Cliff Richard on Parkinson
1 October 1977; Cliff sings Nothing Left For Me To Say and then has a chat with Michael Parkinson
Transcript
00:00There's nothing left for me to say There are no words that can express the way
00:27I've got this feeling it's all over now I never dreamed there'd come a day
00:45When there'd be nothing left to say I guess that you made up your mind
01:08But don't believe you leave nothing behind There's this heart and it's just aching now
01:26I never dreamed there'd come a day When there'd be nothing left to say
01:43Nothing I could say could make you change your way Make you change your mind and stay with me
02:01There's nothing left between we two Though as I say the words I know that they're not true
02:18You're leaving but I'm here with a love for you I never dreamed there'd come a day
02:36When there'd be nothing left to say Nothing left to say, nothing left to say
03:06And that was a song composed by your own fair hand.
03:20Yes, I don't really consider myself a writer, so very rarely do I record, let alone perform them, but just occasionally I write one that I think's quite nice, and in fact, quite a lot of my stuff turns up on the flip sides of records, you know, they're not good enough to be the A-side, so I put them on the other side.
03:35Well, you still make the same amount of money, don't you, on the A-side, or the B-side of a hit record, as you do?
03:39Oh, yes, exactly, except you don't make it on PRS, because PRS just deals with what's played on the radio, and of course, B-sides aren't, and in fact, a lot of the money comes from that area, but I'm still interested in it for its art's sake, and I really would like to be a good writer, you know, you talk about people in your programs who you've had on them, in fact, who are marvellous pianists and write fantastic bits of music, I have quite a lot of envy for people like that, actually, well under control, mind you.
04:02Yes, right. You've also, in fact, going to another market as well, you've written an autobiography called Which One's Cliff? The title's a bit curious, I mean, what's the meaning of Which One's Cliff?
04:12Well, there's two reasons, really. First of all, when the book was finally compiled, it was ghosted for me, and I spent hours cassetting things, you know, speaking onto cassettes, and there were so many various facets that we'd gone into, you know, my opinions on things, and the things that I'd done in the last ten, twelve years.
04:29Someone said, you know, well, you know, one wonders which one is the real Cliff. But also, it comes from a little story that is in the book. I was walking out with my manager, now I'm sure he won't mind me saying this, he has no hair, and he's shorter than I am, not too much, but definitely shorter, and slightly stockier, and we were in near Stockton, Billingham, and we came out of the shop, and two old ladies crossed the road, and one of them said to the other one, oh, look, there's Cliff Richard, and the other one turned around and said, oh, really, which one?
04:57So, you know, which one Cliff is, is a bit of both things, really.
05:04Well, let's try and find out perhaps a little bit on the program which, what you are about. Let's first of all talk about your music, which is one of the most important aspects of your life. Who, in fact, was the, who's been the greatest musical influence on you?
05:15Oh, without a doubt, Elvis. You know, when Elvis, when I first heard, you know, well, since my baby left me, that changed my whole idea of pop music, because there were some very nice pop singers around, like the Teresa Brewers and the Rosemary Cloonies, that were sort of on the bordering of being jazz and had moved away and was something else in the middle, and I couldn't really drum up a great deal of excitement about that kind of singing.
05:39And so when Elvis came along, I suddenly thought, oh, that's the kind of music I want to do. Because, of course, it hadn't been invented until he did it.
05:45Did you ever meet him?
05:46No. I feel a little bit that I lost out there, because about a year ago I had a record called Devil Woman that happened in America, and I was over there promoting it, and someone said to me, you know, if we can arrange it, would you like to meet Elvis?
05:59And I thought about it, and I thought, well, he, I knew this not very well, and I'd read and seen photographs where he was about 17 stone and really, really big and just didn't look like the Elvis, and he looked very sad as well.
06:09And I said, look, I'm sure he'll get better. I'll wait. I'll wait till he's able to, you know, be normal, and I'd like to meet the guy that started me off, not this new image.
06:20And I wish now that I'd met him, actually, because suddenly thinking about it, I was treating it exactly as a fan might, you know? I just didn't want to break an image that I had of this magnificent guy that came out and was the rebellious man with the raucous music that no one else but kids liked.
