Kenny Loggins: Taking Liberties with Rainbows
44:52 Share

Art in your home can instantly transform your space and bring you joy. Saatchi Art makes it easy for you to discover and buy one-of-a-kind art that you'll love. Whether you're looking to complement your home decor, fill a blank space on your walls, or start an art collection, you can find the perfect piece for your specific style and budget at Saatchi Art. Go to SaatchiArt.com today to bring the beauty of art into your home. Plus, listeners get 15% off their first order of original art with code ROB.

That's 15% off at SaatchiArt.com. S-A-A-T-C-H-I-Art.com. Ever wish your favorite TV show had twice as many episodes? Everyone knows that feeling, and so does Discover. Everyone wants more of their favorites. That's why Discover doubles another favorite thing, cash back.

That's right. Discover automatically doubles the cash back earned on your credit card at the end of your first year with Cash Back Match. Now that's a real crowd pleaser. Everyone knows how it ends. Double the cash back. See terms at discover.com slash credit card. What made you move out of L.A.? I was living in East L.A. and a buddy of mine that I went to Pasadena City College with called me and said, you've got to come up to Santa Barbara. I fucking love this. I've got to stay here.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to Literally with me, Rob Lowe. I love doing this podcast, as you guys hopefully know. And every once in a while, the best thing about it is that I get to fanboy out.

And, you know, just be like, what? Wait, what? And today's one of those days because I'm talking to Kenny Loggins. Come on. I mean, you know, I'm all about my Yacht Rock. Maybe you don't know it. And I'm telling you the first time I am. But he's so much more than Yacht Rock. And he's the soundtrack to my life and probably yours, too. It's a tremendous career that has spanned so many moments. And I cannot wait to

To finally ask him if Michael Jackson ripped off his vocal style in This Is It. Because I think he did. I'm going to ask him. We'll see what he says. Anyway, so here we go. Ladies and germs, Kenny Loggins. Now, do you remember when Joe Walsh lived up here? Yeah.

I can't believe Joe Walsh lived... A little too laid back for Joe? Well, particularly at that time in his life, if you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah. And I know you do. I played golf with Joe back then. Really? And we played at the Montecito Country Club, which was totally ironic that Joe was a member of the country club. Of a country club. Yeah, that's definitely against the image. And he never used a driver. He always used an iron because he hated his drivers. Jeez, that's a hard... If you can hit a long straight iron...

you're probably in better shape than a crappy wood. Wow. For those who actually play golf. That was our version of Bushwood. Oh, my God. Right. Yes. Bushwood. Do you remember the first time you saw Caddyshack? I was driving up to Santa Barbara. I had worked with John Peters when he was with Barbra Streisand. And when I met Barbra and John and I played some stuff that I was working on, ideas for Celebrate Me Home,

She loved a bunch of melodies, so we started working on melodies for Star is Born. And then when they broke up, John went solo and his first project was to make Caddyshack. And so he called me and said, I need your help. Come on in and check this out.

It was great. I mean, he didn't need any help. He had... Everything just fell into place for him on that. I made a list of my all-time favorite movies on my phone. I was just bored. I'm like, I'm going to see how far I can go with this list, how long I can get it. And Caddyshack, just for fun, it was really a good exercise, actually, if nothing else in film. And Caddyshack came up as the first comedy. Oh, really? Yeah. Because the way I did it was like movies that when they're on, you have to watch them. Uh-huh. That was like...

Like it was not about reviews or stature or just plain old. If you see it, you're watching it. Yeah. And Caddyshack and then the quotability of it. Forget it. Yeah. Every line in Caddyshack. You can't help but wonder how much of that was improvised and how much of that was really written or fleshed out. There's a book that came out two years ago about the making of Caddyshack, which is really it talks a lot about that.

But I think your song is a huge part of it. I really do. Because it's at the beginning and the end. Yeah. Because the gopher has to dance to it whenever possible. Whenever possible. Yeah, right. I mean... And I love that the gopher is just a bad puppet. You know... I love that. When I first saw the movie, it was not in the movie. It was... John said to me, Oh, we're going to have a hand puppet in this part. And I thought...

That's a stupid idea. That'll never work. Well, I think it works because of the song. Because when the golf ball comes flying in and the gopher ducks and then the song hits, I mean, come on. I mean, dude, it's movie magic. Could look like Howdy Doody there for a minute. I mean, in the canon of...

Your movie smash songs. I mean, everybody has their favorite. I've heard yours is Footloose. Mine's for sure I'm Alright. Yeah, I love I'm Alright too. I recorded the demo of I'm Alright here in Santa Barbara. And the drummer I used was not an extremely adept drummer. So any kind of complication idea that I had, he couldn't do.

