I sat with
Steve Lawrence and
Eydie Gorme in a makeshift hotel bar in Omaha Nebraska
and I asked Steve about their cover of
Soundgarden’s
Black Hole Sun on the
Lounge-A-Palooza album.
He had this to say:
“Well, we get a call asking if we wanna do this thing,
and so I say “sure, what the hell?”.
We go down to this studio and this kid is there, and he’s got hair down to his ass,
tattoos all over his arms, and metal gleaming from every piece of his face he could think to punch holes in,
and he’s gonna do the orchestral arrangement… and I’m thinkin
“Jezus Christ”
but we listen to what he’s got already,
and my GOD this kids got a set of ears on him.
Just fantastic.
So I’m lookin at the words to this song, and I ask the kid,
“You got any idea what the fuck these words are about?
See Frank taught me that in order to really nail a song, you got to spend some time on interpretation,
you gotta know what the hell your singin about before you can make it your own.
I’m lookin at these words and… What the Hell? Ya know?”
The kid just shrugs his shoulders and says;
“I don’t know WHAT the fuck this song is supposed to be about,
your guess is as good as mine.”
So I did what I could with it.
The kids love it.”
Steve looks me in the eye and squints a bit…
“How old are you kid?”
I’m
25, sir.
“25?!? Christ, I got socks older than you!”