06:36I mean, what destroyed him? I mean, was that, do you think, a defect in himself, or was he just the end product of an industry in which one sees so many casualties?
06:44I don't know that there's a complete answer. I do feel that unless you stay in touch with reality, there's every danger that you could go into an area where you believe that maybe it's a bit unreal.
06:56Nobody really knows Elvis, you see. Even the bodyguards weren't around, and the last stories I heard was that Elvis sort of lived in the upstairs area and wouldn't come down till he was ready to see everybody.
07:08So no one really knew him, and I feel that for a guy that gave so much enjoyment to have apparently had so little seems most unfair.
07:16I mean, I take my own case where it's a much lesser degree, of course, but for instance, I'm really known in my hometown. I mean, I'd go, I don't mind going to the supermarket.
07:25I mean, this morning I was in the supermarket, and I heard one lady who'd recognized me and then gone off, and she didn't realize that I'd come up the same store, you know, the same shelving.
07:33And she said to her husband, a bit untidy, isn't he? You know? And I thought, well, I was, because I was wearing the garden jeans and the rough old jacket and everything, and I hadn't washed the bar in it, although I had shaved.
07:45But you see, that to me is a bit of reality, because that's what she was saying. She didn't know I'd heard, but it was like keeping me in touch with what we're really about, being people.
07:54Yeah, in touch with normalcy, in fact.
07:55That's right, yeah.
07:56There must, of course, be occasions, but I mean, you just can't be normal, and you are subject and prey to these sort of really false pressures.
08:02Oh, sure, but I like that. You mean, I mean, I like going to Birmingham and having a big poster up saying I'm going to do concerts, and two houses are full, and therefore everybody's excited, and the lights go down, and you hear everybody going, and I love all that.
08:14But there again, you see, I don't live in Birmingham, so I can cope with that out there. I can be whatever people want me to be in Birmingham. I mean, I get shaved and have a wash and everything and look all smart and the way they expect you to look on stage.
08:26But when I go, it's the going home, I think. I think it's knowing that there's an area where you are absolutely real and you can be absolutely yourself, and I know that people come to my home and go away a bit angry, because I've said, look, I'd rather you didn't come here.
08:41Oh, right.
08:42Give me your fans.
08:43Yeah.
08:44I mean, you get them camping out in the garden, do you?
08:45No, no, not camping out in the garden, but they'll come down, and I've always made it, certainly in the last years, as I feel I've matured as a person, I've thought I need privacy, and the public, most of them realise this, you know.
08:57And as I say, when you say to a fan at the door, it's nice of you to come all this way, but I can't invite you in. I'm not going to sit and talk with you. I've got my family inside, and I want to watch Kojak or something, you know.
09:06And you sign the autograph and say goodbye. Now, some people storm off, really storm off, and that gives me a bit of a heart flutter for a while, and I think, well, they're not really trying to understand, you know.
09:16But what is it? I mean, you must have been tempted. I mean, you've been in the business now for 19 years, and you know better than I do, you've seen the ruination of many, many good artists in your business through drugs, drink, women, a combination of all three.
09:29Right.
09:30I mean, were you ever tempted at all by any of these things in your career?
09:34Well, the drinks and drugs. Let's deal with that one first.
09:38Yeah.
09:39When I was very young, and smoking as well, I had an aversion to smoking, and I didn't like the smell of beer. I mean, so when people say to me, oh, you're an awful lucky that you don't smoke, and I don't drink a great deal, but I like to drink wine and things with dinner.
09:52I always feel I'm very fortunate in that certain area, that I never really had the feeling that I wanted to drink excessively, or that I ever, I've never, ever taken a puff of a cigarette in my life.
10:01And if I had to, if I was offered a part in a film, I fear I'd have to turn it down if it meant that I'd smoke, because I don't think I could do it.
10:07But naturally, the drug bit was always there.
10:11But somehow or another, I find it rather miraculous, really.
10:14I mean, I worked with bands, and looking back on it now, it was obvious that that funny smell that I smelled around the place was hash.
