Lately I've been kind of fascinated with Desmond Child, ever since that "Remaking Vince Neil" special that was on VH1 a few weeks ago where a large chunk of the program focused on Vince trying to get his solo career off the ground by recording a power ballad with Desmond. I'd known of DC's numerous songwriting credits and reputation as one of the biggest MOR hacks in the business before that, but didn't really know anything about him, or even if he was a man or a woman. And really, no matter what your opinion of assembly line pop is, it's hard not to find several songs he wrote that you like and probably even more that you hate. I mean, this is the guy responsible for "Livin' La Vida Loca" and all those 90's Aerosmith ballads (although I give him credit for co-writing a couple of my favorite songs on Pump). I tend to think of him as some kind of pop music equivalent of Dick Cheney, a force of evil making all kinds of shady deals behind closed doors. I mean shit, his name is 2 letters away from DEMON CHILD, that has to be a sign.
He was great in the VH1 thing, though: this effeminate middle-aged guy who was completely merciless to Vince, telling him how much his voice sucks and how bad every take was. Later, he told the camera, "at this point, Vince is getting very frustrated, he's complaining, that's code for 'I'm mad at you for writing such a hard song...oh I feel for you...NOT'". He was so awesome. Another choice quote: "I don't feel sorry for stars, they get their picture on the cover, and I get my name maybe printed on the tiniest corner of the product. But it's ok, as long as they put my tiny little name on the big check, I'll be fine"
So I was pretty excited last week when I heard Desmond as a guest on World Cafe on my local college station (which I almost never listen to by choice, but I'm a university employee and they literally pipe it into the lobby in the building where I work, and I just happened to catch it one day while going about my business). I wish I could find the audio somewhere online. He told great stories about the origins of some of his biggest hits, including a longer version of the story he told in the Vince Neil special about how "Dude Looks Like A Lady" was inspired by Vince. Apparently it was originally called "Cruisin' For The Ladies", but Desmond pushed for the change of direction for the song despite the band's hesitations about making it about gender ambiguity. He also talked about his sometimes competitive and sometimes collaborative relationship with Dianne Warren, and how her writing methods differ from his, which was actually pretty interesting. During the interview, Desmond also played piano and sang solo renditions of some of the hits he's written, including "Livin' On A Prayer" and Hanson's "Weird", which he said was his favorite song. Apparently he wrote that from the perspective of growing up gay, but he made the lyrics more universal so that Hanson could sing it, and had a good chuckle over the subversiveness of it all. Simon Cowell and P. Diddy have already proven that mean music moguls make for great reality TV, so seriously, someone give this guy his own show.
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on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 at 11:40 AM.
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I can't lay hands on my favorite DC interview but there was this one I read somewhere where he was more or less gloating about this incident where he was in the studio with Ricky Martin and Ricky didn't want to do anymore takes and was all cranky and let me out of here and he said he had to go to the bathroom. Des said he knew if he let Ricky out, Ricky'd make a break for it, so he made him pee in an Evian bottle. Des told this story with such *glee.* It was truly, truly amusing.