This is a rare and in-depth interview with Arthur Hamilton, legendary songwriter of the standard “Cry Me a River,” along with other songs like “She Needs Me,” “Sing a Rainbow,” and “Rain Sometimes.” Recorded in May of 2016, this interview was originally broadcast on the radio. Hamilton’s songs have been recorded by the likes of Julie London, Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra, Jr., Barbra Streisand, Diana Krall, Andy Williams, Bobby Darin, Nina Simone, Bette Midler, Marvin Gaye, Shirley Horn and countless others. It’s a great interview from a master songwriter! It’s here on The Paul Leslie Hour.
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Arthur Hamilton Interview Transcript
Introduction to Arthur Hamilton
Paul Leslie: Well, ladies and gentlemen, the man we’re speaking with is songwriter Arthur Hamilton. It is a great pleasure to welcome him here. Thank you so much for making the time to do this.
Arthur Hamilton: My pleasure to be here.
Daily Routine and Songwriting Habits
Well, tell me, today is a day in May, what was the first thing you did this morning?
Arthur Hamilton: Oh boy, the first thing I did was brush my teeth.
Are you a creature of habit?
Arthur Hamilton: Very much.
Do you continue to write songs?
Arthur Hamilton: Absolutely.
Do you write songs every day?
Arthur Hamilton: Well, I’m working on something every day, but I don’t actually write and finish a song every day. But I’m always working on one or another, more than one at the same time.
Family Background and Musical Influence
Take us back a little bit. I was hoping you could tell us a little bit about your family.
Arthur Hamilton: I was very fortunate in having musical parents. My mother was a singer with the Schubert’s on the stage in New York, and my father was a song player working for Irving Berlin for 21 years in New York. He came out here and headed the office on the West Coast and made a name for himself as a songwriter for films, and wrote a big song and a big score for a film called Folly’s Peugeur starring Maurice Chevalier and Royal Oberon and Ann Sothern, but that was in 1936, and he wrote a lot of other things. There were always at least two or three pianos in the house at all times, and there was no other place for me to go except for the piano. And I went there. It was a marvelous education to be the son of two people who spoke music. They just spoke and lived music. My mother played piano as well. My father was a wonderful keyboard player, much better than I, and so there was music everywhere.
What else did you do?
Arthur Hamilton: Songplugger for Irving Berlin.
Did you ever meet Irving Berlin?
Arthur Hamilton: I never did. I was in New York but not at the right time to meet him. I had great regard for him. I know a lot about him from my father and from other people. His model was an energetic, focused writer. He wrote a lot more than I ever wrote. He probably wrote a song a day and just wrote it, put it aside, wrote another one, put it aside, and it was just kind of a machine. It was terrific and brilliant. So we all learned from him. I think one of the things is, speaking generally, is that all songwriters learn from each other. I studied, by studying, I mean, I looked at the music copies and listened to the songs of Richard Rodgers and Jerome Kern and George Gershwin. Those people were my mentors. And some years later, I was lucky enough to sit at the table of the board of ASCAP and sit next to Harold Arlen and sit next to Richard Rodgers and others on Great Fang. It was such a wonderful education because I had known their work, and it had gone into my head and heart, and you use those things, yet we learn from the music around us, just as people do today.
The Great American Songbook
The names you listed there, a lot of the songwriters of what we call now the Great American Songbook. What do you think it is that led to the songs that these people wrote—Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen—all these people? Why do you think the quality was so out of sight?
Arthur Hamilton: Well, again, I think they all learned from each other but in different ways. Irving Berlin’s history was from the streets in New York City, and he spoke the language of the street when he started. He was not a brilliantly educated person; he didn’t spend a lot of time at college or anything like that. Rodgers and Hart met in college, Jerome Kern was a college student, many of the others were well-educated in the formal sense. But they all had that drive in common to do better than before, and they all went to each other’s shows, theater shows, and they would say, “Oh, I could do better than that, and I could do that better, and I could write something better,” and it spurred them on. I think it happens with the generation, and the people today are annihilating that kind of music that they hear around them, and you don’t hear as many of the standard songs that we, of the Great American Songbook, you don’t hear as many of those today. And that’s sad to me, but that’s the way it is. It’s a change in style and shape and intention of the songs.