10:20I mean, there's no doubt about it now in my mind. I know what it smells like.
10:23And yet, no one ever came to me and said, look, here's a joint. No.
10:26Maybe it's because I just didn't smoke.
10:28Maybe that's been a great help to me.
10:30And of course, I mean, everybody is, I mean, the whole sexuality of life is a constant temptation.
10:35I mean, of course it is.
10:36But I don't know what you mean by temptation in that area.
10:40What do you mean in the...
10:42The women area.
10:43The women area. You don't understand what I mean.
10:45I would mean by temptation...
10:47It's the same thing as the sort of drugs and bit.
10:49No, no, it's not as really as...
10:52It's not as dangerous.
10:54No, right.
10:56No, it's not.
10:58No, I didn't really mean to class it with that at all.
11:02But let's talk about that.
11:04Because it's, I mean, I would imagine what one of the problems would be if one were a pop star.
11:10That you were constantly surrounded by attractive people who really, women particularly,
11:15really wanted to go to bed with you just because you were Cliff Richard.
11:18And I would find it very difficult, or would have done, certainly at your age when you were growing up,
11:22to have said no.
11:24In fact, I'd probably found myself in bed with about 13 of them.
11:28People always assume things about me.
11:30That at the age of 18, the temptations, I didn't fall to them, you know.
11:37It's like another life to me, that area.
11:39And of course there were women.
11:41I never slept around, I have to be honest and say that maybe it's a home background or whatever,
11:44but I always felt that I was going to save myself for somebody special.
11:48So that helped me a great deal.
11:49But of course there were lovely people around all the time.
11:52And there still are, you know, there still are.
11:54But of course as I've got older, as my Christianity's taken a really strong grip of my life,
11:58I realize now more and more that if a woman was to enter my life,
12:02it would have to be a real special thing, you know.
12:05And maybe it's asking too much of people.
12:08But why hasn't that special woman entered your life, Cliff?
12:10Because, I mean, you don't exactly look like the hunchback of Notre Dame.
12:13And you are, you are, you're a very attractive man.
12:16You've been in this glamorous business for a long, long time.
12:20I find it absolutely sort of baffling that...
12:23Well, most people do, you see.
12:24I mean, it's amazing.
12:25A lot of people think I have something against marriage.
12:26I mean, I've done interview after interview, not on television necessarily, but certainly press.
12:31And they have this thing that I don't want to be married and that I hold it all at bay.
12:36When in fact I'm sitting back and saying, I've seen happy marriages, of course I've seen them.
12:41I'm surrounded perhaps by a lot of unhappy marriages as we all are.
12:44But I've seen happy ones work.
12:46And I can only think that the end product of that is rather nice and rather good
12:49and therefore rather something I would rather desire.
12:52But when The Shadows all got married, for instance, the temptation to get married was incredible.
12:58Because suddenly I was the odd man out.
13:00But, you know, I mean, everybody knows the story of people like The Shadows.
13:04I mean, most of them have had unhappy affairs, but are happily now, you know, with people.
13:10That's right.
13:11And you can't meet happier people.
13:13But I was so glad that at the age of 18, I didn't do what I think a lot of young people do,
13:18and that is succumb to this pressure of marriage, the whole pressure that is sexuality nowadays.
13:25No one takes it as it comes.
13:27Or maybe that's the wrong phrase.
13:28Maybe they do.
13:31You know what I mean?
13:32Rather than me rush into anything and say, I ought to be married, you know,
13:36you know, Parkey's a bit baffled, and so is the rest of the world.
13:41I ought to...
13:43No, you know what I mean.
13:47I'm sorry, I didn't mean it.
13:49You're silly.
13:50Listen, I'm not proposing to you, I'm just asking you a question.
13:54But I wonder, you see, I wonder, you see, there's a difference between being choosy and being celibate.
14:00Ah, yeah.
14:01And you'll be celibate...
14:02Well, there is.
14:03And you'll be celibate.
14:04That's what I call the same for the past 12 years.
14:06And this no doubt dates from that moment when you became a confirmed Christian.
