Interview: Richard Sherman on Mary Poppins
Songwriter Profiled in Disney's The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story
Aug 20, 2009 Dominic von Riedemann
As the piano-playing half of the legendary songwriting duo The Sherman Brothers, Richard Sherman wrote everything from pop tunes (Annette Funicello's 1959 hit "Tall Paul") to the classic songs for such films as Winnie the Pooh, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
Now the Sherman Brothers are profiled in the new Disney documentary The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story, opening August 21st. It's also a revealing look at two brothers who, despite writing some of the most classic tunes in family entertainment, could barely stand to be the same room together.
In Part #1 of this exclusive interview, songwriter Richard Sherman discussed how he met Walt Disney, and got the job writing songs for Mary Poppins. In this installment, he discusses working with Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers and star Julie Andrews, while punctuating his points by playing some of his tunes on piano.
S101: When you were writing the songs for Mary Poppins, who were you listening to?
Richard Sherman: “No one. We were listening to ourselves. It was pretty much self-directed and Walt was playing with us, working with us and finally – when we had a pretty good semblance of what we wanted to do – he brought in the best storyman in the whole studio, Bill Walsh, who was a brilliant dialogue writer. And Bill enhanced and improved what we were doing. So, when we finally polished and finished our script, Bill Walsh had a lot to do with that final product.
“But the storyline was all 5 of us.”
According to legend, P.L. Travers was very involved in overseeing the movie–
“Mrs. Travers was . . . difficult.”
That sounds like an understatement.
“Mrs. Travers had no concept of what we were going for. I told her one time, she was going on (adopts plush English accent), 'Oh you can’t do that, you can’t do that!' and I told her, 'Mrs. Travers, we’re never going to hurt your books, your books will always be there. No one in the world is going to touch the books. We’re taking from the books the inspiration to do this story. We’re using these characters that you created, and we’re telling one story, not a series of incidents.' And she looked blank and said, 'But I didn’t write this.' And I said, 'You inspired the whole thing; it was you.' She was very upset about what we were doing, and made no bones about it.
“But I think she acquiesced because her manager finally told her, 'Mrs. Travers, you’re an idiot! You’re gonna walk away from millions!' Because she did make a lot of money from the movie.”
What were some of the conflicts? I know she wanted to kibosh any notion that Mary and Bert were in love–
“We never intended for them to have that. But she was horrified by the fact that they were singing a duet together in “Jolly Holiday.” So we deliberately wrote a chorus that Mary Poppins would sing to Bert, that would be a total disclaimer of any romantic notions on her part (sings and plays the 2nd chorus, starting with “It’s a jolly holiday with you, Bert . . .”). And that ameliorated Mrs. Travers’ fears: Mary and Bert are friends, platonic not romantic. She was very uptight about that.
“You see: Bert really didn’t exist except for one chapter. If you’ve read the books – and obviously you have – he was the sidewalk artist, period.
“But Walt said, 'No, he’s going to be the jack of all trades, he’s gonna be the earthly counterpart, and he’ll explain a lot of things.' Because when we had the confrontation with Mr. Banks, you’d never have a nanny giving life instructions to a gentleman like Mr. Banks. But Bert could do it: as a lowly sweep, he could talk man-to-man.
“My favourite scene in that whole picture was the confrontation scene, when Mr. Banks sings (starts singing and playing) 'A man has dreams of walking with giants . . .' He’s feeling very sorry for himself. And Bert says, 'I know Mary Poppins, she’s the one what sings . . .' (starts singing “Spoonful of Sugar” reprise). So Bert is singing Mary Poppins’ philosophy in a different tune.”
What was it like working with Dick van Dyke and Julie Andrews? What were some of the accommodations that you had to make for their voices and singing styles?
“They were splendid, totally wonderful, elegant folks. Julie loved everything she heard when she heard the score . . . except for the one ballad we had written and we thought was the keynote song – “Through the Eyes of Love.” How do you look at the world? It’s all better through the eyes of love: it was a languid, pretty song.
“But she confessed to Walt, 'I truly love all the songs, and I think they’re delightful, but I’m not too fond of "Through the Eyes of Love." I don’t think it’s right for the picture. I’d like to have a song with a little more snap to it.' So Walt gave us the assignment: 'She wants a different song.'
“And that’s when we came up with (starts playing “Just a Spoonful of Sugar”).“
Did you have to transpose the tunes for their voices?
“Oh, that goes without saying. But basically, I’m a songwriter and my brother’s a songwriter, and we don’t worry about that. If Julie comes in and says, “I’d like to sing it 3 notes lower or higher,” that’s the arranger’s job. We had a genius named Irwin Costell who took our stuff and embroidered them into these orchestrations that everybody hears. But we had no difficulties with that: we just wrote a different song for Julie and she loved it.”
(Unfortunately, due to time constraints, we were unable to discuss the other classic films Richard worked on, or The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story. However, to learn more, click here for an exclusive interview with The Boys' writer/directors, Jeffrey and Gregory Sherman.)
The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story poster
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