Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • >> [Music: Barry WhiteIt's Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next To Me”]

  • >> Barry White: I didn’t mind working in the clubs,

  • but I resented it being a club where pimps hang out.

  • Because the music that I create is of a higher intellect than that.

  • It not only encompasses pimps, but whores, ballplayers, executives... everybody.

  • >> [Music continues]

  • >> Barry White: I laid my clothes out the night before school started.

  • And my birthday’s Sept. 12th, so school happened to hit this year on my birthday.

  • This was my 18th birthday. I was getting ready to graduate.

  • I was at an all-boys school. Bad boys. Called Jacob A Riis.

  • >> Joe Smith: This was in L.A.?

  • >> Barry White: Yeah. Southeast Los Angeles.

  • But when I got up the next morning, I wasn’t going to school, Joe.

  • Something said, “youre going to Hollywood today.”

  • I was standing there combing my hair in the mirror

  • and I said: “mama, i’m not going to school today.”

  • She went crazy: “baby, you gotta go to school.

  • This is your last semester. Youre going to graduate.“

  • “I got to go to Hollywood. Today.”

  • I walked all the way up to Hollywood and Vine

  • and I stood on the left corner facing Capitol, before you cross over.

  • Capitol Records always represented Hollywood to me.

  • I stood there about 3.5 - 4 hours. Just looking.

  • >> Joe Smith: Just looking.

  • >> Barry White: Looking at the cars. Looking at the people moving.

  • People with briefcases. It really inspired me.

  • I knew that’s where I wanted to be.

  • >> [Music: Barry WhiteYou're The First, The Last, My Everything]

  • >> Joe Smith: What was it like around Hollywood for a young guy trying to make it?

  • >> Barry White: Very tough. If you were a young kid,

  • 19, 20 years old who has two children and a third one on the way

  • and refuses to leave them. A kid who was on welfare,

  • because he refused to steal anybody’s property or take anybody’s money.

  • You found life a lot tougher.

  • >> [Music continues]

  • >> Barry White: I came into it knowing what I had to offer.

  • All I had was the will and the love for music.

  • I couldn’t read music or write it.

  • No connections, no car, no money, no bankroll,

  • no clothes, no nothing. But what I loved about it was,

  • you were always able to meet somebody interesting that was doing something.

  • See, I’m the boy with the flapping shoes. I’m the one

  • who was not embarrassed to walk up in front of you with his flapping shoes

  • and ask you did you have anything for me to do.

  • I knew I didn’t know. I never came into this industry with an ego, ever in my life.

  • I knew I had to learn. I knew I had to earn that car. I knew I had to earn those shoes.

  • I had to earn that coat to wear in Hollywood

  • and I wanted to earn it in Hollywood.

  • >> [Music: Barry WhitePlaying Your Game, Baby”]

  • >> Barry White: Everyone to me has to pick a subject

  • to talk about in music if youre going to be a writer. Mine is love,

  • because I know when a man’s making love the last thing he thinks about is war.

  • >> Joe Smith: I guess so...

  • >> Barry White: Ok, the last thing he thinks about is how he can blow up a nation.

  • Fleas fuck. Flies, snakes, everybody’s into love-making, Joe.

  • Besides that, it’s the most powerful element that men and women possess.

  • Most of us don’t know what... how to use it, but we all possess it.

  • The women used the music to get their men

  • to relate to them better: “talk to me, tell me what’s on your mind.”

  • Men used the music to get the girls in the mood to make love.

  • So either way you had it, Barry White is the one artist

  • who actually was in your bedroom with you

  • at your most sacred, sensuous moment of your life.

  • >> [Music: Barry WhiteCan't Get Enough Of Your Love, Babe”]

  • >> Barry White: Alot of baby’s have been named Barry. The Barry-Boom

  • that was the baby boom in the ‘74 that they wrote about.

  • One of the greatest highlights of my career then was Ted Kennedy

  • when he printed in print that the only music

  • he listens to in his yacht and in his home is Barry White’s music

  • >> [Music continues]

  • >> Barry White: My philosophy is you have to be loyal to something.

  • You can’t be a whore all your life, man.

  • I think that there’s a time when people give their words to each other

  • it has to mean something. I’m a street cat. See I’ve belonged in gangs

  • and when you had a partner, you went down with your partner

  • whether you won the fight or lost it. You went down together.

  • >> [END]

>> [Music: Barry WhiteIt's Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next To Me”]

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it