So finally, I just boiled it down to foot snare, foot snare, foot snare. You're kidding. And it became the essential groove of I'm all right. It's crazy how well that works. That's under the category of happy accidents. And as you know, you've probably had your share. It's really super true. It's like what could happen.

flummox a lesser artist, whether it's an actor, writer, producer, singer, where all of a sudden something doesn't work out and you could be really pissed or ruin it actually ends up making it better. Yeah. Sometimes that really does happen. Or just ending up showing up for something that you wouldn't have normally had to show up for. Mm-hmm. Yes. So that's what happened with Danger Zone. I was in the studio when I wrote for

Top Gun. It was a cattle call, and I was in a private theater watching a preview of the, you know, whatever edit they had with about six or seven other big pop acts. Who else was there? There was an R&B act that came in right behind us, about four guys.

There were a couple of guys already in the theater. Mickey Thomas and the Starship was part of it. I know that REO was part of it. Ototo was part of it. And so I'm sitting there and I'm seeing all this competition around me. And then about midway through the movie comes the volleyball scene. And I was writing at the time with Peter Wolfe, the Austrian producer. I nudged Peter and I said, nobody's going to write for this. Let's write for this scene.

So that, you know, because I knew from my experience that just being a part of the soundtrack album was going to be pivotal. And it kind of didn't matter what scene you write for as long as you get in it. Wow. So we, I think we were the only ones who submitted a song for that scene. So I was in the studio working on Playing With The Boys, which is the song we wrote. And I got a call from Jojo Moroder's office. Jojo was doing the bulk of the music for the movie.

And he had a song and he didn't have a singer because the band that was supposed to do it dropped out.

the lawyers refused to agree about something. So they dropped out of the deal and he said, "I have to dub this song in tomorrow and I don't have a singer for it. So can you come in and sing it?" I didn't even listen to it. I just said, "Is it up tempo?" Because I needed a rock and roll one for the show. He said, "Oh yeah, it's a rocker." So I went, "Good, I'm in." We went over lyrics and chords. I added some things, changed some words. We added a bridge.

And then went in the next day and sang it. And, you know, everybody was writing for that scene. Just blind luck. Is that the biggest of all of them? They're all huge. Is that the biggest? Of the songs, you mean? Yeah. Actually, no, I found out just the other day by doing an interview that Danger Zone peaked at number two.

behind Peter Gabriel. If you're going to be behind somebody, might as well be Peter Gabriel. Right. I think it was Sledgehammer. But it peaked at two. Footloose was at number one for a while. Have you seen, are you involved at all in the new Top Gun? Yes. Have you seen it? I haven't seen it yet. Well, I saw, you know, things, movie-o-leth versions here and there. They showed me scenes that they thought the song might go in. Are

Are they going to put Danger Zone in it? Yeah. Oh, yes! Yeah! When I finally met Tom Cruise on Fallon about slightly before 2020 started. No way! You never met him? Never met him. No way! And so, you know, I just stopped him before we went on and I said, so, yes or no? Is Danger Zone in the new movie? He said, we can't do Top Gun without Danger Zone. Yeah, that's Tom. That's so cool. I can't... I'm...

very few movies these days get me like excited to go to but i'm i'm i cannot wait yeah they've got a great word of mouth they let the press see it recently oh for the last year i was not allowed to tell anyone that danger zone was in the movie because he loved it so much he wanted it to be the surprise element exactly yes and uh so that when it came on people go crazy yeah they go crazy and then finally i found out that they they had to let the cat out of the bag they did a

private showing for maybe a dozen and all the reviews were incredible. So I'm excited. Yeah, I hear it. I've talked to people who've seen it and just said it's the aerial footage is beyond belief in it, in saying the stuff that they've invented for it. Do you want to know my Footloose story? No.

No, it's your show, man. Come on. So Dean Pitchford, who wrote the script and a lot of the songs and the late great Craig Zayden. And it was like their first sort of big movie. Yeah. And I read the script and I loved it. I knew I loved it. I know it sounds insane, but I loved it. And the music was a huge part of the script. I don't remember if they had seen. I don't think there were even CDs in those days, but yeah.

But somehow a lot of the songs are already done and you could kind of listen. Yeah, Dean and I wrote a couple of the songs to the actual paper screenplay. There you go. You know, there was nothing to see when we started on it. He wanted me to write with him so that would cement him in not only as the screenwriter, but also as a songwriter. Okay, so I'm right in this memory because I remember the music was in the script.

