LIANE HANSEN, host:
If you know Bruce Hornsby's name at all, it's probably from his hit song, "The Way It Is." In 1987, it was the most played song on American radio. But the talented pianist-singer-songwriter is far from a one-hit wonder. He's won three Grammy Awards, been nominated for 13, wrote the end title songs for two Spike Lee movies and played on over 100 records with an A-list of performers.
In 2009, Bruce Hornsby released his 10th studio album and his first for the Verve label. It's called "Levitate." And this is the first cut called "Black Rats of London."
(Soundbite of song, "Black Rats of London")
Mr. BRUCE HORNSBY (Musician): (Singing) Night crawlers cleared the forests of seedlings and nuts and leaves.
HANSEN: Bruce Hornsby, I want to thank you for inviting us into your home studio in Williamsburg.
Mr. HORNSBY: Yeah, now that we all smell like dog.
HANSEN: Yeah, your dog Sadie just came in.
Mr. HORNSBY: My dog Sadie came in here and just licked all of us. So, you're right at home now.
HANSEN: Yeah. You're very close to colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown and Yorktown and all these scenes from the Revolutionary War. And the first track on your new CD "Levitate," right?
Mr. HORNSBY: That's right.
HANSEN: "The Black Rats of London."
Mr. HORNSBY: "Black Rats of London" deals with some little known facts in American history swept under the rug. The true heroes have not been recognized.
(Soundbite of song, "The Black Rats of London")
Mr. HORNSBY: (Singing) Parasites decimated the Red Army of Cornwallis and his flock, standing weakly on Yorktown battlefield with measles and smallpox. Horses, hogs, and chickens, and dogs and John Rolfe's prized worms. Divine intervention, bacterial strains from imported English dirt. Hoorah, hooray, the black rats of London. They crossed the sea for you and me. Let's raise a glass so thankfully. Hail, Hail, hooray.
As I get older, I look to not repeat myself and I look to find new and interesting areas to write about and this was certainly one of them. I wrote it out of a National Geographic article about Jamestown - cover story two or three years ago it was written - talking about the rodents and the bacterial strains that came over on the ships and infected the locals and allowed the colonists to prevail against them.
But, in the end, I didn't want anybody to think that I thought this was such a great thing. So, in the end, I thought I'd add this postscript that says, where were the black rats when we needed them the most? There were slave owners to infect. And the Joe Mengeles of the American West, sort of a reference to what some people would refer to as the American holocaust.
HANSEN: Now, "Levitate," you were writing a Broadway - a musical.
Mr. HORNSBY: Fully eight songs on this record come from the musical. Now, they weren't all written exactly for the musical. For instance, "Black Rats of London" is, quote, "one of the songs in the musical." It's only in there the play big shots liked the song so much they wanted to see if they could sort of shoehorn it into the musical, and so they did. And it works great. Our play is called "SCKBSTD," all in capital letters on a Virginia license plate.
HANSEN: Oh.
Mr. HORNSBY: That's the title of our play.
HANSEN: You're going to play one of the songs from the album and it's a song called "Paperboy."
Mr. HORNSBY: Yes. This musical speaks to the different time that we live in, as opposed to when I grew up, doors were unlocked. It's sort of a cliche maybe. It's sort of, you know, the good old days when this wasn't a problem, but it wasn't a problem generally. And now it's completely different. And there's much more paranoia. And this musical speaks a bit to this paranoia. This unknown shows up and starts freaking people out. And so the rumor mill runs rampant. It's called "Paperboy" because it's sung by the local paperboy who's been hearing all these vicious rumors.
HANSEN: Well, let's hear it. Bruce Hornsby with "Paperboy" from his new CD "Levitate" on the Verve label.
(Soundbite of song, "Paperboy")
Mr. HORNSBY: (Singing) Let's all keep our voices low. Here's a story you don't know. Good as anything we can't watch on HBO. Before you say it's all bunk, throw it out as so much junk, listen what this guy's been hiding in his trunk. He's looking for me. He's looking for you. He'll cut off your feet just to take your shoes.
Now, there was that little girl, the pink ribbon and auburn curls, who ended up as cargo and then taken for a whirl. He must've given her a whack, pre-teen surprise attack, ended up between the guy's spare tire and his jack. He's looking for me. He's looking for you. He'll cut off your feet just to take your shoes.
He's looking for me. He's looking for you. Believe you me, every word is true. In his kitchen there's a corpse. Made a meal of his divorce. Eats a different body part for every different course. In his basement there's a crypt. It's so well, well equipped. Seen so many ghoulish things they now seem non-descript. He's looking for me. He's looking for you. Another peep, and we'll be through. He's looking for me. He's looking for you. He'll cut off your feet just to take your shoes.
HANSEN: That was Bruce Hornsby playing "Paperboy," a tune you can find on his new album "Levitate" on the Verve label. Is this a departure for you because it's a little atonal, little dissonant?
Mr. HORNSBY: Yeah. I've, for many years had a fondness for 20th century and now, I guess, 21st century classical music. So this is a song that deals in that language - a little more dissonant, a little bit more harmonically complex. But still try to make it a pop song in the sense that the chorus, to me, it's fairly Beatles-esque. So, I guess you could call it Lennon/McCartney meets Schoenberg.
HANSEN: I love the song "Hear My Prayer."
Mr. HORNSBY: "Simple Prayer."
HANSEN: "Simple Prayer."
Mr. HORNSBY: Yeah.
HANSEN: You're praying for a bottle of Rogaine?
Mr. HORNSBY: Yeah, exactly, yeah. Praying to win the game. It's just about the inane things that people pray for.
(Soundbite of song, "Simple Prayer")
Mr. HORNSBY: (Singing) I've got a load of payments, pitiful bank statements. I'm sinking in debt, I'm no, I'm no millionaire. Finances are tottery, liquidity is watery, let me hit the lottery, that's my simple prayer.
So, yeah, "Simple Prayer," lyrics written by my old childhood friend, Chip DeMatteo. We pulled a lot of crap in school. We had a company called Zappo Productions, and we would book the worst bands in our town. We wrote a musical called "Schenectady." We wrote a sequel called "Southern Schenectady." We had this play produced as the drama club production for one of the local high schools, which was unbelievable. I don't know how we were able to finagle that occurrence. The headmaster of the school just hated it.
Anyway, in 2004, my last record "Halcyon Days," my last record of songs like "Paperboy" had three songs in the middle that were basically solo piano songs. And they had - I got a letter out of the blue from Playwrights Horizons, a company on 42nd Street that develops plays. And there was a guy at Playwrights Horizons who had been turned on to these three songs on this record of mine by Brian Stokes Mitchell, the great Broadway actor/singer.
HANSEN: Actor.
Mr. HORNSBY: Stokes turned this guy onto this record and they both thought this sounds like Broadway musical, show music, he should be doing this. So, they contacted me and I responded. I said, sure, I'm interested in this as long as it's fun. When it starts to be a grind and a drag, I'm done.
So I contacted my old friend, Chip DeMatteo, and said, hey, let's give this a shot together. It might be fun. Let's see what we can get away with.
(Soundbite of song, "Simple Prayer")
Mr. HORNSBY: (Singing) Can you hear me? Are you out there? This is my simple prayer. Can you hear me? Are you out there? This is my simple, simple, simple prayer. This is my simple prayer. This is my simple prayer.
HANSEN: This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.