14:11That's right.
14:12And it became a very important part of your life.
14:13I wonder, though, how much of that celibacy was part of the Christianity, or was it very much you?
14:21I mean, I'm not suggesting for a moment that you don't have normal feelings.
14:24What I'm suggesting, perhaps, is that they're not as strongly developed in you as they would be in me, say.
14:29Well, I mean, that's a possibility, but that's to my good then, isn't it, is I'm not married?
14:33Well, you can look at it two ways, please.
14:37No, well, I mean, obviously, I mean, people are individual and different, and we all cope with lives from where we are with what we have that is our character makeup.
14:47So maybe I'm able to cope without being married.
14:49As I say, I look at it and think, well, it would be really nice to be married.
14:53I like the idea of being a father.
14:55I always kid myself that I could be a good one.
14:58So, I mean, it's never bothered me, and I know it's a topic of conversation with most people.
15:03But I've always said, well, I'm not married, you know.
15:05The day that I meet someone that I want to get married to, I will get married, and there's no doubt about it.
15:09This, I must say, you're right.
15:11My views on marriage and sex within marriage, etc., of course, have been underlined entirely by my Christian faith.
15:20Yes. Now, it's this faith, of course, these views that you hold, which are, I suppose, it'd be fair to say, are unfashionable views.
15:28Certainly within the context of the industry that you're in, there aren't too many, I would imagine, who hold your kind of view in the pop industry.
15:35Wouldn't that be fair?
15:36Yeah, I think it's fair. Perhaps more so in America, though. There are probably more people in America who are Christian.
15:40I wonder how much that makes you an outcast among your fellow performers.
15:45Well, funnily enough, it doesn't make me an outcast at all.
15:47I mean, I work with a really fine band of musicians who, I mean, it's been marvelous because the last two years, I've felt almost rejuvenated when it comes to musical things
15:55because, you know, I've made records that I didn't think I would be making again, and I know that when I, I've just completed an album now that will come out in January,
16:04and the musicians wanted to be on my tracks, they wanted to be there, and I have their respect.
16:09I'll be doing a gospel concert tour starting next Friday, and the musicians are all there because they want to be there.
16:14Because they know musically it's nice, and they respect my beliefs.
16:18I mean, I don't try and ram it down their throats. Maybe that's why.
16:20You don't. I was going to ask you about that. I mean, you must see again, because you're in this scene.
16:25I've seen it happen. You must see things happen when you're touring that you disapprove of.
16:29Sure.
16:30I mean, then what do you do? Keep your mouth shut?
16:32No, I just say I disapprove of it, but then that's all, that goes towards being the kind of person that they would respect.
16:39I mean, I always think the people that aren't true to what they believe are terribly hypocritical, naturally,
16:45and therefore you lose respect for people.
16:47So that, I mean, I make my stand very clear with them, and they make theirs with me, you know.
16:54There's one of my band is into transcendental meditation, and we're poles apart, and yet very, very close, really,
16:59because we recognize in each other that we both recognize that we both need a spiritual part of our lives.
17:07Now, at one point in your life, I think I'm right in saying about four or five years ago,
17:10you retired from the business and announced that you were going to go into religion full-time.
17:14You didn't. In fact, you came back. I wonder why.
17:17Well, first of all, it was about ten years ago.
17:19Was it ten years ago?
17:20Yeah, I'd been a Christian for a couple of years, and a lot of Christian folks had said, my friends had said,
17:25no, stay in the business, you know, you can talk to press and, you know, go on record very publicly saying what you say,
17:31and it would be a marvelous sort of testimony to God and to Jesus.
17:35So I thought, great, and I stayed, and I did my interviews, and the interviews came and went,
17:38and I thought, well, they're asking the same questions, I'm giving the same answers, it's got to be a dead-end job.
17:43And I thought, well, I cannot be a Christian and show business.
17:46And so I thought, well, I'll leave.
17:48The mistake I made, you see, Michael, was to actually call the press together and sort of share with them the way I was feeling,
17:54and I said to them, look, I think I'm not going to stay, I'm going to leave, in fact.