Obviously, it's about dancing. So they talk about cattle calls there. They had a cattle call of all of the sort of, you know, appropriate fledgling movie stars of of that age group. And you do movies. Not anymore. So how old were you? How old were you when they when you went in to see that?

I would have been 20. Wow. I would have been 20. Right at the beginning. Perfect time for Rob Lowe to be. Oh, no, I was like, it was like teed up. Yeah. And they love me. Craig, Craig, it was Craig's idea to, and, and they, we met at, um, I forget where we met, but they, they were the ones who told me about it. I didn't even know about him. He just didn't tell me about it. And so I thought, well, this is going to happen. So I started taking dance lessons at Joe Tremaine's dance studio. And,

I hear you do a hell of a foxtrot. Well, listen. Wouldn't have come in handy. No, it was not good. But I worked really, really hard for weeks for the big dance audition, which was at Paramount Studios. And they had a big cattle call dance audition. All the Paramount brass were there. And Herb Ross, who I think, believe, directed the movie. And this is it. This is happening. This is what we're doing. And it was, get this. I'll never forget. It was to a stick.

song of all, why it wasn't to... Really? Dancing to a stick song? Yeah. And we already had Footloose in the can. Oh, it was definitely not to Footloose. Yeah. For sure it wasn't, which is so bizarre. And it ended with a big leap to your knees stage slide on your knees. That's what... Well, everyone can do that. Not me. They didn't teach you that at the Tremaine Dance Unit? No. Well, I blew out my ACL and

Doing this slide. On the slide, I left the soundstage on a stretcher. Oh my God. And as I'm being wheeled out...

And Craig Zaden and Neil Maron and everybody are like standing over my stretcher and like, look, Rob, don't worry. I mean, we're really we're just going to we're going to hire a dancer. We need to hire. We're going to hire a dancer. We're not going to hire an actor. And two weeks later, they hired Kevin Bacon. Yeah. Hollywood. Anything they tell you is true. Of course. Yeah. Why would it be anyway? That's the ethic of Hollywood.

Okay, so I have a theory that on the song This Is It, I've always wanted to ask you this, particularly the opening verses that you're singing, 100% Michael Jackson ripped that style off. Really? 100%. I've never even noticed that. I've never thought about that. And I don't know what song it would be, but for many of them, like when he sings in that kind of breathy sort of quality.

quasi falsetto thing. There's just no doubt in my mind that he didn't just

Steal it. I saw Gerald Hall and John Oates recently told a story that Michael said that he Michael said, I stole. He said, I hope you guys are OK that I stole your kisses on my lips. And they're like, what? I didn't. What? When did you steal it? And there was some song that they they never did the math either. So I bet you go back and listen to some of Michael's stuff because I know you work with them. Yeah. Oh, well, you Michael called you for We Are the World. Right. Right. Right. That is my favorite. That video of We Are the World.

is, I mean, obviously everybody saw it when it came out. But in the light of history and the legacies that were in that room, watching Steve Perry coach Cindy Lauper to sing her line and watch him behind her sitting on the, and it's like, gotta be one in the morning or something too, maybe. And we're all exhausted. And he's sitting there just so frustrated because it's a line he could have hit his first try. And well, anything is his first try. Right. But

And she's struggling with her line and he's like got his head in his hands and he's kind of hunched over like, oh my God, we're going to be here all night. It's funny. There are some very funny moments. Michael came to me. Prince was supposed to do that gig. And Prince, of course, snubbed his nose and didn't show up. Yes. Which is so very Prince. So there's a space. There's that sort of semicircle of soloists at the end. Yes.

And there's an open space and Michael doesn't know what to do. And he comes to me and says, so who should stand in that place? And I said, Huey Lewis. And he said, okay. So he went and told Quincy and they asked Huey if he would do it. And of course he jumped at the chance.

Wow. But, you know, looking back now in a moment of legacy, what was for me, I was I had just become a fan of Huey Lewis in the news and I loved his voice. And I thought this this this is going to be an important voice for rock and roll. I would love to know the politics of it, because any any time like who gets what, who sings where, who gets, quote unquote, more to do.

You know, who's, you know, someone's going to be selling more records at that exact moment than someone else. And so all of that has to go into the equation of making the song. Well, I think it was entirely Michael and Quincy. Right. And I think they just sat down, talked it over. They may have had, you know, one or two friends in on it, but it really looked like Michael was in charge. And then Quincy was sort of the strong man in the background. Yeah. Whatever Quincy said, everyone did. That was just the way it was.

