Inside Out: The Musical

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out. My name is Jim Bennett, and I'm flying solo this week. The indefatigable Ian Wilkes, who is usually my partner in crime during these episodes, is under the weather and unable to join us this time around. I'll leave it to him when he returns, and he will return, to provide more information about that, but I don't feel it's my place to do so. So, Ian, on behalf of myself and your legions of adoring fans, know that we love you, we miss you, and we hope you get well soon. So, I, as I thought about how to handle this week in Ian's absence, I came up with an idea that I thought would be a lot of fun, but I didn't want to just ramble alone without any guardrails. So I decided to bring in a co-host as an appropriate substitute. So Inside Out listeners, please welcome my fill-in co-host for this week, the one and only Oprah Winfrey. Oprah, how are you?

Well, I'm doing just fine, Jim Bennett. How are you?

I'm doing great. Thanks for asking.

My pleasure.

So I didn't realize you were a podcaster.

Well, I'm no Ian Wilkes, but I get the job done.

I, I'm sure you do. I have to admit, I was very surprised when you agreed to co-host.

Were you?

I was. I, I didn't realize you even listened to the show.

Oh, come on. I'm a huge fan of Inside Out. Huge. Stedman and I never miss an episode.

I didn't know that.

Oh yeah. Huge. Huge.

Oh, that's good to know. Which, which is your favorite episode?

My what now?

I'm just wondering which one is your favorite. Which episode is your favorite?

Oh, oh, you know, they're all good. Seriously, they're all really, really good.

Well, thanks. But if you had to pick— had to pick your favorite, just one.

Well, there was the one about— let's see, there was the one about the hats, I think. Right? Wasn't there one about hats?

I don't recall an episode about hats.

Have you thought about doing an episode about hats?

I have not.

This is—

this is a podcast about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Oh.

Oh, well, I'm sorry, but I don't know what that is. Stedman told me this was a podcast exclusively about hats.

Well, I'm not sure how we got our wires crossed there. There aren't going to be any hats.

Oh, great. That's just great. So what are we supposed to talk about for an hour, Jim?

Well, I thought we would talk—

I've got all this hat show prep.

I'm sorry. I thought we would talk about music.

I hate music. Everyone hates music.

I don't know anybody that hates music.

Trust me on this. Music is the absolute worst. It's the worst, Jim. The worst.

Well, Oprah, you and I are just going to have to agree to disagree on that because music has been one of the greatest joys of my life, and it's been how I have felt closest to God. I love singing in the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square because not only is it wonderful to be surrounded by this lovely music with talented people, it's, it's a great way to feel the Spirit. It's a great way to feel a connection to the divine. The Doctrine and Covenants talks about the idea that the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me. And I have taken that literally throughout my entire life. I have felt God in music and not just in religious music. Any kind of music I feel can lift us above ourselves, lift, lift us higher than ourselves. And so that's one of the reasons why I have taken to writing music. And so I thought without Ian here, I thought this might be kind of a fun way for you to— for me to share some of the songs that I recorded. And the first one is a song that I wrote right after my mission, actually about a year after my mission. I came home and I was assigned to direct, write and direct a road show. In the Monument Park. Is it the 20th Ward? It was the ward up Emigration Canyon where my parents lived at the time. They no longer live there, but I was called as the roadshow director and the theme was I'm Wild About. And I wrote a roadshow called I'm Wild About Boys, Girls and Javelins. And the centerpiece of the show was a song that tells the story of Teancum from the Book of Mormon. And Teancum is a somewhat lesser-known character, but it's a really bizarre story. Teancum is this Nephite warrior in the great Nephite-Lamanite war that takes up most of the Book of Alma. And Teancum goes in and stabs the king of the Lamanites, Amalickiah, with a javelin while he's in his tent and kills him. And he's thrilled about it. But later on, when they get a new king, the new king, Teancum, decides he's going to get cocky and go and do this again and stabs the new king with a javelin and ends up getting caught and ends up getting killed. And my favorite parts of the Book of Mormon are the gory and the weird parts. And this may well be not necessarily the goriest and the weirdest, because I have a song about that too, but this may be the second goriest and weirdest. And so I wrote a song called Javelin Man that tells the story of T'Ankh'um. And this song became a fixture at Aspen Grove. I don't know if you're familiar with Aspen Grove Family Camp.

