Read Colored Lights: Forty Years of Words and Music, Show Biz, Collaboration, and All That Jazz for Free Online

under your arm. It wasn’t like you had brought me roses, but I thought that was rather nice. Then we sat and talked for a while about writing music. I liked you immediately and I had a hunch that you would be good for me. That was in 1962, and there was a musical called Take Her, She’s Mine . We decided just as an exercise to see whether we liked each other and whether our tastes matched to write the title song, “Take Her, She’s Mine.”
    KANDER: Tommy pushed us to do that. It was almost like an assignment. But we didn’t get the show.
    EBB: Nobody put the song in the show or played it. I don’t think anybody ever heard it. But we still know it. I could sing it for you this very minute:
     
    I’ve known her all her life,
    Take her, she’s mine.
    A child, a girl, a wife,
    Take her, she’s mine.
    The day comes when
    The lamb leaves the fold.
    It’s part of an old design,
    And so I smile and bow,
    That’s how it must be,
    Take her from me, she’s mine.
     
    Not a terribly impressive piece, but that was how we started on that first day together. It was a case of instant communication and instant songs. Our neuroses complemented each other, and because we worked in the same room at the same time, I didn’t have to finish a lyric, then hand it over to you to compose it. A short time later we wrote a comic song called “Sara Lee” for my friend Kaye Ballard, about one of our favorite culinary delights. I remember one day when we were first writing, I told you that I had a terrific idea for a piece of special material with a comic premise about a coloring book. We had been writing songs mostly in a humorous vein, and after hearing me out, you said, “I have to tell you something. I think we’re writing too much comic material and it’s gotten to the point where all you can do is try to think funny. Why don’t we treat this new idea of yours seriously and write a ballad instead.” Sometimes it seems to me that all the good ballad ideas have been taken. How many ways can you say, “I love you?” But our first romantic ballad was “My Coloring Book”:
     
    In case you fancy coloring books,
(And lots of people do),
I’ve a new one for you.
A most unusual coloring book,
The kind you never see,
Crayons ready?
Very well, begin to color me.
     
    These are the eyes that watched him as he walked away.
Color them grey.
This is the heart that thought he would always be true.
    Color it blue.
These are the arms that held him and touched him,
Then lost him somehow.
Color them empty now.
These are the beads I wore until she came between.
Color them green.
     
    This is the room I sleep in and walk in and weep in
And hide in that nobody sees,
Color it lonely, please.
This is the man,
The one I depended upon.
Color him gone.
     
    KANDER: We wrote that song for Kaye Ballard also. She was on Perry Como’s television show at the time, and on the way down to the show in the cab, Kaye said, “They will never let me sing this song. But maybe they will let Sandy Stewart do it.” Words to that effect. We took the song in, and it happened exactly as she predicted. Sandy Stewart did sing “My Coloring Book” on the show, and to our total incredulity, they received something like twenty thousand calls and messages the next day. I could never get over that.
    EBB: I remember that we played the song for Nick Vanoff, who was the producer of the show, and Kaye was there. Her image was basically that of a comedienne, so he wouldn’t let her sing a serious number like that. If Kaye had objected and said, “No, I want to sing that song,” we would have missed out. I still speak to Kaye about once a week. She was one of the first people who had the credentials to validate me, and she did. She is warm and wise and funny, and I’m crazy for her. In my dictionary, under loyal friend , the definition should be Kaye Ballard. We later wrote another serious song for Kaye with the title “Maybe This
Time.” The idea was that maybe this time