One of the things that kind of makes me laugh, and it's maybe just because I'm such a misanthrope, is Kim Carnes gets two words. She literally says, and we. And then everyone goes, come together as one. But it makes me laugh so hard because she's in a line and people are throwing down. Yeah. And then it gets to her and she goes, and we. That's it.

She'll point at that to her grandkids. That right there, that's me. That and we is me. That's me. That was at the top of... That's when Bruce was the biggest star in the history of music, at that very moment. Yeah, that he pulled up in some old clunker rental or something. That's right. That's the legend. He pulls up late in some piece of shit rent-a-wreck, right? Yeah. And I wonder...

If he did that on purpose. For sure. It wasn't a car he happened to have handy. One of the things that people forget about everybody is that we're all showmen. And if we weren't showmen, we wouldn't have lasted as long as we have. We certainly wouldn't have signed up for the gig. For the gig in the first place. Right. And Bruce is one of the ultimate showmen. And that's part of the show. Yeah. Part of the show is the man of the people. Every man. Some did it better than others. Yes.

All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel.

With the best mattress brands under one roof.

Ashley has you and your sleep covered. Subject to credit approval. Minimum monthly payments required. No minimum purchase required. See store for details. So Steve Perry, you brought him up. Huge fan. He almost makes me like the San Francisco Giants. That's how much I like. Yeah. That's how much I like him. Yeah. Just to hear that song. Just to hear that song and to go to the stadium when they play it. Yeah.

And he stands up and lip syncs to it. You know that, right? I've seen photographs, but I never knew that he actually did the whole song. He does it. It's amazing because he's a huge baseball fan. He's there all the time. Yeah. And I went to a World Series game and that song comes up and you're like, oh, this is pretty cool. And then you see everybody's looking in one direction. And then there he is like leading like Harry Caray at the Chicago Cubs leading Take Me Out to the Ballgame. The Giants have Steve Perry doing the mascot. Yeah.

And it's, what a voice. Yeah. I recorded with Steve years ago. We did a duet that we wrote together called Don't Fight It. Great song. And I went up to San Francisco to record the vocal with Steve. So we're recording both of us live simultaneously as opposed to normally, you know, he'll do his and then I'll do mine or whatever. We were both, and then between takes, he would imitate other people. And the guy was amazing. He went into, of course, of course he's going to do a perfect Sam Cooke.

We hear that in every one of his records. But then he goes into Rod Stewart and he does a perfect Rod Stewart. And God knows how many other voices he could do, but he certainly found his own. I mean, it's not like only a chameleon who can only be a chameleon.

He was already imitating the classic rockers of our era and at the same time becoming one. You know, looking back in hindsight, I think that's amazing. My son, Cody, he went on the road with me as a crew guy. And about two or three shows in, after watching me in the audience, he goes, "Dad, you're a rock star."

He had no idea. He was like 17 years old and had no idea. Cause then, you know how it is in your home life, in your real life. You're not a rock star. You're not nothing but dad. You're the guy who takes out the trash. Usually. Yes. For sure. Oh yeah. That's so great. And then, and then a couple of years later he said, dad, you recorded with Steve Perry? Yeah.

Like, well, yeah, son. As a matter of fact. We hung out together. As a matter of fact, I did. You had great collaborations, though. You had great collaborations. Michael McDonald is my all-time favorite. I was just talking to somebody the other day. Have you ever seen the hilarious, it's not Saturday Night Live, it's SCTV Sketch. It's based around the recording of, this is so obscure, but it's so, do you know? Is it the Christopher Cross thing? Yes, it's amazing. Yeah, well, he runs from, because he was singing on everybody's record.

And imagine that the record, Warners, I think it was, would probably have freaked out saying, you're diluting, what do you call it? The brand? The brand. You're diluting the brand by singing everybody else's records.

But I was really grateful that he sang on mine. I think What a Fool Believes, which you wrote with him, it might, well, it is for sure my top five songs of all time. Man, the night we wrote that, we were up all night. When I first heard his voice was on the Doobie Brothers' Living on a Fault Line. As soon as I heard it, I went, this is going to be one of the great voices. And I was really fascinated by his style of writing. And I wanted to write with him. And I got a message that Michael was looking for me.

Because he was looking for collaborators too. And I'm unpacking the guitar out of the trunk of the car and the door to his house is open and I'm hearing him singing things through the door. And I hear him

Going... Which ended up being the actual lyric. And I'm hearing this melody come out. And then... And he stops. And my imagination keeps going. And I'm imagining...

And so I knock on the door and we say, "Hey man, how you doing?" Shake hands. "You know that thing you were just playing? I think I know how the next part goes." - And you said, just like that? - So we immediately sat down at the piano and I sang the thing I was hearing and he worked out the chords and was like, so we were writing together before we actually met.