Stedman and I are huge fans of Aspen Grove Family Camp. Just huge. Ridiculously huge. Huge.

Well, that's great. So is my family. Uh, we started going to Aspen Grove Family Camp when I was 3 years old, and we went every summer up until I was about 12, I think. And then we stopped for a few years, and then we went back after Dad was elected to the Senate and went there for decades. We haven't been since my father passed away, but it was an annual tradition. It's a, it's a camp up Provo Canyon that's owned and operated by Brigham Young University. And every Monday night they have a talent show. And it was my job to sort of spearhead the talent show. And I got all of the little kids to participate in a production of Javelin Man every year. And there was always a fight as to who got to play Teancum and who got to play Amalickiah, the evil king. And all of these things, and it was a lot of fun. And we actually performed it one year for Thomas S. Monson, who was there with his family. And I was a little nervous that it might cost me my church membership, but Thomas Monson was cool with it. So I decided, okay, this, this song is not too offensive or too strange. And years later, in my ward where I live now, I was contacted by Tim Fulmer. I don't know if you know Tim Fulmer.

I don't know him, but from what I know about him, I am in love with him. And I would hope he would let me ditch Stedman and allow me to be his eternal companion.

Oprah, that's just ridiculous. There's, there's no reason you would know him. He's a guy in my ward who's a magnificent musician. He actually plays the guitar in the If You Could Hide a Kolob intro to this podcast.

My love for Tim Fulmer is greater than my love for music. And you know how much I love music.

I do. I do. But Tim was assigned to be the director of a road show in the ward in which I currently live. This was about 10 years ago. And Tim, this was a video road show. So this wasn't going to be live on stage. We actually had to make a short film and Tim wanted to go all out and he asked me to write the script for it. And so I adapted that earlier roadshow. But the thing that I really wanted to do was make sure that Javelin Man, the song, got the full video treatment. And I was excited because Tim is such a perfectionist and such a great musician that he got together a group of musicians to record a professional version of Javelin Man that sounds like a million bucks. And I have a friend who was the music director down at Tuacán when I was the artistic director at Tuacán. Her name is Jenny Jordan, and she is, uh, I, I think she makes a zillion dollars as the lead singer now of a group called the Party Crashers. And they're just— she's just the most magnificent vocalist you've ever heard in your entire life. And she agreed to sing a version of Javelin Man. And so we've got this wonderful recording of it. And if you go to YouTube and you search for Javelin Man, our video will come up., and it's, it's a lot of fun. It's, uh, what makes me sad is that we monetized it, but we also used some third-party music at the beginning of it, and I've since discovered that they have gotten all of the monetization for it because we did not ask them for permission for their copyrighted music. So that's the way it goes. But if you go there, it's, It has tens of thousands of views. It's, it's a very popular video and this is not a video podcast, but I thought at the beginning, as, as I share with you some of my music, I want to share with you this audio recording of Javelin Man.

What do I care? I'm just here for the money. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, Javelin Man.

A spy for ya who did his job well. Went undercover as a layman, not a spy. His name was T.S. and he was my kind of guy. He was a devilish man.

Devilish man.

He was a devilish man.

Devilish man.

Deadly with a weapon, doing what he can. Hope you learn your lesson, no badness with the devilish man.

Devilish man.

Devilish man.

Devilish man. Devilish man. Devilish man.

