Stephen Colbert loves music and loves to sing. That’s why Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross asked him to bring a few songs that mean a lot to him and tell her why. For example, as a kid, Colbert discovered his first lesson about character acting through “King Herod’s Song” from Jesus Christ Superstar, even though he thought the words were scandalous at first: “Oh, so you are the Christ? You’re the great Jesus Christ. Prove to me that you’re no fool. Walk across my swimming pool.”
“That opened my eyes as a kid — that you could actually be — well, you could be wrong in character,” he tells Gross. “You could be blasphemous in character and it doesn’t negate how you feel about the subject.”
Colbert says he also loves the work of Elvis Costello, who he says tried to write anthemic, Bruce Springsteen-like songs when he was younger, but eventually stopped because he’d end up with wry, sardonic or character-based songs. Colbert says it’s an odd parallel with his own artistic evolution and relationship to Jon Stewart, especially because Stewart’s favorite artist is Springsteen.
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