Well, it's a great melody, but also it's just a great concept, the concept of the song itself. He had that already in his hands. Really? He had to explain it to me about 16 times. People don't realize that that first line of the chorus is like three sentences long.

Yes. What a fool believes he sees is the actual line. Not just what a fool believes. What a fool believes he sees. No wise man has the power to reason away. And what seems to be is always better than nothing. It's amazing. What a great fucking line. It's amazing. I know. So we finished. By the way, and so true. Exactly. Universal truth. Yeah. And it uses his favorite word, fool.

Which if you listen to his early work, there's the word fool in every song. Really? Yeah, because he loved the shape of it. Fool. That's his thing. It was brilliant. And we finished at three in the morning or so, and I went home and listened to it the rest of the night at my own house. I was just laughing going, God, what?

This is a big fish. When music survives like that and more than survives, it becomes an iconic thing. It always has a place in your life. And for me, that song, I'll always be, and I don't mean to age you, but I will always be... You can do that effortlessly. Okay, here we go. I will be 15 years old, and it's my very first network television show. It filmed in front of a live audience. And...

As the audience is filling in, I know the audience is coming because they put in the walk-in music and the first song is What a Fool Believes. And I'm like, man, my career is maybe happening.

At 15. At 15. God. So we, you know, we've kind of had, I mean, well, listen, it's like the bad cliche and it's the soundtrack of your life, which is the point of your tour. It's the songs of movies. Yeah. Which is what you're doing now. Yeah, I finally decided to put them all together and put them in the show. And it's an interesting show for me in that way because...

It's not as emotionally centered as it is movie centered. And what it ends up being though is a pretty rock show. And I haven't really done a straight ahead rock and roll show in a long time because I've got a lot of acoustic guitar material from the early days and ballads and things like that. But I lean very heavily on, there's only one movie that I wrote for, which was the Tigger movie that I wrote with the Sherman Brothers. The Sherman Brothers are,

go way back in Disney legacy. And they wrote, Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh, fuzzy little cava. And they even wrote earlier stuff too. But simultaneously or almost simultaneously with that, I wrote my Winnie the Pooh song. You wrote it in high school? I wrote it as a senior in high school. Yeah. I was supposed to be studying for finals. And instead I wrote the song about leaving my childhood behind. Stuff that happened. I wrote Danny's song in high school too.

from my brother, Danny. It's from a very innocent place. You know, he's just kind of sitting on my bed, playing chords and hypnotizing myself. That's the, not really, really, but I mean, in that way where you get so deep into a melody and so deep into a vibe, that's all there is. And in that moment, you can be there for six hours and not know it.

But a woman working for Disney decided to put me and the Sherman brothers together because those two circles had never been connected. And her name was Bambi. Oh, my God. You can't make it up. How Disney can it get? Yeah, you can't make that up.

lullaby album again oh my god I put my second son to bed to that album every night every night it works oh it's so good thank you

And, you know, the parents usually go to sleep before the child. Yeah. And I listened to it last night and it put me right back there. Which one of your kids? John Owen, my youngest. Uh-huh. My 23-year-old uses it if she gets an anxiety attack when she's off at school. She would put the record on to help her go to sleep. There are a lot of great songs on it. The reworking of Pooh Corners is killer. It's fantastic.

I mean, if you're a dad, if you're listening out there and you're a dad, we've all heard Pooh Corner, great song in and of itself. But the reworking on the, what's the title of the album? Return to Pooh Corner. Return to Pooh Corner, there you go. Listen to that one. It's killer. The other thing though, why is the song Rainbow Connection so powerful? What is it about that song? It's a great song.

That's a Paul Williams song. Yeah, I know. I heard... I first heard that song where I really heard it, really got it, was listening to the, like, first or second grade class at Montecito Union sing that song. Oh, my God. And I went, oh, that's a perfect song. You know, why...

It's just lyrically brilliant. But two things I had to do to change the song. It was originally recorded by Kermit. Kermit the Frog, of course. Jim Henson. Noted vocalist. Right. Jim Henson. So I changed that. I changed it to a more straight melody over the same chords. And then...

The bridge, which I don't remember because I didn't record it. I didn't record the whole lyrical bridge on it because I didn't feel the song needed it. So I took some liberties. There's a bridge in Rainbow Connection in the Kermit version that's not in your... It's not in my version. Oh, I'm going to go ahead and listen to that. And so I finally, I heard from Paul Williams after the record came out. And I said, so Paul, what'd you think? And he said, so why did you drop the bridge? Yeah.