O'Malachi was a labor knight king. Killing the Nephites was his favorite thing. Deacon decided he would end his throne, so he said, "That king has simply got to go." That night when the evil king had started to snore, Deacon tiptoed right through his front door. His javelin ready, he was quick with his aim. and come and die, but he did not die. He ended the war, which has been such a pain. He was a fighter for freedom, doing the plan. He was a superhero. He was a Japanese man.

Oh, Japanese man.

A Japanese man.

Japanese man. Oh, Japanese man. He was a Japanese man.

Ooh, Javelin Man.

All right, what'd you think?

Well, that didn't suck nearly as much as I thought it would.

Well, thank you, thank you. That's, that's very high praise coming from you.

You're welcome.

I'm afraid that my next—

Oprah Winfrey, you know.

Yeah, you mentioned that. So I'm afraid that my next few songs are— that's the only song that has that level of production value, and unfortunately I sing on all the rest of the recordings, so you have to listen to me and not Jenny Jordan.

No more Tim Fulmer either, because I love him. I am in love with him.

No, you are not. And Tim Fulmer is happily married, so just back off, Oprah.

I'm Oprah Winfrey, you know.

Yeah, sure you are. So that song is the second weirdest event in the Book of Mormon, but I think the weirdest event is the story of Ammon with all of the arms being sliced off. I can remember as a little kid giving a talk about that in junior Sunday school, and that dates me because junior Sunday school was the precursor to the 3-hour block where primary was included in Sunday worship. Prior to that, primary was something we did after school and junior Sunday school was essentially the same thing, but it was primary on Sunday. And I had to give a talk, and my parents thought it would be fun for me to give a talk about Ammon. And I got to describe in detail the gory story of Ammon slicing off everybody's arms. So our ward did a Book of Mormon read-a-thon where they sat and read the entirety of the Book of Mormon in 24 hours.

That sounds excruciating.

It was. It was absolutely excruciating. And everybody was trying not to fall asleep. They were following along with a recorded audio version of the Book of Mormon that was sped up like 4 times fast. And I don't know how anybody got anything out of it, but they wanted to break it up with something fun. And they asked me to do something fun. In the middle of it. So I wrote a song about Amun. And so my recording is a recording that I did myself, and I've tried to do the best I can with the equipment that I have, which is not nearly as good as the equipment that was used for Javelin Man. But the song has its own kind of fun charms, and I really enjoy the fact that I gave it sort of a Bob Dylan vibe.

So are you just going to talk about it or do we get to hear it?

Well, you get to hear it. Let's, let's play it right now.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Ammon song.

Ammon went riding past the waters of Sidon. He was going to work for the Lamanite king. Sheep were a-feeding and no one was bleeding till somebody started a sheep-stealing thing. All the king's servants, they ran for their lives, all except Ammon, who took out his knives because Ammon was fearless. Fearless, he faced them alone and soon began hacking through muscle and bone. He sliced through the brachial artery part, a big honkin' artery straight from the heart. So blood splattered and sputtered and splashed and it spilled. It spiked and it spurted and speckled the hills. If they'd left things alone, they'd have come to no harm. But the thing is, they didn't, so Ammon cut off their arm. Hammon, he gathered up the bones that he shattered. The limbs were in number a lot, not a few. He went without malice to the Lamanite palace to give old King Lamoni a how do you do. 'Cause the king was intrigued with his brave servant's charm. But His Majesty freaked when he saw those arms.

Because Ammon was fearless, he faced them with scorn. Made them all wish that they'd never been born.

He ripped through their biceps and triceps and stuff.

And didn't despair when the tendons were taut.

So blood splattered and sputtered and splashed and it spilled. It spiked and it spurted and speckled the hills.

If they'd left things alone, they'd have come to no harm. But the thing is, they didn't. So Ammon cut off their arm.

Ah!

Lamoni lamented his sins and repented and then fell to the earth. Was he dead? Do you think? No, he awakened though his people were shaken; they all had complained. When he started to stink.

