This Is Pop (2021) s01e08 Episode Script

[construction sounds]
[ambient street noise]
[man 1] Well, this is part of the Brill.
This is not part of the Brill
that I'm familiar with,
but these are the doors,
these are
the same color, same everything.
I guess it's all locked up now.
You know, they started locking it up
because I stayed here too often,
later than I should have.
["The Loco-Motion" playing]
[narrator] Throughout the 1950s
and a good chunk of the '60s,
American popular music
was defined by the Brill Building.
Teenagers and immigrant kids
from New York's outer boroughs,
all gathered here in the beating heart
of downtown Manhattan.
[man 2] I used to take that subway
every day and walk to the Brill Building,
a little room with a piano and a desk,
and it was good training.
[narrator] They defined
not just the sound of the era,
but an enduring model for song writing.
It was a uniquely American model,
equal parts art and industry.
[man 3] Cranking out songs
and competing with the guy
at the next desk,
and you'd write a song today
and it's recorded tomorrow,
it's on the radio next week. You know?
It was a factory
that turned out Top 40 records.
[woman 1] That's what the Brill is.
It created a community of incredible music
and that
we need to do everywhere right now.
[narrator]
A thousand songs and just as many stories
were scrawled in these hallowed halls.
Now, here are the stories
of four such songs,
each born in the Brill.
Come on, come on ♪
[song fades]
[car horn honks]
["Oh! Carol" by Neil Sedaka]
[narrator]
What Henry Ford did for the automobile,
the Brill Building did for pop music.
Towering high on Broadway,
just north of the hustle and bustle
of Times Square.
It housed lyricists, arrangers,
recording studios and record labels.
It was a blueprint for music
on an industrial scale.
It was also a hub for some of the period's
most prolific songwriters.
At the Brill, song writing
was a nine to five like any other,
it was also an art
honed by post-war America's
young virtuosos.
I will surely die ♪
I was the Justin Bieber of the '50s.
I wasn't the pin-up guy,
I was like the boy next door.
The ones that the mothers
wanted their daughters to meet.
I had a group called The Tokens,
a rock and roll doo-wop group,
and Carole King had a group
called The Cosines,
and we would sing here on the beach
and here on the boardwalk
and go to her home,
her piano, and then to my piano.
And then if you walked very far,
you could go to Coney Island.
And you went on the Cyclone,
which was the most exciting
wooden roller coaster.
[screams echoing]
[jazz music playing]
[Perry]
The Brill, if you really think about it,
these are very passionate people,
that in a time,
were told they couldn't be stars,
they couldn't be artists
because they didn't have the flash.
I mean, Carole King,
she was told she would never be an artist,
she didn't have the right look,
and it was that belief and that struggle
that she was going through
that inspired all these songs.
So, it was under one roof,
but it was a bunch of passionate people
that were extremely talented,
that were passionate
about what they had to say,
about every chord, every thought.
They really mastered
the art of songwriting.
[Sedaka] Uh, I continued
at the Brill Building five days a week.
I was writing with Howie Greenfield,
our own songs.
The walls were very thin,
and when we were writing,
strangely, the songs
sounded very much alike
because you can hear
the person next door very, very vividly.
It was good competition.
I was good,
we were all very motivated
and creative people bounce off each other.
- [woman] What now?
- Now, very pretty legato.
Very pretty melody, you know what I mean?
You like that.
I like that, yeah,
but it's gotta be harder,
when we write the lyric to it,
it'll be different.
La-da, la-da, la-da, la-da ♪
[Perry] I'm inspired by trying
to figure out how to do the new Brill.
It's like,
there's not one particular thing.
It's a whole community
and an inspiration that was created.
Yes, you can call it back then
maybe it was a song factory,
but it wasn't.
You know, it was fucking talented people
doing really incredible things
because the idea is to basically
follow that format from Brill,
but creating it a little bit further,
expanding it towards kids
because that's the thing
that we're missing.
Kids don't understand that you're supposed
to meet, you know, Jay, the bass player
and Johnny the drummer
and then you guys hang out
and like, "Oh, wow, we got chemistry."