That reminds me of a story that Glenn Frey tells about Tom Waits when the Eagles redid Old 55. Oh, yeah? Tom Waits song. Tom hated it. Hated it. I mean, Tom Waits is like this and the Eagles are those packed stack gorgeous harmonies in that song. And Glenn goes, he hated it. He liked it a lot better when he got the royalties. Yeah. He loved the check. Yeah.

You and I ran into each other once a while ago and you had done Bridge Over Troubled Water at our mutual friend Bobby Smith's funeral. Yeah. And you crushed it. And I was like, how can you still hit the voice? And you said, because I never really stopped singing. You like...

Yeah. You had a theory. I blame it on the divorce. Well, I didn't want to say it. Okay. You said it. I didn't want to say it, but that's exactly what you said. I knew what you were thinking though. Yeah. You said, well, I've got to pay for those divorces. I've never stopped singing. I've never stopped singing. I've had to stay on the road. I probably would have pulled way back like so many artists from the seventies and eighties, but I just kept going because, you know, you've got to pay whatever you got to pay. The great David Foster, who I know, you know, I mean, that's,

He's like, in his act, he says, you know, this is the song that paid for this. Which song, what did you do? I know you did a couple of things, David. Oh, God. Well, Forever, you know, Forever in my heart. Of course. The live version, Forever, dude. Yeah. Right. And, yeah.

That was one of the notes I was afraid of, actually. Every year it would get a little bit higher. Stevie Nicks. That was a great collaboration. That song was massive. Yeah. Well, Stevie was at the peak of her power at that time. That was after Rumors. And she was incredibly generous, you know, offering to sing on You'll Call Me When You Have a Song That You Think Will Work. And I just finished that song up. That's an interesting story for...

about tenacity or knowing your own, hearing your own star, whatever, words to me or a play thing. And that I had this melody. And I thought, this really feels like a Mike McDonald melody to me. So I'm going to sing it. Whenever I call you friend.

It's the bad Michael McDonald. I was looking to see exactly who you were imitating there. It was not Stevie and it wasn't you. It was Michael McDonald. And so I took the song, the melody idea to Michael and I said, what do you think? He said, I don't hear it, man. No, that's...

And he didn't like it. So I put it away and I thought, God, I thought it was good, but maybe it's not because I trust him so much. And then a few days later, I'm writing with Melissa Manchester.

And I said, well, I got this. She said, what else do you have? Anything we can work on? I said, well, I've got this one melody I really liked, but I'm not sure about it anymore. She said, well, let me hear it. So I sang it to her and she started blocking out the chords. And the next thing it was, whenever I call you friend, she loved it. But I said, you got to forgive me on this one.

Stevie Nicks said she wants to sing something with me. I think it would be a good idea to take this to Stevie. Right. And she was totally cool with that because, you know, Stevie was the biggest female vocalist in the world. And guess what? She liked the check. There you are again. That's a voice. You know it's her when she opens up her mouth. I love Stevie. And I will say I give her the cred for really breaking my solo career because I had just gone solo three

It was okay. Things weren't working exactly the way I'd imagined. And then she did the duet with me and it took off.

All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I'll never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel.

♪♪♪

I loved your book, by the way. Oh, thank you. Yeah. That is an influence for me now as I'm writing mine. Really? Yeah. The level of humor and candor. Oh, thank you. I really appreciate that. And I want to try and bring as much humor to my book as I can. And when you think about all those ridiculous things that happen, a lot of them are pretty funny. Yeah. The reason I wrote it was, and if you haven't read it, I would highly recommend reading David Niven's book, The Moon's a Balloon.

Obviously, David Niven was the great character actor and sort of bon vivant of the 50s, 60s and 70s. And he wrote what is pretty much considered the ultimate memoir. And it was a huge success. Number one sold forever. Did he do Empty Horses? Yes, he did. That was number two. That was the second book, Bring on the Empty Horses, which is also good.

But that bring on the empty horses is him writing about specific people. Like there's a, there's a Errol Flynn chapter and there's a, which is great, but the other, you've got to read it. It's brilliant. And, and what my takeaway was, he figured out a way to hit the bullseye that I tried to hit about being dishy and giving the stuff that people are like, whoa, no way. But in a way,

where it's completely the high road. Nobody gets hurt. And if anybody ends up looking like an idiot, it's him. Oh. That's the secret sauce. Right. And you must have insane stories. Like, I could read an entire book of you talking about the We Are the World recording. Honestly, that could end up being... My biggest issue with this book is that there's so much shit I don't remember. And it pisses me off because I know there were...

great moments that I was so busy moving on to the next thing that I wasn't as present within my life as I wish I'd been. But there was so much going on in my life that there were things like that that people may find really interesting years later that for me was just a gig. I just was showing up to do my vocal on that song.

