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Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
1969 | Action, Classics, Western

"We worked at 4 o’clock in the morning and whoever was going to play my part — they couldn’t find the list when they came back from location. So they just — as they said — got their favorites. It was Henry [Jones] and me. So I played the girl of the evening that he picked out. I decided that he loved my long beautiful blonde hair so I went to the hair department and found a beautiful wig with hair down to my knees, and the only way to show it of course would be to be on my stomach and the hair on top. Then I thought, “Wouldn’t it be nice to sing a song for Paul Newman’s fans?” I thought “The Sweetest Little Fellow” [from the song “Mighty Like a Rose” by Paul Robeson] would serve the purpose: “with eyes of shiny blue, makes you think of heaven — da-da-da-da-da.” So the producers said I could sing it and then when when I heard it, it sounded like a cat mewing. We didn’t have time to fix it [laughing]."

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Ballad for Americans by Paul Robeson
Ballad for Americans by Paul Robeson
1993 | Rock
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"There's a reason that I left this one for last. I put it in this position because it seemed like the natural conclusion to this collection of songs. It's the climax, it's the one that gathers everything up and then sums everything up emotionally. It's the finale - everything's building up to this moment. There's centuries of pain, tragedy and - again - loss in his voice, it's undeniable. “The lyrics are based around one extremely simple metaphor, but so much that's good in art, whether we're talking about visual art or songwriting or performance art or literature or poetry, so much that's truly powerful takes one easily understood idea and then brings depth to it. That's what's happening here - it's a metaphor that you instantly understand. It's like looking at a Picasso painting; you're immediately struck by the image, but there's so much more going on beneath the surface. You can listen to it hundreds of times and not feel as if you've exhausted its emotional content. “We were talking about Trish Keenan earlier, but she seems like one of the exceptions to the rule I subscribe to, which is that you should be able to understand everything purely from the performance and the lyrics. You shouldn't need to know anything about the artist's personal life. Paul Robeson was this gargantuan figure of the twentieth century; there was that intelligence, integrity and, for the most part, nobility to him, going as he did from singer to actor to petitioning the President of the United States, but you wouldn't even have to know the slightest thing about him, and you'd still have that instant reaction to this song; there's so much emotional power to it. “I don't know how I'd deal with life if I didn't have music like this - to help me go through it, and to help me understand it.”"

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