Kids can't be meeting each other
on Instagram and Snapchat.
Everybody thinks
it's just songs and celebrity.
No. It's swag and chemistry
that creates a fucking legacy.
[Sedaka singing
"One Way Ticket" in Russian]
[woman] Everyone in Russia
likes that song.
- Beautiful.
- [Sedaka] My claim to fame in Russia.
That's a beautiful song.
[speaks Russian]
[woman 2 singing song]
[continues singing]
[all humming]
- [Sedaka] Thank you.
- Beautiful song.
- [Sedaka] Thank you. You too.
- Have a good time.
Nice to meet you.
[Sedaka] I was a harmony freak.
I usually start with a piece of a melody
and a piano accompaniment,
and sometimes you get up
in the middle of the night
and say, "I could write something better.
I can extend that phrase
or extend a note."
Sometimes you came up with nothing,
but you had a piece of a song
and the next day you could continue that.
And when it was hot,
when you were on a roll,
you didn't stop.
Because when you're on that creative roll
you stay where you are,
and sometimes there is
some spirituality attached to it.
[singing] I don't know what I can sing ♪
Oh, you feel like days gone by ♪
Just making this.
I feel like Carole King,
she was extremely, and still is,
inspiring to listen to.
She really was going through some things
and turned all of her struggles
into beauty.
And she did.
[Sedaka] My striving was
to do something that didn't repeat itself,
from song to song, from chorus to chorus.
And then, when it's finished,
I would invite people to my home,
and if I was shy when I played it,
if I was tentative, I knew it wasn't good,
but if I was very boisterous
and very confident
and sang it out loud,
you know, with gusto,
then I knew it was going to be a hit.
There was nothing tentative about it.
And that's the way I write
A song for you right now ♪
I know when to stop
and I know when the song is found.
There it is,
I just heard it go by, you know,
and I'm like, "Okay."
And then we come in here
and then we start writing down
all the words that were said.
And there is the song.
[director] Wow. It's like you're
tapping into something else.
[clears throat]
I'm not tapping in, someone's tapping in
it's tapping into me.
Like I'm a channel, I know that.
Something came from something spiritual
and passed through my voice,
through my fingers,
and I dare not move
because that was
I was the chosen one
at that particular moment.
So, I do feel
that there is some kind of, uh
a vehicle or an antenna thing going.
[pop music playing]
[Sedaka] I had songs recorded
by many wonderful people,
but I wanted to sing them myself.
And I was very honored
when I read one of Bob Dylan's books.
He said he liked the Brill Building
writers, especially Neil Sedaka,
'cause he was the first
to sing his own songs in the late '50s,
and it was indeed true.
I went to RCA and I played
"The Diary" to Steve Sholes
and he said, "That should be
your first record, 'The Diary, '"
and that was the first one,
which went to number 22.
In those days,
number 22 sold 600,000 records.
Today, if you sell 10,000 records,
you're number one.
[laughs]
After "The Diary," I had two flops,
and RCA was about to drop me.
I went to the charts
and looked at all the number one records
on Billboard's Hits of the World
and I analyzed it,
being a studied musician.
The chord progression,
the harmonic rhythm,
the guitar lifts, the drum breaks.
And I put all of the elements together
and, um wrote "Oh! Carol"
at the Brill Building
with Howie Greenfield,
and, um, it was
it was an immediate number one.
Darling, there will never be another ♪
'Cause I love you so ♪
Don't ever leave me ♪
[Sedaka] Howie came to my apartment
and I said, uh, "Here's the tune,"
and he said, "I don't know,
I don't like the name Carol,
can I call it something else?
I said, "No, I'm writing this
for my girlfriend Carole King."
And he said, "Okay."
So, he wrote it, a quick 45-minutes lyric,
and he said, "Let me polish it."
And I took the paper away and said, "No."
It's very homespun,
it's very down to earth
and very teenage lament."
"Oh, Carol, I am but a fool."
"Darling, I love you
though you treat me cruel."
I took it to the studio a few weeks later,
and there were three girls
sitting in the booth
who were friends
of the producer of the record.
I said, "Do you sing?"
They said, "Yes, we do."