That in and of itself, though, is interesting. Really? Yeah. I mean, because people will think. A book called Stories I Don't Remember. Stories I Wish My Mind Were. But that's what's part of your life that makes it interesting is it was and continues to be so big that what would be a headline to someone else you would think for you is just a gig. Yeah. Do you have a title yet? Still All Right.

It's great. I mean, sitting there with the canon of titles and you want to do something with the titles, that would be fun to be like, is it, you know, Celebrate Me Home? Celebrate Me Home was one of the contenders. Yeah. It's a great one. Yeah. My mother wore that album out. And I kind of ignored that song. Originally, it's in 6-8, like sort of the rock and roll gospel waltz time.

And, but it was originally, I wrote it in four, four. Really? Yeah. And it was like, please elevate me home. Two, three, four. And, and then when I showed it to Phil Ramone, when Phil produced my first album, I showed it to Phil and he said, that should be in six, eight. That's, that's a gospel tune.

And it certainly was. And then all I had was that line, which I thought was like a filler line, like Scrambled Eggs was a filler line for McCartney's Yesterday. So I thought, because no one had ever put it that way. No one ever said, celebrate me home. It's not a normal sentence. And he said, dude, that's how they'd say it on the street. So I ran up to his office upstairs and wrote the whole lyric.

How many filler lyrics survive in general? Not very many. But what happens is the spaces that they take, I like to consider them gospel.

For example, "Celebrate Me Home." Please two, three, four, celebrate. So if I replace that lyric, it would still be da ba dum bum bum. So I would have those syllables become the important elements of that melody. That's what syncopates the melody. When I'm mentoring teenagers and stuff, young songwriters, I come up with things that I think, yeah, that's a rule I've written by. I've never really said it out loud.

Because, you know, as we get older, I think we become masters at whatever trade we're in. And for me, I hadn't really thought of myself that way, that I am now like a master at what I do. And it's ironic because that's when they put you out to pasture.

I know the minute you're a master, they're not interested. Then you got to move on because, you know, you're done. It's, but it's really, and that's, by the way, you could just do an entire chapter on, on that in the book. Just do a segue of like deep dive songwriting stuff. I would love that. People find that stuff interesting. Some people find it interesting. Listen, I wrote a, uh, in the second book I did an essay about sending my kid to college. And I was like,

It's not really the tone of the book. It's, it's not, I, I, first of all, I don't think anybody, I had to write it. Just, I wrote it as a cathartic exercise for myself. And I was like, who cares?

It became the thing that launched the second book and people share it now every year. Really? Yeah. It's like parents and they, like I just the other day said, oh, God, I read your essay about sending my kid to college. I just sent my kid off. And you just don't know. Yeah. You know what I mean? You gave me an idea to put in the book is when my first son was out of high school, Crosby.

And he was hanging out with the wrong kind of people, you know. The Montecito rats. The Montecito people. You were the first Montecito rat. Yeah, I was. I surely was. I'm the biggest rat of all. Set the tone for the rest of us. Anyway, so we were building a home in Hawaii. So to get him away from the drug culture, I sent him to Hawaii, of all places. He went kicking and screaming.

And it was the first of my children to really leave the nest. And I wrote a song with Mark Mancina called Always in Always.

And it was basically a really sad goodbye song. Little did I know that he'd be back in six months. But when he went, he was like kicking and screaming and don't make me leave. And my life is here in Santa Barbara. And then the day he landed in Hawaii, he called me and said, what was I crying about? You just sent me to Hawaii? Right. Like, oh, welcome home. That's the kind of stuff that you just never know. I mean, I know I would love to hear that.

The Ten Commandments of Songwriting by Kenny Loggins. Are you fucking kidding me? I would definitely love that. I'll work on it. Who do you think, give me your top five songs

songwriters from the 60s to today? Well, Jimmy Webb would be one of the top. Wow. Yeah, because he just wrote some such great songs. Yeah, he did. We could just spend half an hour breaking down his tunes. And I know people go, Jimmy Webb, really? Yeah, Jimmy Webb. Mm-hmm. And of course, Leonard McCartney and Dylan and the go-tos. I think Tom Petty. Yes, me too. Great rock writer. I agree. Hard to really delineate. But my era was

Is slightly ahead of yours, of course. And it was male dominated. So there weren't a lot of female songwriters, but Carole King, of course. I was going to say Carole King. Carole King is up there as one of the top. Yeah. I took my daughter, Hannah, who at the time was 16, to see Beautiful. Oh, I never saw it. I wanted to. It's really good. And the girl that plays Carole King is so good that people, by the end of the play, they believe she is Carole King. Wow. And they stand up and applaud for her as if she was. Mm-hmm. Amazing. Yeah.