17:57I don't know when, but I plan to go, and I canceled my fan club, and I talked with my manager,
18:01and he said, if you're happy doing what you're going to do, then do it.
18:05The press jumped the gun, rather, and sort of put dates on it, and made it very, very public.
18:09As I say, it was a mistake on my part.
18:11So that six months later, when I discovered that I could be a Christian and show business,
18:14and really, it became more and more concrete when, in those last days, when I was thinking, this is it, I'm leaving,
18:20the Billy Graham organization reared its head and offered me a film part,
18:23and said, we need a Christian who's had film experience, and I thought, well, of course I'm obviously the only one.
18:28I mean, the choice is pretty small in England.
18:30So, um, I got this, uh...
18:33You mean a Christian film actor?
18:35Yes.
18:36So I did this film, and then, even then, I still thought I'm going to leave.
18:41And then my recording manager, Norrie Paramore, my then-producer, said,
18:45we ought to do a gospel album, you know, even people who don't believe sing gospel music, because it's nice music.
18:50And I thought, all right, I'll do that, then I'll go.
18:52And then I got approached by a television company to do six gospel programs,
18:57and I thought, now, wait a minute, is God actually trying to say something to me here?
19:00And, I mean, I'm sure he was, and he was saying, stay, you know, of course you can make use of it.
19:05And since that time, unashamedly, I have made use of it.
19:08I haven't cut down on my other work.
19:10I mean, I still go out on tour every year, um, religiously, doing my concerts for the public,
19:16and if they want to see me, I'm only too happy to go on tour.
19:19I still make records, I still make ordinary albums and things, I tour the world.
19:22But alongside it now, I've got this, another whole, um, I don't know, another whole aspect,
19:27which makes it all so exciting for me, you know.
19:29And it obviously gives you great strength, that's quite obvious.
19:31I can't remember what it was like before I was a Christian, really.
19:34I can't remember enjoying anything.
19:36Can I ask you, um, also, I mean, you're now, you've talked about being in the industry about touring,
19:42still going on tour and this sort of thing.
19:43One wonders, I mean, you look remarkably young still, but you are 36, aren't you?
19:47And that's not old.
19:48No, you don't.
19:49But I just wonder how difficult it is to maintain the image of the Popeye 36.
19:53I mean, do people keep looking at you for lines and wrinkles?
19:56And if they looked at me, they'd find a few, right?
19:59Well, I have to say that, you know, I never use stage makeup.
20:01You don't?
20:02No, polyfill is perfectly all right.
20:08I must be, I must be very fortunate in that area again, because I have a mother who's older than me.
20:15And, uh, and she looks ridiculously young.
20:17Now, I keep thinking to myself, well, it must be the jeans business, you know?
20:20Um, and if there's something that will just hold out another five or six years, it'll be great.
20:25It might just all collapse, though, you see?
20:27Uh, and I've just got to be prepared for that.
20:29Because, I mean, you used to be called Chubby Chops at one time, didn't you?
20:32Listen, I began my diet because, um, the Minnie Caldwell character in Coronation Street, um, I got an honorary mention.
20:39I was thrilled, but she said, oh, I do love that Chubby Cliff Richard.
20:42And I thought, you know, this was like 15 years ago.
20:44And I thought, but that's not the image I'm trying to portray.
20:47I'm not trying to sort of be a chubby, you know, nice little boy.
20:50And I thought, I've got to go on a diet and get thin and, you know, all that bit.
20:54And it really got me on my diet, because I didn't want to be chubby.
20:57And, of course, I have this great incentive if you're on television.
20:59Uh, you want to look slim.
21:01You want to wear clothes that look with it.
21:03And, uh, and so therefore I diet.
21:04Yes.
21:05That helps, I suppose.
21:06Yes.
21:07Well, talking about chubby, our next guest is somebody you know very well.
21:09And, uh, he's rather chubby too, so we'll talk to him in a moment.
21:11But for the minute, Cliff Richard, thank you very much indeed.
21:13I enjoyed that.
21:14Thank you.
21:15APPLAUSE