Because Ammon was strong, he converted the king, and the queen and the people all started to sing a song of redemption they couldn't ignore.

And all because Ammon was knee-deep in gore.

So bloody It splattered and sputtered and splashed and it spilled. It spiked and it spurted and speckled the hills. So, but they left things alone, they'd have come to no harm. But the spike is, they burn it, so Ackleman cut off their arm. So, splattered and sputtered and splashed and it spilled. It spiked and it spurted skirted and speckled the hills.

If they'd left things alone, they'd have come to no harm. But the thing is, they didn't, so Ammon cut off their arms.

It spluttered and splashed and it spilled. Thing is, they didn't, so Ammon cut off their arms. Wow.

You like that?

That's all I can say. I just— wow.

I know, right?

I must say, though, that a chainsaw solo isn't something you hear every day.

That's a good point. There's not a lot of songs devoted to the chainsaw.

So those are the only two songs you've ever written, right?

No, not at all. I've been writing songs since I was 11 years old. I was at the Barnsdall Gallery Theater in Hollywood, California, and I was sitting next to Amber Caseras, and she sang me a song she had written, which included the line that had something to do with a stinky butt. And she dared me to top that. And so I went up into the lobby and I went into the men's room and started to compose this song. And it took me as long to write it as it now takes to sing it. So this was actually written in real time. So ladies and gentlemen, I here present to you I Am a Cow.

I am a cow. I am a cow. I am a cow.

I am a cow.

I am a cow. I am a cow. I am a cow. I am a cow. When you're a cow, you don't meow.

You don't bow wow.

Moo!

Like a cow. I am a cow. I am a cow. How now?

Green Cow.

When you're a cow, you don't me out.

You don't bow wow.

You moo like a cow. I am a cow. I am a cow. How now, green cow?

Really? When you were 11 years old?

That's when I wrote it. Yes. And I've been writing songs ever since.

Does it discourage you that you've never gotten any better at it?

Well, maybe just a little bit, but I, I've written songs for a number of different occasions and for a number of different purposes. And when I was the artistic director for the Tuacán Center for the Arts, I was tasked with rewriting Tuakán's signature musical, Utah! They had already written several different versions of it that had bombed, and they asked me to write a version of it. And my version, I think, finally put it to rest. They produced it, it bombed too, and they have not produced it since. And that was 20 years ago. So I have the distinction of ending Utah! as a viable musical production. But while I was down there, the CEO of Tuacán at the time was a man named Fred Lampropoulos, who I ended up working with when he ran for governor in 2004. And Fred Lampropoulos was very encouraged by the idea of writing new musicals. And wanted to write a musical version of The Princess Bride. And I got ahold of the screenplay of The Princess Bride and I read it and I thought, this already reads like a musical. And there are so many different moments that could just burst into song. And so I started to play around with the idea of a musical version of The Princess Bride. And then we got ahold of William Goldman's agent who said they get about 10 requests to turn The Princess Bride into a musical every day, and no thank you, they weren't interested in considering ours. So I went back and took those songs and repurposed them for a different musical that was actually a sequel to Peter Pan. And the idea was that Peter Pan, uh, has come away from Neverland and has sort of forgotten who he is. And before you say, oh, this sounds just like Hook, it isn't. It's quite different from Hook because there's a big twist at the end because the kid who thinks he's Peter Pan actually isn't Peter Pan. The father that he's fighting against throughout the whole musical who comes to try to rescue him, turns out the father is Peter Pan, not the kid. And the father realizes that a life where you learn and you grow is more rewarding than the kind of life where you're living the same day Groundhog Day-like over and over and over again, where nothing matters, where nothing ever changes. And in the course of this, actually, I had written a song called A Princess Bride, and it works in the context of A Princess Bride musical, but it actually works in the context of the Peter Pan musical. That I had written as well, because in this musical, Tiger Lily, who's the princess, as Peter gets older and realizes that he doesn't just want to be the kind of lost boy child doing silly childish things, and he approaches Tiger Lily and they sort of start a tentative relationship. But Tiger Lily, in order to grow up, she has to leave and go back to her people outside of Neverland and marry a prince. And she doesn't want to do that. She wants to stay with Peter. So in the context of my Peter Pan musical, this actually makes sense, but it also makes sense in the context of a nonexistent Princess Bride musical. I was not present when this was recorded. I have not met the people who sing on it. My friend Jaron Hinckley, who is now the head of the clarinet department at Brigham Young University— Fred Lampropoulos paid to create a demo of 4 songs from this musical, and this is the one of the 4 that I think is the most lovely. I'm told the woman who sings it is the star of the movie The RM, but I've never met her. I've never heard her other than in this lovely demo that I am going to share with you right now. So I told you before you were only going to hear me sing, but I lied. Turns out I've got this lovely song up my sleeve and I want to share it with you now.

