LENNY WARONKER REVEALS THE FULL STORY BEHIND VAN DYKE PARKS' SONG CYCLE (PART 4) (Ep. 245B)

Discograffiti is the deep-dive podcast for music obsessives. In this episode (Part 4 of a 4-part series edited down from a 5 1/2 hour interview), Lenny Waronker takes a deep-dive stroll along with host Dave Gebroe through his entire career, with priceless commentary and stories peeled off along the way. Legendary producer and Warner Brothers studio head Lenny Waronker is a record producer and music industry executive. As the president of Warner Brothers Records, and later, as the co-founder and co-chair of DreamWorks Records, Waronker was noted for his commitment to artists and his belief that "music, not money, was still number one." In 2025, Waronker was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Ahmet Ertegun Award category for non-performing industry professionals.

Part 4 focuses on the first album Lenny ever produced, Side 2 of Van Dyke Parks’ legendary debut LP Song Cycle. Lenny once said: “To be associated with Song Cycle, even now, is more important to me than 99% of the hit records I’ve been involved with.” Parts 2 & 4 are an absolute dream come true for fans of this record.

Here are just a few of the many things that Lenny discusses with Discograffiti in this podcast:

• The track on the LP that Van Dyke referred to as “like stepping from one kind of music into something else”;
• How Randy Newman feels about Nilsson Sings Newman, according to Lenny;
• A wildly divergent digression during which I discover the very direct link between The Beau Brummels and Rickie Lee Jones;
• An overview of Song Cycle’s ad campaign, one of the most memorable and least conventional music industry experiments of all time;
• An in-depth deep dive on every song off Side Two of Song Cycle;
• The early days of getting Ry Cooder & Randy Newman’s careers off the ground at Warner Brothers;
• Whether or not Van Dyke invented MTV a decade before its time;
• And an in-the-moment eulogy for Brian Wilson, who had died only days before the taping of this episode.

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For the full, ad-free, 84-minute podcast, either subscribe to Discograffiti’s Patreon at the Private Tier or higher, or just grab the episode as a one-off at the same link.

The Full Podcast: Patreon.com/Discograffiti

Dave's Show Notes are available at a separate link for Majors & up.