, It's My Party could have been_
Would have come out with the Crystals.
Yeah.
And you would have been sitting here talking to three women instead of me.
Did you ever find out, by the way, was there ever a party where Johnny and Judy had got together?
I'm actually still researching this, Bob.
Yeah, because we're not sure.
There have been so many rumors about these two, you know.
I often think if Judy and Johnny were around today, who would they be?
And all I can think is they might be Crystal and Blake Carrington.
[D] _ _ _
_ _ [Bm] _ _ _ _ [G] _ _
[A] _ _ [D] I frankly thought it was kind of nerdy to put out a sequel.
But the [Bm] record company was really making all the moves.
Here I was, 16, with one record out.
[G] They weren't exactly asking [D] me what I thought the next single should be.
So I had no input. _
_ _ _ _ _ [Bm] _ _ _
_ _ [A] _ _ _ [D] _ _ [G]
1964, the record that you do and you have great success with, now is looked at by some feminists as maybe the first sort of, you know, rock hit where the woman was [G] saying, I'm not dependent.
I'm independent.
[Gm] _ _ You [Cm] don't know me.
[D] Two guys wrote the song, which is why I never [G] actually thought of it as a feminist song.
I kind of thought of it as a humanist [D] song, but I love the message.
It was something that [G] came out of my mouth very easily. _ _ _ _
_ _ [Em] _ _ _ _ _ [C] _
_ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _
[Gm] You once said in an interview, anyone who [Eb] thinks I could retire and buy a house in the south of France is badly mistaken.
_ Why are we [G] mistaken about this?
Because you had seven top 20 singles in, what, a couple of years?
And you appear in movies and you're on television.
So I think there's this impression that you made a lot of money.
In 1967, when Mercury let me go, I was in debt to them to what they claimed was $175,000.
It took 25 years for me to ever see a penny from Mercury.
I didn't see money from Mercury [A] until 1989.
That's incredible.
And I'm one of the lucky ones.
By the way, this is something that I have to ask you.
Is it true that your classic flip, they call it flip hairdo of the 60s, [E] even withstood the winds of Chicago?
Oh, it did.
As a matter of fact, my body would be parallel to the sidewalk, but my hair was always perfectly configured.
Talk about what you've been doing the past 10 or 15 years.
I had the good fortune of working with my brother Michael on the film Fame, [G] which we wrote out here on my own.
And that was a real good shot in the arm in terms of starting a new [Bm] writing career.
[G] Oh, that rising star [Am] to guide me far [G] _ and shine me [C] home.
How do you want [D] _ _ [C] _
[D] to [N] keep performing?
Do I get that little house in the south of France?
No, I'm too real.
Exactly.
I want to because it's the best part of the whole thing.
I mean, it's always great to talk to people and meet fans and [Abm] that, but performing [F] is what it's all about.
So I think at the [Ab] point where I don't think I sound good anymore, I'm too fat to get into [Eb] my clothes.
I don't know what it'll be, but something will tap me