And they did the "Woo-ooh-ooh."
And it was very, very natural,
very young sounding,
and that's what we left on the record.
But if you leave me
I will surely die ♪
When you say Neil Sedaka
is looking at Billboard
and trying to understand
what makes a pop song a hit
or a great pop song,
he's talking about being inspired
to write something better.
Right?
When you say that in today's time,
listening to the charts,
which I know they do,
and they peg out the song
that's getting the most hits or whatever,
they're looking to copy not get better.
- ["Oh! Carol" playing]
- [Sedaka] I went to the mixing,
I went to the mastering of the record,
I went to the pressing
because I wanted to make sure
when it came on the radio,
that it was very sibilant,
that my voice would come out very clearly
and that everything would be,
uh, exaggerated
because the radio had a very small speaker
and I wanted to exaggerate
everything on the record.
I'm so in love with you ♪
[screams echoing]
[Sedaka] Now I can almost weep
when I see the place I grew up
and the place where I was inspired,
and the place where I thought,
"Wouldn't it be a dream come true
if I became a celebrity."
This was my formative years.
This was the place when I said,
"You know what?"
"I'm going to do it,
come hell or high water,
I want the immortality
of writing something
that will outlive me,"
and it was right here that it began.
[pop music playing]
[Kim] To me, this was everything.
This is what I left home for.
You know, there are a lot of buildings,
but the spirits of those walls
are about songwriters,
and about musicians,
and about singers,
and about, you know, publishers,
but it was really a musical cathedral
and it's how I've always seen it.
On the 9th floor, Leiber and Stoller
had a lot of cubicles
and that's where Jeff and I would write.
So, it was his world
I had the key, I can come in and go,
which was great.
It made me feel like I belonged,
although it took a little while
for me to feel like
I was good enough to belong. You know?
[narrator] The music
coming out of the Brill Building
seized on a new phenomenon.
Sometime in the late 1950s
and early 1960s,
young people became teenagers.
They were a new demographic
with their own money,
their own style, and their own tastes.
Some of them even yearned
for the taste of rebellion.
The Brill Building built not just
new sounds, but a whole new image,
reflecting the boiling passions
of those young Americans
who wanted to break free.
["Leader of the Pack" playing]
[girl 1] Is she really going out with him?
[girl 2] Well, there she is,
let's ask her.
[girl 1] Betty, is that
Jimmy's ring you're wearing?
Mm-hmm.
Gee, it must be great riding with him.
Is he picking you up after school today?
- Mm-mm.
- By the way, where'd you meet him?
I met him at the candy store ♪
[Donita Sparks] I've always loved
"Leader of the Pack."
At the time
I'm sure it was, like, super edgy,
but it's just like,
"Oh, my god, this is amazing."
- The leader of the pack ♪
- [motorcycle engine revs]
The Shangri-Las, their songs are classic.
They're heart-wrenching.
They're melodramatic.
They're so
They're so filled with passion
and done so stellarly that they live on.
They'll be classics forever.
[Van Zandt] I associated
the whole Brill Building thing
with girl groups, you know?
The Shirelles and The Chiffons
and The Crystals and The Ronettes
and and that stuff and The Shangri-Las
and everybody else.
The Brill Building started off
with a lot of the old Tin Pan Alley people
who had come up from the '20s, you know?
Somewhere in the high '20s,
came up to the '40s
into the Brill Building
and then the young upstarts came in,
like Leiber and Stoller,
and I think the older
the older writers resented them.
You know,
the old Broadway writers, basically.
Again, what people don't remember,
is that the whole concept of the teenager
didn't exist until the '50s.
We didn't even have child labor laws
until later in the century. [chuckles]
I mean, you had literally children
working as adults for a long, long time.
So, suddenly, because of
the economic situation, I think,
that the West was in after World War II,
this new demographic was born,
this alien species called "the teenager."
And, uh, this new invention
called "leisure time,"
you know, you had leisure.
There was no such thing before that.
And, you know,
the highway system got built
and the suburbs were invented, you know?
And and rock and roll was invented
along with with the rest.
And suddenly, music was being made
not only for teenagers, but by teenagers,
which was unusual, you know?