Alrighty then, ladies and gentlemen, here it is. A Princess Bride.

Every father's daughter used to be a little girl who believed she was the princess of a perfect little world where it's always spring or summer underneath the clear blue sky. Can you hear the people cheering as the princess passes by? She is glory, she is light, she is all the grace and beauty in the world. But the story isn't right, for she knows, she knows she's just a A foolish little girl, just like every father's daughter. When there's no more time to play, as the real world grows brighter and the princess fades away. But somewhere deep inside her, she is not completely gone. She is only waiting patiently for a prince to come along. And bring her glory, bring her light. Give her all the grace and beauty in the world. Take the story, make it right. 'Cause she knows she's more than a She's girl. more than just a foolish little girl. She's the one he loves. He's been searching far and wide for the one he loves, and she's standing by his side. She's the one he loves, and it cannot be denied. He takes the father's daughter and he makes a princess bride. It doesn't happen often, but it's how the world should be. That isn't true for everyone, just everyone but me. There's a prince who says he loves me, It scares me. What an awful thing to say. Why, as happily ever after never seemed so far away. It's a lonely sort of plan to have the dream come true and still be wrong. For I only love one man. And I wish, I wish this prince had never come along. For my one true love is a faithful man inside. Though my one true love has been blinded by his pride. True love, and it cannot be denied. For I'd rather be most anything than be a Princess Bride.

So when is that coming to Broadway?