Influences and Mentors
Is there a songwriter that you could say has had the greatest influence on you?
Arthur Hamilton: Well, all of the above, but certainly I want to include Johnny Mercer. I knew him well, and he was a sweet heart of a man, and brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, and a great technician, equal to the others we’re talking about, the Gershwins and Cole Porter. But, you know, we should spend an hour talking about Cole Porter. His brilliance of melody and lyric is astounding. And, you know, way ahead of his time when he was there, then still we’re ahead of his time today. But, you know, there’s no place to go and learn how to write songs. I was involved in teaching at UCLA for some time, and I used to tell the students, “You’re not here to learn how to write songs. Your heart will tell you that. You’ve got a keyboard, you’ve got a guitar, whatever you want to do with it, but it’s what you hear rolling around inside you and what you feel you can write down. If it makes sense to you, maybe it’ll make sense to somebody else.”
So you write very much from the heart?
Arthur Hamilton: Yeah, and from, gee, it’s not all heart. I mean, a lot of it is what you have stored up in your memory. I know so many songs and lyrics of music of other people, and that has been my library of going through and comparing and back and forth. I never have copied anything anybody else did, at least knowingly, but it’s all been in there.
Bobby Short and Early Inspirations
One of the great influences of my life is the singer Bobby Short. Bobby Short was an African-American and a dear friend of mine from the time I was 19 years old. He used to play piano in Beverly Hills, and I used to go hear him and order a Coke, because they, a Coca-Cola, because they wouldn’t serve me any liquor in their workplace. I would sit there and listen to him. He was a walking library of the great songs, and I told people many times, “I never went to college, I went to Bobby Short” because he was incredible. He passed away not too long ago, but we were dear friends up until that time.
Is it true that Bobby Short would play one of your songs whenever you walked into the Carlyle?
Arthur Hamilton: Well, that’s interesting, that’s true that he did. I had given him some songs when I was so very young, and I didn’t think that he had remembered any of them, but when I would walk in, invariably he would play one or another of those songs that I had written earlier, where sometimes the verses of the songs were longer than the chorus, and I’ve since then come and cut down the length of those verses and, in most cases, cut out the verse entirely.
Learning to Write Songs
How did you learn you could write songs?
Arthur Hamilton: Well, you know, my father was writing all the time, and so I heard him pounding the piano, and then I heard him playing songs in the living room with his collaborators. He only wrote music; he didn’t write lyrics. But my mother wrote lyrics a little bit, and she was very good at it. I would hear all that music. When I was, I guess I had studied piano, and I remember when I was 14, I told my mother I didn’t want to study piano anymore. She said, “What do you want to do?” I said, “I just don’t want to play Chopin, I want to play me.” So I started this. I spent as much time at the piano as I did before studying other people’s music, but I just played stuff. I taught myself how to play what is like a cocktail piano. I’m not a great keyboard player, but I learned how to play a little bit in different keys, and it helped me express myself, and I would find my lyrical ideas, and began doing that from a time like 15, 16, 17, and at night, and more and more. I wasn’t making any money. I had a whole bunch of songs, and my father was helping me make lead sheets of the songs, and I learned how to make lead sheets from him. The last job I held was working as a delivery boy for a drug store, and I used to write songs on the back of prescription blanks while I was delivering those drugs. But the interesting thing I’d like to stress is that I never considered myself a delivery boy. I was writing songs. I didn’t give in to, “Well, I got to get this kind of job and that kind of job.” I never had too many jobs. I taught driving for a while, but the drug store thing was about for almost two years.
So you considered yourself a songwriter before that?