But my daughter was very shy about performing, Hana, her name is, as in Hana Maui. And so was Carol when she was young.

So I called Carol up the next day and said, would you text my daughter and just give her some words of encouragement? Oh, my God. That's the advantage that we have being in the business, that we know these people. So the next day, my daughter runs up to me and says, Dad, I just got a text from Carol King. Oh, my God. That's amazing. Now that is some proper fathering. That's fathering. Yeah, that is proper fathering. Yeah, I think for me, it's...

You know, it's Paul Simon, Dylan, Tom Petty, Jackson Brown. Jackson, great writer. You know what else is great? Like, I mean, it's got a formula, but he came in and I talked to him, it was John Fogerty. Oh, yeah. John wrote some, I mean. Yeah. There was a movie. Was it Bad Moon Rising? They used his song as the theme song? Well, first of all, I don't think any character in a movie can go to Vietnam.

without one of John's songs playing. And now you're talking about Jim Morrison. Yes, well, that was the ultimate. That's the ultimate. You're standing next to Jim Morrison is like... That's the ultimate. That was Vietnam. Yeah.

Sometimes in concert, I'll just break into, love me too, Tom, baby. Love me twice today. Not necessarily a great songwriter, but a great personality like John Wayne was to movies. Morrison was to me. When you sing like John Wayne, when you think about it.

I mean, he sang music the way John Wayne acted. If you really think about it. Well, I'm going to tell you. Love me too, John, baby. We've cracked a lot of the codes today, but I knew we would. I knew you and I would have a great talk. Thank you for coming in. This is so much fun for me. I've been looking forward to it forever because I'm a huge fan. And I know you as a neighbor over the years, and it's always great to see you. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Wow. I got to talk to Kenny for another five hours and gone even deeper into my nerddom on 70s, 80s, yacht rocky pop. So thanks for listening, everybody. What a fun, what a fun one. I hope you had as much fun as I did. And now let's let's have a little gander at the lowdown line. Hello. You've reached literally in our lowdown line.

where you can get the lowdown on all things about me, Rob Lowe. 323-570-4551. So have at it. Here's the beep. Hi, Rob. This is Virginia, personal chef here in Charlottesville, Virginia. Yep, I'm Virginia in Virginia. And I was wondering, I've kind of been dying to know, the character that you played on Californication, I'm wondering how much of that is ad-libbed and how much is scripted

And even if there was a script, like, what did this script include? Because there's no way that someone can script out that character that you wrote in there. And also, coincidentally, I was watching View from the Top or something like that with Gwyneth Paltrow in it.

and you had like a cameo on there as the pilot. And I was wondering, how do you get a spot like that? Did you just happen to be in the stage next door and they were filming and they said, hey, do you want to be a spot in the movie? Like, how does that work? So I'll talk to you soon. Okay, bye. Thank you for checking in. Okay, so Eddie Nero in Californication. It might be my favorite character I've ever played. It might be.

I mean, it's certainly up there with Chris Traeger on Parks and Recreation and Sam Seaborn on the West Wing. So a lot of it was written. I have to say they did a really good job with the dialogue, but I definitely improvised everything.

a bunch of stuff mostly the physical stuff which can cannot be even described on a family podcast um view from the top with Gwyneth Paltrow I did because Gwyneth is um one of my oldest friends I've known her since she was 16 and Mike Myers and I are old old old old friends and he was in it too so it was really just we're all doing a movie do you want to come in and do something and and we had fun and um one of the most uncomfortable

things I've ever had to do was make out with GP because it's like making out with my sister. Thanks for the question. I will see you next week. Don't forget to download the entire season, by the way, of Literally with me, Rob Lowe.

You've been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced and engineered by me, Rob Schulte. Our coordinating producer is Lisa Berm. The podcast is executive produced by Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Jeff Ross, Adam Sanks, and Joanna Solitaroff at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Stitcher. Our talent bookers are Gina Batista, Paula Davis, and Britt Kahn. And the music is by Devin Tory Bryant.

Make sure to leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, and we'll see you next week on Literally with Rob Lowe. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.

All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I'll never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel.

Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton Honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply. Look at your cup holder. It's empty. And you're feeling thirsty. Head to a nearby convenience store and fill it with a Pepsi Zero Sugar Mountain Dew or Starry. Grab a delicious, refreshing Pepsi for the road.