Well, whenever anybody wants to produce it. I have the script, I have some of the music. My friend Jaron did the orchestrations for these 4 songs, and I'd be willing to bet I could hire him to do the orchestrations for the rest of them. So if there's some Broadway producer out there that's looking for material, uh, I got it right here. I, I, I'll You know, and I realize none of this has anything to do with the church, and this is a podcast about the church, but I want to share the story that one of the things that I did with this music and with a lot of the music that I've written, the church put out a call for new hymns and a new hymn book, and I answered the call and the The guidelines were you were allowed to submit 5 submissions for the hymnbook and 5 submissions for the children's songbook. And I ended up writing 14 different songs and submitting them. And the way I got around it is I have a son whose name is also coincidentally Jim Bennett. And I submitted several hymns in his name. So if they get published and they work, it'll say James Bennett one way or the other. The thing about all of those— so I repurposed some of the melodies that I'd written for this musical for the hymns that I'd written. And I have to say that writing hymns, again, as I said at the outset, I feel more connected to God. I feel more connected to the divine through music than through anything else. And writing these hymns, I don't have any idea if any of them will see the light of day or if anybody will care. But just the process of writing them was a profound spiritual experience for me. And so I don't know Anybody who's listening to this, if any of you have any interest in music, have any interest in writing music, but just that process, just sort of engaging in the creative process. I remember at Tewakon, we had one of the directors who gave an opening prayer at our first rehearsal and said, it's actually at our first audition before the auditions when people came in and said, we, We come before thee as partners in the creative process. And I've never forgotten that. I've always thought that's a really powerful way to think about it. So spirituality and music to me are intertwined. Whether or not I'm any good at this, whether or not anything that I've shared with you, if you've listened to it and thought, geez, this guy Bennett sure thinks an awful lot of himself. I don't blame you for thinking that. I don't actually think a lot of myself. I don't necessarily think that these songs are going to change the world or a big deal to anybody but me. I do think that they've given me an opportunity to be a co-creator, to be part of the creative process, which to me is a divine process and something lovely. So there's a guy in the Tabernacle Choir who's written 5 5,000 or is it 500? It can't be 5,000, but he written, he's, he's submitted over 500 songs. And the way he did it is that he, he wrote the lyrics and then he asked other people if they wanted to set them to music and if they would submit them on his behalf. I actually wrote the music to one of them and then I went, well, wait a minute, I don't wanna submit your lyrics. I wanna submit my lyrics. And so I wrote 14 different songs and, and have submitted them. And one of them was a modified version of Javelin Man. I thought, geez, that could be a nice primary song if I, if I set it in a way where I take out some of the gorier aspects of it. I have not heard back. My friend in the choir who wrote over between 500 and 5,000 songs has also not heard back. The church has published the first 12 songs from the new hymnbook, including "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing," which everybody wanted to see return to the hymnbook. It's a song the choir sings on a regular basis. It's absolutely gorgeous, and that's coming back. The rumor is that "Amazing Grace" is going to make its way into the new hymnbook. And I'm really excited by that rumor because the whole concept of grace, the whole concept of Christ's grace saving us is one that as a church we have shied away from because we are scared of it. We're sort of scared of the doctrine because we think it takes away from our uniqueness when we talk about the fact that We're all saved by grace, that what we do isn't what matters. It's Christ's grace that saves us. We, we are afraid, I think, of sounding like Protestants or sounding like evangelicals. But the reality is the doctrine of grace is the central doctrine of the restored gospel, and it's a doctrine that is found all across the Book of Mormon, even more explicitly than it's found in the Bible. And so the idea that we could embrace the beautiful song Amazing Grace is something that, that really warms my heart and something that I hope we will do. And I hope that's actually a true rumor, but we will have to wait and see. So I'm going to share a couple more songs with you. We've gotten serious here and I'm going to get a little silly. This song is a song that I wrote to be silly, as most of my songs are. Very few of my songs— when I wrote the Princess Bride song, I did it when I was in the mindset of a character, so it was much easier for me to write something that wasn't as silly. It's hard for me to take myself seriously. And so when I write music, it's sometimes hard for me to take myself seriously. But when I wrote hymns, I was able to say, okay, this has a purpose that I'm aiming for, and I can do this much more seriously than when I'm writing just for my own amusement. But I wrote a very silly song called Dead, and it's just all about— there are 3 verses, and it talks about 3 different goofy ways to die., and it was a lot of fun. But when I was writing my, my Peter Pan musical, uh, I went, okay, this is a song that actually could fit into the musical because the whole idea of Neverland, which is the name of my musical, is that, is that a life that doesn't have impact and a life that doesn't carry the possibility of loss and the possibility of pain and the po— and, and the, the kinds of things that we experience as we age and grow and the limits that mortality places on us also make our lives more meaningful. And the characters in this, both Peter, the young Peter, and then his father, who was also Peter, who was the original Peter Pan, learned that lesson because at the end of the first act of the musical, one of the Lost Boys is killed in a battle with Captain Hook and a battle with the pirates. And Peter, the young Peter, finds it so tragic and so awful and so terrible and, and is heartbroken. And the second act opens with the funeral funeral of this lost boy. And Peter is trying to take it seriously, and the Lost Boys think it's ridiculous. They don't care. They think this, this is no big deal. We have funerals all the time. It's kind of silly. We're going to sing the song we always sing at funerals. And the song they always sing at funerals is this silly song I wrote called Dead. And the third verse of the song, in the context of the musical, is sung by the dead Lost Boy who just comes back to life. Because if you don't grow up, it's essentially Groundhog Day. Nothing ever changes. So no one ever dies. Nothing ever has any consequence. So the fact that the Lost Boy died the day before doesn't prevent him from showing up at his own funeral to sing the last verse of his own funeral song. And so this sort of opens the young Peter's eyes up up to the realities of this Neverland where nothing has any consequences and nothing matters. And that precedes his arc towards redemption at the end of the show. But so that's, that's how this song was repurposed for the musical. But Jaron and a number of his different singers who I have never met and the musicians I have never met wrote this. All I remember is that there's a line in there about a guy saying, I'm a nutter with my putter. And apparently the guy who sang his last name was Nutter. So I've always remembered that as I've listened to this. But, uh, this is the Lost Boys funeral song. It's a little bit silly. It starts out solemn and then gets silly.

