Name: Paul Shaffer On Britney Spears & Bob Dylan | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2025-01-10T16:00:04.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Paul Shaffer On Britney Spears & Bob Dylan | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-01-10. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Paul Shaffer On Britney Spears & Bob Dylan | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-01-10. Transcript available.

paul congratulations thank you very much for being here thank you and of course
no it's a trip being here sitting right here we uh we know that one of the the
great things you do
one of the many great things you do and by and by the way i've said it before
but the night in and
night out the absolute best part of the show is paul and the music thank you
thank you right after
night thank you guys and lady is your uh is your understudy here by the way
where's the understudy
yeah he is also backstage okay just in case just in case something happens and
i get too excited
now uh when when people come on you you like to play a very subtly appropriate
music for them and
we just heard it's raining men tell people how that applies to you i am co-writer
no thank you a lot of
some people most people do know a lot of people don't i am the co-writer of
that song i wrote it
with the late great paul jabbar the guy who wrote last dance for donna summer
back in 1982
just as we were coming on the air and it came out in 83 and it became a number
one dance hit record
and um well let's just say that paul jabbar knew donna summer very well knew
her audience very well
and wrote it especially for the gay disco club audience was she originally
going to record it
it was written for her and that's why he wrote big long notes i would say amen
he said no no she likes
amen you know she stretched the notes out for her and we sent it to her and it
was really was going
to bring because her career had just cooled off a little bit after last dance
this was going to
bring her back one thing that we miscalculated donna summer had become a born
again uh christian and
she didn't have too much of a sense of humor any anymore about a lyric like it's
raining men
it's raining men yeah hallelujah amen it's raining men amen and she said you
boys we've lost you you
know the savior and the poor so she didn't end up recording it but paul had
such faith in it
that he recruited them a music track anyway didn't care that i don't know who i'm
gonna and he called
me up and he said i'm debuting the song he was a little bit of a flamboyant uh
theatrical gentleman
if i may put it that way well sure put it put it any way you like and he um he
would say put it
anywhere you want and i would say hey professional professional relationship
yeah well and we never you
know we got along very very well he called me up and he said i'm debuting the
song in the in central park
now who ended up recording it it was not donna summer's the weather girls he
found two wonderful
girls who were working under the name two tons of fun and if you remember them
we had them on when
this record went number one dance and each one did weigh literally a ton each
wait a minute no no i
mean they were but they had voices to match big gospel voices and they made a
terrific record on it but
at this point he didn't have any voices on it and he said i'm debuting the song
in central
park on gay pride day and i want you there to share to bask in the glory of it
now did your uh how
about your wife did you was your wife now you said have told me before that
your wife is your harshest
critic did she immediately like this song or what was a tough critic uh and she
is not necessarily
aware of how fragile the ego i see yeah like myself so i never played her
anything that any of my work
but this one when we made the demo of it with a girl named lita galloway said
it's raining
good it was just a magical and i'm gonna play it for kathy anyway and i said
honey what do you think of
this thing i just wrote with paul jabbar and he won an oscar you know this
might have something
and she listened to it she said what are you thinking it's raining so when i
said paul jabbar
wants me to go and be backstage with him at gay pride day she said if one and
this was you know we
are both it's very very open-minded i ended up marrying her we weren't married
at the time but you
know more you couldn't find more liberal open-minded people but she said if one
person takes a picture
of you at gay pride day you're gonna be sorry and i said honey well it was only
82 you know attitudes
were not the way they are today you know and i was thrilled to go then but i
thought maybe she's
right and i wish paul the best and i didn't join him in the thing but you know
he said i got a
huge production girls from studio 54 because it was like the early 80s are
going to come out
a muscle man is going to come out and i said paul isn't gay pride day like a
militant on stage
saying we are everywhere and we will prevail and he said oh they've got to
lighten up you know
so i didn't go
i did not go to gay pride day but kathy and i used to we were very young at the
time like in our early
30s we used to rent bicycles and ride through the park we were just uh you know
just dating and we
were maybe had bicycles reserved to rent that sunday uh i didn't go to gay
pride day but we were
fighting like hell as we often used to it those days and those mostly over the
issue of commitment