Uh, it was a new generation.
The Brill Building
had a whole new identity,
and and it was a modern world,
in spite of the old guard kind of
trying to keep them out.
It was just inevitable
that it was gonna change.
["Walking in the Sand" playing]
Seems like the other day ♪
[Mike Stoller] The Shangri-Las,
they were very Long Island,
kind of tough, but still young girls.
Mary was the lead voice
and the spark plug of this sound
and she was delightful.
When Jerry and I set up our office
in the Brill Building on the 9th floor,
we had just one little front office
and then on one side
we had an upright piano in it.
But young writers would come up
and they would, you know,
go into the piano room
and eventually Shadow came up.
Oh, no ♪
The story that Shadow had created
was a drama,
and he wrote these little soap operas,
and they worked.
He kind of invented
the cinematic aspect of the genre.
[Van Zandt] From the first record,
"Walking in the Sand,"
you heard the waves
hitting the beach. You know?
But "Leader of the Pack" might have
been the most dramatic of them all.
It's a wonderful combination
of a song and a performance.
Little three-minute miracles, man,
in those days, just incredible stuff.
[engine revving]
[Sparks] This is so cinematic.
Young girls probably think, "Oh my God!
They must have written their own stuff,
they must have lived this,
must have dated a leader of the pack,"
and none of that stuff is true.
[Stoller] We were surprised
when it became a hit,
you know,
because we thought it was a joke.
[laughs]
[motorcycle engine revving]
["Leader of the Pack" playing]
My folks were always putting him down ♪
Down, down ♪
They said he came
From the wrong side of town ♪
What do you mean when you say
He came from the wrong side of town? ♪
They told me he was bad ♪
But I knew he was sad ♪
[Van Zandt] There was something, uh,
extremely liberating about this music
that parents were worried about,
with good reason, by the way,
because all their worst fears came true.
We were sexually liberated,
women were liberated to be themselves
for the first time and have an identity,
and a lot of that was
coming from these girl groups.
He stood there and asked me why ♪
All I could do was cry ♪
- I'm sorry I hurt you ♪
- The leader of the pack ♪
[engine revving]
He sort of smiled and kissed me goodbye.
The tears were beginning to show.
As he drove away on that rainy night,
I begged him to go slow
But whether he heard, I'll never know.
No, no, no, no, no ♪
Look out! Look out! Look out! Look out!
[loud crashing]
[gasping]
I felt so helpless, what could I do? ♪
[director] Great cut.
Cutting.
[Van Zandt]
There was that fear in the early '60s,
and of course, you know,
once the Kennedy assassination took place
then things got serious
at that moment, you know?
I do remember some of that
"under the desk" stuff
and, uh, you know, it seemed to be weird.
You know, a weird atmosphere.
[echoing]
[recording playing backwards]
- Look out! look out!
- ♪Ooh, ooh, ooh ♪
Ooh, ooh, ooh ♪
Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone ♪
I mean, it's just like, "Wow. Heavy."
[laughs] It's great.
- Leader of the pack and now he's gone ♪
- Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone ♪
[tires squealing]
[Sparks] Punk rock
saved my life from boredom
and rebel music of all kinds, you know,
even before punk rock,
The Stones, getting down and dirty,
the Shangri-Las getting down and dirty.
All that rebel music saved my life,
like, "Get me out of here."
So, that's what I think we have
meant to some people too, so
[director] Which brings me
to my next question, actually,
which is, if you could rewrite
the narrative of “Leader of the Pack,”
how would you change it?
That's when I became
The leader of the pack ♪
That's how I would change it.
"That's when I became
the leader of the pack." Right?
Step aside, everyone.
Here comes the queen.
[engine revving]
Well, they've taken out the elevators
Oh, the elevators are on the side, wow.
Well
You know, you can love it
as much as you want to,
but it's when someone
across the street recognizes you
'cause you sang that song at a show
or they heard your song on the radio
and they saw a picture of you,
that's where the blessing is.
And here, it's almost, yes, a cathedral,
you go to pray that your music gets heard
and you're not out the door
'cause you're only as good as
your last two minutes and thirty seconds.
