A Love Song for Two Dolphins

In the early 80’s I was signed to MCA Music.  One day I got a call from my mentor there, Pete Waterman. Pete said I there was a big-shot movie producer in town and I was was  urgently needed the next day in London to meet up with him. I flew down and arrived in Pete’s office around midday. Pete introduced me to an American guy who’s name now escapes me. He was one of the producers of the movie, Jaws 3D which was nearing completion.

Anyway, this guy treated me to the story of his wonderful new movie and told me all it needs is a killer song. Apparently it’s a “boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl” theme. Except in this case there are no boys and girls involved; the lovers in question are dolphins. He says they have Streisand lined up to sing this yet to be written song. Pete has put me in the frame to write the lyrics and makes his office available to conduct my work. Pete and the American guy went off to lunch saying they will check my progress on their return. As they are leaving the American called back over his shoulder, ( American Accent) “hey kid, gimme a lurve song for two dolphins”

Alone in the office I slid the cassette into the machine.   Shit!!!!! How on earth could  I turn this orchestral pomp into a song. Still I had been charged with the task so I had to try. I spent the next two hours racking my brain and writing one liners and drawing doodles. Click here to see my handiwork.

The guys arrived back and the American says, “OK Kid, whaddyah got?”

I said,  “not much” and passed over the piece of paper and waited to be well and truly spanked. Pete (ever the bullshitter) went into overdrive. “What did I tell you about my boy, F***ing brilliant, just look at this, “sink or swim, I will follow him”, that’s a killer line”. It was just about the only line but Pete was leaving no room for contradiction. He was already on the phone booking a studio for that evening. Then he dashed out of the office and grabed another MCA staffwriter who had a good singing voice. This hapless guy was named Simon Jeffries  and he was going to have to sing this crap. Like me, Simon was not going to say no to the guy responsible for signing his yearly salary cheque (publishers advance).

I was therefore obliged to spend the rest of the day making words fit to soaring violins and trumpets. The pain of this was nothing compared to the recording session that evening. I think we nearly killed the poor vocalist. Unsurprisingly, I never heard another thing about my entry into the world of movie themes and as it happens I never saw Simon again either.

However, like many things in our past – it has ended up on YouTube – this is NOT to be taken seriously.