i don't know if this is a strange story to people out there but fighting we
weren't speaking yet we
were riding the bikes and not talking and at five i say hey so you know paul
jabbar is going on at gay
pride day let's get over to the great line and we sure enough we ride up on top
of the bluffs of the
great line of and gay pride day is happening down there and there is i was
right there was a you know a
lesbian gal of about this these dimensions screaming at the god we are
everywhere and now paul jabara
with a great song you're going to be enjoying this summer and and the girls
like singing it live you
know the girls have studio 54 come out it's a shambles one slipped and the
other one's trying to rip off
her rain slicker and show a red bathing suit now they're all ripping them off
the muscle man comes on
and the people are booing they're doing my song boo and i say that's the only
song i've ever written
and i say to kathy my fiancee honey this is the most bizarre thing that's ever
happened to me and she
says well i told you the song sucked when you wrote it and rides on on the
bicycle leading me
alone on my bicycle to say why would you have to hurt me on gay pride day right
well we'll be right back
here with paul schaefer ladies and gentlemen here it is right here paul schaefer
yeah cats we'll be here
for the rest of our lives and uh we alluded to this earlier with reigning men
but it's uh it's a a
style uh that uh you've grown very talented uh selecting music for the the play
on and and and
for example give us what are we talking about when a guest is introduced what
are some of the songs
that you would play for some of the guests well for instance uh uh who's the
lovely gal like kevin
bacon's wife who's in the the closer yeah keira said the closer i get to you
yeah no that's the kind
of thing like we make a little joke a little pun yeah and and do you usually
get favorable feedback
from the guests are they even aware of what you're doing jeff goldblum always
love it always looks over
what are they playing and it's always the fly you know i can't think oh the fly
very very clever but
this one time um i remember that britney spears was going to come on just as a
as a drop-in yeah yeah
she was going to come on and you know it reminded all of us of the way bob hope
on the old johnny car
the classic joe used to always be dropping and hey i was in the next studio you
know i thought i'd
drop in and plug my next special you know so bendy spears barbara gaines uh one
of your lovely
executive producers said why don't you play thanks for the memories for her bob
bob hope's theme song
when she was going to drop in yeah so i thought funny idea i go off she's in
the elevator going up to
her dressing room well miss spears and she looked fantastic and i said you know
um you're a regular bob
hope i wanted to like let her know that she's not going to be hearing ma perogadoom
boom boom boom boom boom you
know when she comes out something from the past i wanted her to be prepared i
said you're a regular
bob hope coming on our show all the time dropping in and she said who's bob
hope and i can't
no because she was studying all you know she was going if you had to go to
professional children's
school like she did and study all homework and then dancing you might miss a
few of the things
sure certain things yes well i realized my mistake of course he said darling
long before you were born
there was a beloved comedian named bob hope and he was always dropping in on
the johnny caution show
and you are like us dropping in that's why i'm going to play thanks for the
memories and she's like
just blank and then like a light bulb goes off above her adorable little head
and she says to me oh you're
dave's dj and i thought you know in her world not bad you know in the world of
britney spears that's
right bindi lowland and parents said djs are what's happening i said baby i'll
take it and uh we went up
in the elevator together and she did a smash of a segment let me ask you for a
another musical story
regarding uh bob dylan uh where were you what were the circumstances and and
what was the interaction
with you and bob dylan you know uh when when he was inducted into the rock and
roll hall of fame and
i and the band have been the house band there the last 25 years almost yeah we've
barely missed one
we missed only two in the whole 25 years and this was a time when the beat two
of the beatles were
there because the beatles were being inducted george and ringo dylan on stage mick
jagger and jeff
beck and we're doing like a rolling stone you know and uh the guitar players
were switching you know
taking solos jeff beck bang against mick jones from foreigners and every all
these people are just
rocking out on like a rolling stone and then it just keeps on going and i said
it's time like to
come back into the song and i indicated to bob the microphone and he indicates
it back to me you
know yeah and i said no the microphone you know and i said finally i had to
come away i said how does
it feel sure enough how does it feel and i somehow you know let's he got us out
of that jam that's what
could happen oh man well i'm i'm telling you uh uh the book is just exactly
like this it's one
great story and stories you want to hear about great people uh told by our good
friend paul
shaver i i can't tell you how proud i am of our relationship and our friendship
thank you very
thank you david we'll be here the rest of our lives ladies and gentlemen