Arthur Hamilton: Oh, yeah. It was so much a part of you. Yes, absolutely. I’ve never done anything worthwhile, I don’t think, in the business world, because I didn’t care about it. We do what we feel inclined to do. The joy of ideas, both musical and lyrical, they never lost their fascination for me and continue to this day.
First Recorded Song and Career Beginnings
We’re talking with songwriter Arthur Hamilton. What was the first song you wrote that was recorded by someone?
Arthur Hamilton: Yeah, I think it was a song Herb Jeffries recorded. I can’t remember the title offhand because I’m trying to comment, but I can’t remember. It was a long, long time ago, and I had spotty records of different songs that never achieved any distinction, and nothing big, but that was probably when I was 20 or 22 when that happened. But it didn’t keep me from delivering drugs. I think my first ASCAP check was for eight dollars. I joined ASCAP because my father was a member of ASCAP, but I used to go to those general membership meetings with him out here. And then later, luckily, I went on the board myself on the ASCAP board. One thing leads to another. I was never interested in business politics or stuff, but I had been fortunate to represent other writers, and I did so as a member of the Motion Picture Academy board for a number of years, and I was head of the music branch. So there it was, dealing with a whole bunch of talented, very talented, and opinionated composers and lyricists.
Collaborations and Lyric Writing
Well, on that note, what songwriter that you’ve worked with would you say was the most talented?
Arthur Hamilton: Well, I couldn’t put it that way, because they’re all different talents. I’ve worked with Pat Williams, who was a brilliant writer, and with Johnny Mandel, who is legendary, with “Shadow of Your Smile” and many other things. I couldn’t say anybody was more brilliant than the rest because each of them had the same kind of commitment that I have, and that made us work together with each other. I never worked with anybody I had any problems with. The only time I ever had any problems with anybody was somebody who was not well-known and totally unsure of himself, but didn’t have a collaborative frame of mind. The people that I mentioned, Johnny Mandel and those people, they would sit down and listen to their own music and then listen to what I had put there as a collaborator. We would talk about it, not in a critical sense, but in just an analytical sense. I would talk about their melodies, and we’d talk about the lyrics and the song. The song became something we both were stirring in the kettle. And out of it came some nice things. Jerry Fielding was somebody else I worked with a lot. For the first 10 or 12 years in my life as a writer, I wrote the words and music myself, and then I began to get phone calls from other composers and motion picture producers and television producers asking me if I would write lyrics for other music, and I was lucky that I was able to separate my two talents and that I could sit down and listen to a John Mandel there and say, “Oh yeah, I can go there.” I didn’t have to comment on it, make suggestions or anything. I let them be responsible for the music, and I was responsible for the words.
Do you enjoy the lyric writing more?
Arthur Hamilton: No. If I had a choice, I probably would just write all by myself, but I love the collaborative feeling as well. I like the company, and I like writing with people, so I can’t say I’d like it less. But it’s in a sense more satisfying to sit down and write something all by itself, but I don’t have any ego driving about it. The only thing I have to amend this is I have never written music for somebody else’s lyric. I’m always in charge of a lyric.
Did you ever write with Michel Legrand?
Arthur Hamilton: One song, I think. I can’t remember the name of it. Somebody brought me the idea for a song, and they had started the words, and they asked me to collaborate with them with two other guys, and Michel was one of them. I wasn’t involved personally with Michel, but he had laid out the melody. It was a pretty thing. I don’t know what was recorded, but I don’t know about them.
Iconic Songs and Their Impact
Would it be possible for you to pick the best interpretation of a song that you wrote?
