FROM Calendar Girl and Oh Carol to (Is This The Way To) Amarillo and Laughter In The Rain, Neil Sedaka has written some of the best known, and loved, songs of the past 50 years.
He’s appearing at Gateshead’s Sage on September 10 and Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall on September 12. A new album, I Do It For Applause, comes out next month.
Who is first to hear a song you’ve just written?
My family, to ensure it doesn’t sound like something else. Billy Joel says he felt he’d written the best song of his life until his band heard it for the first time. They told him he’d just written my song Laughter In The Rain again. It happens.
How have you remained at the top for so long?
I’ve had lots of ups and downs but I’m a survivor. I reinvent myself, otherwise it would be the same thing over and over for nearly 60 years.
Amarillo must be your pension?
I got an award for the best-selling single of the century for that one. Tony Christie had a hit with it, then Peter Kay. It wasn’t a hit in America, so folk in Amarillo,Texas don’t know it.
Do you prefer your version or Tony Christie’s?
Tony Christie’s was much better – I admit it.
Do you ever just write nonsense lyrics?
Oh yes. My song Dimbo Man is gibberish but works very well. I even changed Love Will Keep Us Together to Lunch Will Keep Us Together for my grand kids. You can’t take yourself too seriously.
Does writing songs get harder or easier?
Harder, because you have to get out of your comfort zone and take a chance. You have to be able to better yourself.
Have you hated any covers of your songs?
Some don’t do the work justice, but with everyone from Abba to Elvis and Sinatra doing my songs I’m very blessed. The good singers do it right.
Will your songs live on after you’ve gone?
They’ll be alive through my children and grandchildren, then 70 years after my death they become public domain. Everyone wants their spirit to live on in some form of immortality.
“Strong hands. Where did you learn to do that?”
Wow! How did you find that line? It’s a quote from a terrible movie I made. A girl says it as I rub sun oil on her. It was voted one of the all time 10 worst films with a singer in it. I had a very short movie career (laughs).
You have 24 hours left to live. How do you spend it?
I trained as a classical musician so I’d spend my last day trying to write a better symphony than anything written by Gustav Mahler. He was a genius, on a different planet, so that’s my last wish.
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