Legendary lyricist Sir Tim Rice has joked that he would turn town global pop phenomenon Taylor Swift if she asked him out because ‘every time she falls out with somebody the poor bloke gets slaughtered in her next song’.
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‘If Taylor Swift asked me out, I’d say no’: Sir Tim Rice, 79, jokes he’d turn down the 34-year-old star if she propositioned him because ‘every time she falls out with somebody the poor bloke gets slaughtered in her next song’
Legendary lyricist Sir Tim Rice has joked that he would turn town global pop phenomenon Taylor Swift if she asked him out because ‘every time she falls out with somebody the poor bloke gets slaughtered in her next song’
The 79-year-old, whose celebrated works include Evita, Chess and The Lion King, admitted that he gets ‘depressed’ by modern pop music.
The Oscar-winning lyricist gave a wide-ranging interview about the musicians, films and books that he loves – and the ones that he’s not so much of a fan of.
Sir Tim, who has written for musical theatre since the 1960s and is one of few to have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award, is best known for his collaborations with Elton John and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber.
He spoke to The Times about how early rock’n’roll by the likes of Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly used to cheer him up in his early teen years.
But he added: ‘One of the things that depresses me today about a lot of pop music is that so many of these songs seem to be pretty miserable in a very ‘me me me’ way. I was listening to Traitor by Olivia Rodrigo — she’s a great singer and there’s some great musicianship, but you think, “They sound really unhappy.”
‘And Taylor Swift: every time she falls out with somebody, the poor bloke gets slaughtered in the next song. In the unlikely event that Taylor Swift asked me out, I would say no.’
Fortunately for Sir Tim, the 34-year-old Swift is in a high-profile relationship with Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce – who has confirmed he will be supporting the pop star on her Eras Tour in Europe this summer
The couple has been all but inseparable since Swift returned to the States having completed the Australia and Asia legs of her monster Eras Tour last month and recently came back from a sun-filled vacation on the Bahamian island of Eleuthera.
Pictures showed the couple totally at ease and enjoying time together on the beach.
In one picture Kelce lay sunbathing, with one hand affectionately placed on Swift’s bikini-clad posterior. In others they enjoyed cocktails in the surf.
Away from Swift, Sir Tim also declared PG Wodehouse as his favourite author, revealing that the Jeeves and Wooster novels influenced him and Lloyd Webber’s work.
He said his favourite piece of music was Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony which he described as ‘typically Scandinavian and slightly chilling, but very warm on the
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