So let's get stupid. Here's the Lost Boys funeral song, Dead.

Well, the weather's getting milder and the West is getting wilder, so I saddled up my stallion and I headed out to sea. Upon some more reflection, it was time to change direction when a shark bit off my horse's head and spit it back to me.

Oh, that horse had done no wrong to anyone.

He was fat and he was frisky and he frolicked in the sun.

But I wrote my horse this song.

And when it's done, everyone will know my horse's name. His legacy will long outlive his brain.

'Cause he's dead, 'cause he's dead, 'cause he doesn't have a head.

It was bitten off by sharks at sea. And turned the water red. Now his cranium's digestin' in the orca's large intestine, and now no one really cares that he's well-bled, 'cause he's dead!

Like the time that I played golf and accidentally killed a dolphin when I whacked him with my putter, 'cause I'm not that good at sports.

The golfers were disgusted but eventually adjusted when they teed off from the blowhole of this putrid rotting corpse.

Oh, that dolphin did no wrong to anyone, but I left him in the sand trap because he must have weighed a ton.

But I wrote this dolphin song, and when it's done, think about the dolphin how you will.

Then maybe you could roll him down the hill. Cuz he's dead, cuz he's dead, cuz I whacked him in the head. I'm a Nutter with my putter, I should play lacrosse instead. Both on land and underwater, it was wet mammalian slaughter, and the putting greens were dolphins' fear to dread.

God, he's dead!

Some folks are eaten and some folks are bludgeoned.

Some have their foreheads indented by truncheons.

A whole lot of ways for inflicting the pain, but the end The end of the line is always the same. Like the time that I was weeding, not anticipating bleeding, when for no apparent reason fell a rhino from the sky. The body crushed my torso and the head crushed even more so, and the horn became the skewer for the apple pie.

The twinkle of my eye.

Oh, that rhino did no wrong to anyone till it hurtled down from heaven and it blotted out the sun. But I wrote this rhino song, and when it's done, it's really more impressive than it sounds, considering I'm 6 feet underground. 'Cause I'm dead. 'Cause I'm dead. There's a rhino on my head. Most internal organs are a tasty butter spread, so it's no use serving dinner, 'cause I haven't any innards. So it really doesn't matter what I say, 'cause he's dead!

Well, there it is. Congratulations on rhyming dinner with innards.

Thank you, I'm quite proud of that.

So you tell me you have one final song for us?

