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I learned the whole entire Fake Book. He gave me this
thing called the Fake Book. Do you remember those
things? I would spend hours playing this unbelievable music, and going, wow, this melody. "Stardust,"
you know, what a melody. I'd swoon over the
melodies, and I wanted that. I knew somebody wrote
that; I knew these were standards that were loved
and approved by millions of people. And I thought
that's what I want to do. So it put me right in it. But it
was always the melody that really attracted me.
And your secret sauce is your melodies. You can put
together four or five notes and make them
memorable-that's a talent. So I was going to ask you,
at what point did you realize that you had a talent for
melody and really put it to work, because you obviously
did it with purpose?
I think when I wrote "Open Arms," it was a breakthrough for me. I was getting married to this gal
down here in L.A., and I wanted to write a song to
give to her as a music gift. I remember working it out
and I didn't have the lyrics to the verse, so I just
played it on this upright piano, and then I sang the
chorus, and everybody was weeping at the wedding.
That's how bad my singing was. No, just kidding.
That was my first glimpse into, "Wow, that's a neat
song." And then I showed it to John Waite, and he
passed on it. "I don't like that very much." [laughter]

and you lived those words even in the face of tragedy,
of bad times, the band breakups, all that stuff. So
inspire them with something about patience, persistence and perseverance.
The deal is that you were given a gift. If you have
written a song, you are less than one percent of the
population that can write a song. People ask me all
the time, "How do you do that?" Well, you do it, and
all of you out here that have written a song have that
gift. And that gift has to be nurtured. It's like a garden, you've got to water it, you gotta use it, keep the
weeds out, and never let it die. It's who you are, it's
part of your identity. I believe that writers have that
in their DNA. This is who you are, and so the more
you flex that identity and look for the originality
within you. You are different than anybody else. Each
one of us has their own identity in this room. We all
are different, and we all have a unique something to

say about something. And that's for us to just mine,
just constantly mine, farm it, work it, write about
anything.
I wrote a song about my dog. I loved my dog, and
when he died-Nero, my German Shepard-I wrote
a song called "Man's Best Friend." It ended up being
on... Tony LaRussa has an art foundation, which is
the Animal Relief Fund. It ended up being on their
video. So, every song you write has a destiny. I don't
care if it's for somebody's birthday party and you
inspire somebody, or you give it to them as a gift.
This is my gift, you know. You are sharing your
identity and the gift that God has given you.
[applause]
Don't miss Part Two of this interview in next
month's Transmitter!

But I never gave up on the song. So when Steve Perry
asked me in 1981, "Do you have any ballads?" "As a
matter of fact, yes, I do." And I played him "Open
Arms," and we finished the song that afternoon. I
finally had my partner to get figure out the verses
with. And when he sang it, I kept taking the key up. I
said, "It still sounds too low. We need to go higher."
I'm a real musician, folks, I can play it in any key. My
piano teacher used to do that to me all the time. "Do
you know 'The Shadow of Your Smile'? I want you to
learn it in four keys." So "Open Arms" was in D, and
it went to a whole fourth up. And when he sang it up
there, I said, "The world is not going to believe this
guy." It's just the way he could do it. I don't think
anybody sings "Open Arms" better than Steve, you
know. And it went to #1 in Atlanta. I remember playing it live for the first time, and people lost their
minds. It was great. I was so proud. I was very proud
to have that little song that started on a Wurlitzer
piano in a bedroom somewhere being on the big
stage.
You talked in the book quite a bit about patience and
persistence, and that really resonated with me because
when I first started TAXI in 1992, I wrote a little walletsize manual for our members, and on the very last page
it said, "Don't forget the three P's, which are patience,
persistence, and perseverance, and you echo that sentiment throughout the book. I am absolutely convinced
that you would have been successful because you were
unstoppable. You really were. You were on a mission,
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Recording - February 2020

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