Arthur Hamilton: Well, you know, that’s a very good question, and everything is so subjective, isn’t it? Certainly, Julie London’s record, “Cry Me a River,” was wonderful. It was soft and sexy, and all the good things. When I first heard it, I thought it was too quiet and soft and that it would be overlooked. I was sure surprised. Hundreds of people at this moment, and Barbra Streisand, look, she’s done it three or four times for albums. Her version is entirely different from Julie’s, and each of those singers has an attitude toward singing and toward that particular song, different from the others. I would never be able to pick the best one. Ella Fitzgerald’s record was wonderful. It was just a joy to know that all those people were involved in this song and liked it. It’s really incredible when you just look at the list, let alone when you start to listen to all the different versions.
Exactly. Michael Bublé, Frank Sinatra Jr., of course, the Julie London recording. That song, it just seems to be magical. What do you think it is about the song that so many singers have identified with?
Arthur Hamilton: It expresses a feeling that most of us feel sometimes in a failed relationship or failed moments of a relationship. There was a song years before, “I Cried for You.” “I cried for you, now it’s your turn to cry over me.” The idea has been there, and “I cried for you, now it’s your turn to cry over me,” is essentially what “Cry Me a River” is. So maybe it’s part of the melody, it’s part of the constant version of the phrase in there. When I wrote down the title, I looked at it and said, “Oh, come on.” I wrote down “Crimea River.” I said, “Wait a minute. People are not going to like that, or they’re going to laugh at that because it’s too much like the Crimea in Europe.” So I wrote that down. I kept it on a piece of paper in my desk for a year. But then one day, I was at the piano, and I was messing around, and I hit those notes: Now you say you love me, well, just to prove you do. Come on and cry me a river, cry me a river, cry me a river. When I did that, which took me like five minutes to do, I said, “I got a song here.” I had justified using that title. I guess I repeated “Cry Me a River, Cry Me a River” so many times that I forgot about the Crimea, and it became a thing of itself. That’s the way the song built for me. And then, for other people, they heard that, they heard what I did, and it meant something to them. I had had sad experiences in relationships, and it was partly that you draw on those, you know, and there was a rage and hysteria that you feel and hurt feelings when you’re rejected when it doesn’t turn out the way you want. So that expresses something in a way that it hasn’t been expressed before. I don’t know why the song didn’t just ride for a year and a half and just stay there and disappear. I don’t know.
There’s something magical about the song. I kind of agree. What is the greatest compliment you’ve gotten as a songwriter?
Arthur Hamilton: Somebody showed me a telegram that the singer had received from Alec Wilder, a wonderful writer, and he had heard an album that the girl had recorded, and he sent her a letter, and he just sent Arthur Hamilton live songs the way they should be written, and it was a wonderful life. I saved up that telegram. That’s really well put, you know, gets to the point. It was wonderful coming from him. He wrote words and music and lots of music. He was just a very talented guy. I never met him. I cut through music, you know, in this way, but how nice that was. Other people have said nice things to me about my work, and it’s a joy to be respected by people you respect.
The Legacy of a Standard
How does it feel when you know that a song that you wrote has become a standard?
Arthur Hamilton: Well, it feels, I think, surprising. You look back and say, “Did I do that?” We’re not in charge of the history of a song. Once it’s written, it either achieves flight or it doesn’t. Some of them have a very short flight and they disappear. In the music business, there’s always a lot of people to blame. You can say, “Well, the arranger screwed up behind the center of the airplane.” All I know is I reduce it to when I sit down to write something. I don’t think about any of the songs at all. I don’t think about anything except the phrase I use when I’m writing something is I have to go there. I have to be the voice of the person who’s having the problem. And I’m expressing that, that kind of feeling. It’s not Arthur Hamilton saying this. It’s the character for whom I’m writing the character of the song.
Inspiration Behind “Sing a Rainbow”
I wanted to also ask you about one of your songs. I hope you can tell us about the inspiration behind Sing a Rainbow.