I do, and this one combines the silly and the spiritual, hopefully. This took place Christmas night, or actually Boxing Day morning, December 26th at 2 AM, 3 AM, I guess. The song says 3 AM. What had happened was it was Christmas, and after Christmas, in order to take care of all the wrapping paper, I always think it's fun to burn it. Get up a nice warm fire and you toss in all the wrapping paper and you have this glorious fire on the night, on Christmas night. And I did that on this occasion and took the hot ashes and threw them away into the big plastic bin that says no hot ashes. But I thought that they cooled down sufficiently that it wouldn't be a problem. In the middle of the night, this was 2006. So in the middle of the night, my youngest child, who is now 18 years old, but back then was considerably younger, had a blowout diaper and it blew out all up his back. It was just an absolute mess. And those of you who have been young parents with young children, know how awful it is to have to deal with something like that in the middle of the night. You're already exhausted. And children that don't sleep through the night make it difficult for you to ever catch up on your sleep. And to have to deal with something this awful and this messy, it just was miserable. And yet I cleaned them up and took the diaper outside. It was usually— I would have tossed the diaper just in the garage. If it had just been a wet diaper. But this one smelled so bad and was such a mess that I took it right out to the garbage cans where I found that the garbage can that I had put the hot ash in had burned all the way down to the base. And the next day was my daughter's baptism, and my brother-in-law came over and he's an electrician, and he looked at the the can that had burned and said, you were about 10 minutes away from this igniting the can next to it, igniting the plastic next to it. And that would have burned from the base and exploded upwards into the eaves of your house, and it would have caught your entire house on fire if you hadn't done something about this, if you hadn't gone out and taken care of And I consider that a miracle. And it has become known as the Miracle of the Christmas Poo. And I decided a few years later to write a song about it. And I sang it at a big family Christmas Eve. And my father said, you know, other families would have just written about this and put it in a journal somewhere. But here, my son, has a song about poo. So I actually wrote up the story after I'd written the song. I wrote up the story for an article for the Deseret News, which is the church-owned newspaper. And I was very worried that given the subject matter, the church wasn't going to be willing to print it. And yet they did. And they printed it under the headline, How a Dirty Diaper Saved Our House at Christmas. If you Google it, you can find it. There's one line in it though that really bothers me because I had written it and I'd said, uh, so I wrote a song about it. It, I could easily say it is the best song about Christmas and Pooh ever written. And the editor changed that to, this is easily one of the best songs I have ever written. And I thought, oh, come on, you, you That kills the joke. It doesn't matter. They were willing to print it much, you know, heaven bless them for being willing to do that. And so I figure this is the song I will leave you with at the conclusion of this podcast. And Oprah, I'll let you do the honors.

Okay, here we go. The Miracle of the Christmas Poo.

It was on a Christmas night, the fireplace was warm and bright. There were no more songs to sing, it was time for burning things. So I burned up all the ribbons, and I burned up all the burned the wrapping too, and I might have burned the house down if it hadn't been for the miracle of the Christmas goose. The kids had gone to bed and turned I'd run out of things to burn, so I threw the ash away.

It was time to hit the hay, so I dreamed of all my presents that were red and green and blue. But I never dreamed of dreaming I would owe my life to the miracle of the Christmas Pooh.

Christmas Pooh.

It was 3:00 AM on Boxing Day that the baby began to cry.

Baby began to cry.

Threw up the covers straight away and I went to find out why. He had filled his diaper. He could have filled up too. His back and legs were covered in the miracle of the Christmas poo. Christmas poo.

sprayed outside. And then my eyes flew open wide.

The garbage can was burning.

What?

The house was burning too. I'd have never known it if it hadn't been for the miracle of the Christmas blues.

I covered up the flames with snow and pondered on the things I know. I know that heaven's watching me.

I think they laugh at what they see. They got my attention. They didn't want they had to do. It was less than elegant, the miracle of the Christmas poo. Christmas poo.

Christmas poo.

Well, I can't speak for anybody else, but I had a lot of fun today.

Yeah, speak for yourself. I think I speak for everyone when I say I can't wait for Ian to come back.

Well, I can't argue with that, but Oprah, I'm very grateful for your willingness to pinch-hit here.

It was an honor, and anyone who thinks this was really Oprah Winfrey needs to learn a little more about AI.

Well, yes, we'll leave that discussion for another time. Thank you all for listening, and we hope to see you next time on Inside Out. Thank you, Oprah.

Up yours, Jimbo.

Oh, that wasn't very nice.