["Will You Love Me Tomorrow" playing]
Tonight you're mine completel y ♪
You give your love so sweetly ♪
Tonight ♪
[narrator] At its peak, around 1962,
the building at 1619 Broadway
boasted 165 music-based businesses
across its 11 floors.
For every young hopeful
there were just as many
unscrupulous businessmen
and one highly influential woman,
Florence Greenberg.
She was an unlikely icon.
A bored Republican housewife
living just across the river
in sleepy Passaic, New Jersey.
She became the first woman
to own a major label
and helped shape a whole new pop era.
Will you still love me tomorrow? ♪
[Beverly Lee] Florence was always excited
with our music, whenever we did anything.
She was doing something
out of the ordinary
'cause at that time
it was as male-dominated industry
and, uh, for a woman to come along
and do what Florence did,
is remarkable.
So she took us along for the ride too,
because as a result of that,
we were the first, uh, group
to cross over to pop,
have our own publishing company,
write our own music.
We were letting these guys know,
"Hey, we're on our way too,
you don't dominate us."
[Stan Greenberg]
She went where she wanted to go
and did what she wanted to do.
She became totally immersed
in the record industry,
with hits by The Shirelles,
Dionne Warwick,
she had BJ Thomas,
and the job,
which was a more than full-time job,
running a record company
in the early 1960s.
And this is "Raindrops."
[Greenberg] I think it was a love
of doing something
where she could make a difference
and doing something
that could also provide her with a living,
and also doing something that could
result in income for me,
because she felt like I needed support
in becoming, uh, an independent person,
in view of the fact that I was blind.
BJ Thomas,
"Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head."
[director] Did you feel that way, that you
needed that support from your mom?
I don't know if we want
to go on the couch here, but [laughs]
I I felt like
I could be very successful.
She didn't help me get a PhD
from the Eastman School of Music.
She didn't help me get girlfriends.
Um
She didn't help me
be be a very socially active guy.
And I and I did that.
[crowd cheering]
[pop music playing]
[Greenberg] My sister heard The Shirelles
singing at a high school talent show.
She brought them home
to audition for my mother.
She brought them home
to our suburban house
where they were probably
the only African American girls
within two or three miles
of where they were
'cause they were
in the White section of town.
We went to Florence Greenberg's house
at 160 Mineral Springs Avenue
in Passaic at Passaic Park,
and we walked into this beautiful home,
and there was this beautiful piano.
I didn't know
how to really interact with her,
but she was down to Earth,
and like I said, she was very, very warm.
We were all around the piano
and Stanley was playing
and she was standing there watching us.
But she loved the song,
fell in love with it,
she was smiling and she said,
"I want to record you."
[upbeat music playing]
[narrator] Florence was one
of the many indie label owners
who dreamed of making it
into the big leagues.
To do so, she even moved her offices
into the building at 1650 Broadway,
which was another outpost
of Brill songwriting and production.
[Greenberg] She was a good salesperson.
And then, ultimately, she decided
she was going to have her own business
and people liked her,
so they liked what she was doing.
The hubs were The Turf,
the Brill Building,
1650 and 1674 Broadway.
All those buildings that
were full of record companies,
publishing companies and promoters.
That's how you sold songs in those days,
you went all over the place in that area
looking for somebody
to buy one of your songs
or to buy one of your master recordings,
that's what she did.
[Lee] The whole package was there,
recording studios,
if you wanted to write a song,
if you wanted your face beat
and go up to a record company
looking good,
a photographer wasn't too far.
Music was just floating
all up and down Broadway,
from the Brill Building up to 1650.
You could reach up and pull a hit out.
[funky guitar riff]
Tonight you're mine completely ♪
[Greenberg] "Will You Love Me Tomorrow"
was written by
Carole King and Gerry Goffin.
The Shirelles were rehearsing
"Will You Love Me Tomorrow"
and Carole and Gerry
came to the rehearsals
and they brought their baby
and I was there because I had
to write the string arrangements,
and "Will You Love Me Tomorrow"
came out of that.
And it was a big, huge hit record.