Arthur Hamilton: Oh, Sing a Rainbow? Well, I was thinking of that when you talked about the previous question. Sing a Rainbow has an interesting history. I had been familiar with Peggy Lee. I had been a great admirer of hers and knew her. She recorded a song a month called Bouquet of Blues, and we were friends. She went up to open a club in Las Vegas, and I wanted to send her a telegram. I couldn’t get there, and I just wanted to send her a telegram about what do you say to Peggy Lee who was a big star? And she’s opening at the Sands Hotel in Vegas. I was taking a shower, and I suddenly thought of what I should say. I turned off the shower, right after I sent the telegram, and the telegram was “Sing a Rainbow.” And she called me four o’clock in the morning, and she said, “Oh my god, I got that wonderful wire. It’s Sing a Rainbow, and it’s just, ah, this is great.” So I said, “Well, you know, consider it yours. Which of us is going to write that song? You know, or maybe we could do it together.” She said, “Oh, no, no, no. It’s yours. It’s yours. It’s yours.” Nothing happened for a year. But she was hired by Jack Webb to be in the film Pete Kelly’s Blues.
And Jack asked me to write a ballad for Peggy to sing in that film. And Jack called me and said, “We need it.” It’s a song that she sings in that sanitarium. She’s a drinker and a sailor but a little folly up bad times. And so like something that she’s singing, she’s holding a doll in her arms, and she’s trick-railing it as if it’s her own baby. So I sat down and I wrote four or five songs, and I wasn’t happy with them. And all of a sudden I remembered that wire I had sent Peggy. And I said, “Gee, so I thought what a rainbow would be nice, so I started red and yellow and pink and green, purple and orange and blue. I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow too.” So I wrote that song. And it was so simple. I was almost embarrassed to show it to Jack when I played it for him, and he said, “That’s it.” I said, “Fine.” So then I was, I had a cold the day that they played the song for Peggy, and Jack was in the room, and Peggy and Ray Heindorf, the arranger of the music for the film, and Jack called me that night. He said, “The most amazing thing,” he said. She cried. She started to cry once. She was listening to that song. I said, “Well, that’s nice.” And I never told them that that was why. Probably she connected that with the telegram. And so at the cast party, when the film was finished, she gave me a wallet. And the wallet had a little note in there, it said, “Thanks a rainbow.” That’s the whole story.
Advice for Aspiring Songwriters
I know there’s someone listening to this who has been trying to get their songs recorded or maybe someone who has been pursuing another profession and they’re just discouraged. They’ve been trying so hard. What would you say to that person out there that’s been at it for years and they’re not giving up?
Arthur Hamilton: Well, what they’re doing is absolutely the right thing. The thing we have to do is don’t count the time that’s passing. It’s nothing. It’s put your head down and write and write and write and write. That’s all I do. I mean, I don’t even know what my batting average is, but I’m sure it’s pretty low as far as successes of each individual song. I’m probably like 50 hundred songs a year. And I don’t know whether I made $1,000 from this song, $3,000 from that, or nothing from that song, and some of the songs that are nothing, I like the most. That’s because once you have a song done, you finish the song, then it’s only in other people’s hands. So the arranger, the performer, you know, the singer, and a song can be either made or spoiled by somebody else’s hands, and that’s one of the things that, like Quincy Jones, is wonderful doing what he does. His brilliance is generally in the control room. He knows when the song is done, when it’s finished, and when it’s been recorded. It’s in there in the studio, and that is his greatest asset. I’m not of a producer mind. I’ve never even wanted to produce somebody else singing. But that’s why I’m saying it’s so easy for a writer to say, “Look, I don’t do anything but write. I’m writing. Don’t bother me. I got an idea for a song. I got to put it aside, look. But maybe you’ll try to record it, try to get it recorded, do a demo of it, do a tape of it, do something with it, and then play it for somebody else. And then if that other person gets goosebumps or whatever it is, enthusiastic about it, fine. If they’re not, and you still believe in the song, those people are wrong.
