Crawdaddy! The Magazine of Rock

Jonathan Richman isn’t known to talk about his music or his personal life in interviews. In fact, he’s a notoriously hard man to get an interview with. He’s one of my musical heroes, so if all I can score from him is 20 minutes of looking into each other’s eyes, I’m doing it.

I get Richman’s phone number from a publicist at the San Francisco International Film Festival since they’re presenting a silent film from 1921 entitled The Phantom Carriage, and Richman is booked to accompany the film with a live score.

Richman’s answering machine is him playing a few riffs on guitar, then a beep. It actually says more than, “This is Jonathan Richman, please leave a message.” It’s like his music: joyful sing-a-longs with a sprinkle of longing, moments of loneliness and despair.

When he calls back, he remembers me from my earlier attempt at interviewing him, and I quickly explain, like I’m in a speed dating rotation and giving my resume to a girl looking at her watch, that I want to meet with him and talk about The Phantom Carriage.

His accent is slightly Boston, very nasally and bordering on a teenage boy calling his high school crush for the first time to ask her to the winter dance.

I mention a newly opened café half a block from my apartment in San Francisco to meet at, and he tells me he knows where it is. I’ve heard conflicting stories that he either lives in the Glen Park neighborhood or Mission District of San Francisco. I’m still not sure, but knowing the café’s location gave a huge clue that he lives very close to me.

Richman is in a handful of about five musicians who I’ve always wanted to interview. I tell the owner of the café that I’ll be there with Richman next week. I get a blank look. “The guy who plays the guitar in the film There’s Something About Mary,” I say.

The café owner knows who he is and has no other reference about the legendary Jonathan Richman, whose band the Modern Lovers influenced the punk rock movement of the late ‘70s and new wave of the ‘80s with songs forever embedded in our culture like “Roadrunner” and “Pablo Picasso,” both of which have been covered many times.

I tell friends, I tell acquaintances, I tell anyone I can that I’m interviewing a musical legend and one of my heroes. Ninety-five percent of the time I have to bring up the film reference for them to get it. But the five percent who do know about music and the importance of Richman, and also his reluctance to interviews, are impressed.

I even come across some Jonathan Richman sighting stories. One time he was going through his divorce and brought his guitar to Doc’s Clock and played at one of the tables. He’s San Francisco’s Sasquatch without all the hair.

“I’m not going to talk that much,” Richman warns me on the phone.

“No problem,” I say, thinking I’ll be the first interviewer who will really crack open Richman with my understanding eyes and open body language that I’ve learned from my therapist.

“Yes Tony, I sing about my personal life. My divorce was a mess. I want to tell you how I feel about these things. I have artistic blocks, here’s how I get through them. My creative process goes like this. I have a new girlfriend, she understands me and we have very open communication. I get scared on airplanes. I’m mad about what’s going on in Haiti. I’m not a religious man, but I’m very spiritual,” I fantasized.