[Lee] Because we were young and the kids
didn't realize we were their same age,
we singing about
what they were going through,
so whatever was going on
at that time in their life,
this is the music
that was being presented.
[Greenberg] Carole and Gerry in those days
were just getting started
and their producer, Luther Dixon,
didn't want to record it,
he said it was too white for Scepter.
Tonight, with words unspoken ♪
You say that I'm the only one ♪
[Lee] When we went into the studio,
Carole King was there.
I was told she played kettle drums
because she didn't like
what the percussionist was playing,
and, see, a woman knows what,
you know, she wants.
It was a lush arrangement
with strings and cellos
and my eyes were wide open
and the studio was full of musicians.
It was an awesome experience.
[song ends]
[cheering]
[Greenberg] If she hadn't had
some hit records quickly,
it would have been over
much sooner than it was.
I think she annoyed some people.
At the beginning they put up with her,
then when she became very successful,
she was at the same level they were
and then the records really sold.
Scepter Records made a lot of money,
until it didn't.
[Lee] There was an issue with monies,
and we were being told that we weren't
getting what we were supposed to get,
and somebody took us aside.
There was a lawsuit,
and then, uh, we had a contract
that we had to fulfill,
so we rode that out,
and then after that we left Scepter.
Florence was always telling us,
"Girls, you're going to be rich."
"Girls, you're going to be rich!"
Oh. We couldn't wait until we turned 21.
She said she started a trust fund for us.
When we turned 21, we found out
that there was no trust fund
and it was like we were
speaking another language
when we inquired about it.
So, that was pushed under the rug also.
'Cause we were young,
we knew nothing about the business,
we had no business sense at all
because we were always on the road.
[Greenberg] There's nothing
I can do about it.
Her legacy is what it is.
I mean, I could sit here
and tell you some awful things about her
and I'm not going to do that.
That's not what I do. It's not who I am.
- It's it's
- [clock chimes]
It's There's the bell.
- Thank you. The bell's ringing.
- [people laugh]
[director] Saved by the bell.
[soft pop music playing]
[Lee] Florence, uh, passed some time ago,
but before then,
I had, you know, called her.
I sent her flowers
when she was in the hospital
and I, you know, thanked her
for what she'd done for me.
Out of all that was done,
she taught us a lot,
and whatever she did,
like I said, she did.
We can't take that back
or get it back in any kind of manner,
but God took care of us.
I didn't hold anything against her.
[woman] Here you are.
There's the Grammy.
[Greenberg] The National Academy
of Recording Arts & Sciences
called us and said,
"We're giving your mother
a posthumous Grammy
and we want you to come and receive it."
This is the Grammy for Florence
being the first woman president
of a record company.
You define it by a woman
who made a difference in the world
doing what she wanted to do,
for as long as she wanted to do it.
Got to give her credit for that.
[telephone ringing]
[upbeat classic pop music playing]
[narrator] By 1969,
against the combined forces
of the British Invasion
and emerging singer-songwriter movement,
the Brill was dead.
Well, almost.
You see, America was changing,
tastes were changing, songs were changing,
and in this inhospitable climate,
the Brill produced
one of the most unlikely hits of the era.
["Sugar, Sugar" by the Archies playing]
Sugar ♪
Ah, honey, honey ♪
[Kim] Somewhere beyond what I understood
lived this village
that I needed to get to.
And that turned out to be
the village of New York City
and the Brill Building
[song continues]
[Kim] But it was the voices
that came from afar,
it was this beacon
that I needed to follow.
That music took me beyond where I was.
I just can't believe it's true ♪
I just can't believe
The wonder of this feeling too ♪
[Kim] The Brill Building will always
be around scaffolding every now and then.
I kind of made it a pilgrimage
every couple or three years,
I've always felt that
this was like going to church.
This was where everybody
was hoping to be a part of.
Um
The incredible thing that
that still amazes me,
is that you walk through these front doors
and everything, you know,
the elevators are all gold inside.
Look, they can take this down,
but they can't take away
the moment, the memories,
the teenager that was so alive
for the first time in his life
in a strange country, in a strange city,
among strangers.
And
I guess that's the life of a songwriter.