You’re right. I still believe in songs that people have said, “I don’t, I just don’t hear the song,” and I just take the song up and put it back in my pocket and say, “No problem, thank you very much.” And luckily sometimes I’ve taken that song a week later to somebody else, and they said, “Oh, I’m so glad you came in. We’re going to do this song day after tomorrow.” You never know. But your trust is not to be critical of the success of a song, of the path it takes. It’s what you do is it’s involved with you and the song itself. Just make those words and that music the best they can be to say the message that you want to say in whatever way you choose to say it, and the way I judge it is there’s a feeling of completion when I’m working on a song, when I’m writing with somebody else alone. I know when that song is done, but at least it’s done as far as I’m concerned. It’s of the expression has been made, and I’ve done it as clearly as possible, and it’s right. And then I’m able to put it aside. If I don’t have that feeling, I don’t put this all aside. I work on it and work on it until. But I’m pretty organized as far as my thoughts are concerned, and I’m able to complete songs enough so that I can keep the train going.
Underrated Gems
Is there a song that you can name of yours that you feel was a great song that just didn’t make it?
Arthur Hamilton: Oh, sure. There’s a song that I had that’s been recorded maybe several times. And it’s, I think, it says exactly what I needed to say. And it’s a song called Rain Sometimes. It’s been recorded by Peggy Lee, Matt Monro, and a bunch of other people. But it hasn’t had that magical rendition that made it into a standard or anything like that, but it really expresses the dilemma, both the good and bad of a personal relationship. And it’s like, I don’t know, I remember it’s just a rain sometimes, money down the drain sometimes, reason to complain sometimes. That’s how it’ll be.
That’s the first eight bars anyway. But the bridge, but there’ll be champagne sometimes, lobster flown from Maine sometimes. We’ll ride high at it sometimes, just you wait and see, and then it goes back to the original melody. We may be stranded in the rain sometimes, lose more than we gain sometimes. I can’t remember the last thing. Anyway, but love is not for sometimes, love is for all times, for all times for you and me. But that says all you need to know about a relationship, I think, and I didn’t need to change any of the words. And the music is fine, and it’s very, you know, if somebody wants to record the song, I didn’t get to do it for like a year, because it’s done by a lot of singers in nightclubs.
The Role of Love in Songwriting
What would you say the importance of love is to your work?
Arthur Hamilton: I think it’s essential. I mean, love, love of the work, of the concentration of it, and also I think it’s probably 90% of the songs are about the human condition and the relationship between people. That’s a look at all songs, you know, all songs, probably 90% of songs are about human relationships. That’s why it’s very important. Love is what makes it all happen.
Reflecting on a Life in Music
If you had to describe your life, the life of Arthur Hamilton, how would you do that? What would you say?
Arthur Hamilton: Well, it’s a work in progress. I’m still doing my best. I’m working on a musical with the wonderful songwriter, Charlie Fox, who wrote Killing Me Softly and many other things, and we’re doing it for them, trying to write a Broadway show. And that’s work that I love because you’re not writing for people hoping that you’re going to kind of make a hit record. You’re just writing songs for the stage and for the audience, so it’s a little bit different. It’s a wonderful challenge.
Who is Arthur Hamilton?
Arthur Hamilton: That’s a nice question. I like that question. Thank you. Well, I’m still finding out. I’m still finding out. I’m still looking for Arthur Hamilton. I’ve started on that road, and I’m going to stay on that road, but I’m personally committed to what he does and enjoying every minute of it, even the down times, because writing saves me from any kind of other pain. So I really hide there, and I love it.
Closing Remarks
Mr. Hamilton, I thank you very much for your time and for sharing with us.
Arthur Hamilton: Sure. My pleasure. It was great talking with you. I thank you for spending the time to ask me. I look forward to talking with you again.
Yeah, I hope so. Thank you for putting up with my persistence.
Arthur Hamilton: Oh, not at all. That’s lovely. I love it. And I hope we talk in the future.
Indeed. Well have a good day, sir.
Thank you so much.
All right. Hope our paths cross again.
Talk to you later. Okay, you betcha. Thank you. I enjoyed it.
All right. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