I know that the building
housed Leiber and Stoller,
Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich.
I know that Phil Spector was here,
Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil,
Carole King, Gerry Goffin,
so many artists, so many writers.
You know, if there's a steady thing
that's been in my life,
it's my writing.
You perform,
people may like you for a while
and then you become irrelevant,
but those songs continue to live
and I appreciate so much the fact
that songs like "Rock Me Gently"
and "Baby I Love You"
and "Sugar, Sugar" continue to live.
It's pretty cool.
Keep on going, guys.
[man] Howie, this is Steph. Steph, Howie.
[indistinct chatter]
Make sure you have a lyric sheet.
They're being passed down.
Anybody not have one?
They're coming around.
[Kim] "Sugar, Sugar"
started with a phone call
from a music producer
by the name of Don Kirshner,
“Any songs for the Archies?”
And, um, I got together with Jeff
and I think it took us ten minutes.
We're going to sing it live
after we've recorded it.
But we're gonna go piece by piece
and make sure we get something
that sounds real.
That's part of the magic,
trying to make it sound like
Get our best takes.
[man 1]
Put your hand up if you're a natural low.
- Okay. Good.
- [man 2] That's enough.
Who's usually a mid?
Okay, and usually a high.
- That's pretty good.
- That's pretty good.
[Kim] And so, we wrote a song
called "Sugar, Sugar."
I would be humming it all the time,
it was one of those catchy things
that was like an earworm
that that never left me.
Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba ♪
Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba ♪
[harmonizing] Ah ♪
You got me wanting you ♪
Ba, ba, ba, da, da ♪
[Kim] It feels like, um,
the future doesn't belong to you.
I just don't want those memories
to die with me. You know?
It's like you go and you visit
your long-lost family and friends.
So I'm hoping that the Brill
still has at least the face of it
and if it doesn't,
then I'm lucky that you're doing this
'cause historically
it means everything to me.
- [man 1] Andy Kim, everyone!
- [choir cheering]
[Kim] Well, thank you.
- Thank you for coming.
- [woman] Nice to see you.
Thank you.
I've got to say hello to everybody.
- Hello. Hello.
- [all chuckling]
[Kim] Someone told me one time,
that my career should not have happened.
I said, "Well, how come?"
He said, "My theory is that
the Brill Building was kind of on a slide,
people were leaving,
things were dissolving."
Fifty years later.
[whooping and cheering]
[Kim] I just think that somehow or other,
people got restless and The Beatles
showed up and changed the whole landscape.
I think the Brill Building
was everyone's blood
and everyone's perspiration
and anxiety and hopes.
[construction sounds]
[Kim] It lives today whether
they're going to reconstruct it or not.
It's not going to be a musical building,
but once upon a time there was a building
that all aspired to join.
To be part of.
To live there and to write there.
And it was called the Brill Building.
["Sugar, Sugar" playing]
I just can't believe
The loveliness of loving you ♪
I just can't believe it's true ♪
I just can't believe
The wonder of this feeling too ♪
I just can't believe it's you ♪
Sugar ♪
[humming]
Ah, honey, honey ♪
[humming]
You are my candy girl ♪
And you got me wanting you ♪
[choir] Ba, ba, ba, da, da ♪
- [Kim] Honey ♪
- Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba ♪
- Ah, sugar, sugar ♪
- Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba ♪
- You are my candy girl ♪
- Ah ♪
And you got me wanting you ♪
[Kim] When I kissed you, girl
I knew how sweet a kiss could be ♪
[choir] Knew how sweet a kiss could be ♪
[Kim] Like the summer sunshine
Pour your sweetness over me ♪
Pour your sweetness over me
Whoa, oh, oh ♪
Pour a little sugar on me, baby ♪
Pour a little sugar on me, honey ♪
I'm gonna make your life so sweet ♪
Pour a little sugar on me, baby ♪
Pour a little sugar on me, honey ♪
I'm gonna make your life so sweet ♪
Sugar, sugar! ♪
[all cheering]
That was awesome.
You are my candy girl ♪
And you got me wanting you ♪
[laughs]
[orchestral pop song playing]