When Steven Spielberg asked John Williams to score "Schindler's List", he said "You need a better composer than me." Spielberg responded, "I know, but they're all dead." What a compliment.

Let's get the Beato/Williams interview ASAP so I can listen to two brilliant music minds talk over my head for 90 minutes!

My father was a half-deaf man hardened throughout his life by all the emotional pain a true man can endure: betrayal, abandonment, manipulation, hypocrisy, loneliness and poverty; however, he never cried. Not one single tear. Ever. Until I took him to the ET ride at Universal Studios, there's when I saw the child in him crying to this very same experience. Like a toddler he cried, as much as I am remembering him right now. Thank you, Rick, from the very depths of my heart.

With so much film music in so many iconic films, I don't think there's a man alive who has touched so many souls as John Williams. We are blessed.

"The end of the film was one of the most significant musical experiences for composer John Williams. After several attempts were made to match the score to the film, Steven Spielberg took the film off the screen and encouraged Williams to conduct the orchestra the way he would at a concert. He did, and Spielberg slightly re-edited the film to match the music, which is unusual since normally the music would be edited to match the film. The result was Williams winning the 1982 Academy Award for Best Original Score."

I think you could argue that John Williams had a far greater impact on the popular culture of his lifetime than any other composer in history. No other composer's work has touched as many people. There have been better composers, but how many could say that billions of people have heard and loved their work.

That crescendo stopping for a moment to allow the solo flute motif is tear-worthy every single time. The last glance at his friend.

I saw ET at an IMAX theater last night. It was the first time I had seen the whole movie since I last seen it in the theater 40 years ago. I had watched this video and watched the ending scene -- and I still could not help crying at the end. The score, along with the acting and the visuals, make it a very powerful scene about love and hope. And seeing it as an adult, I recognize how much abandonment Elliot was feeling from his father leaving, and then going through that sense of abandonment again with ET -- and finding closure. That is the "victory". It is a film that works as pure entertainment, but also on a deeper level of a boy experiencing trauma and finding closure.

Dammit I still cry every time I hear that, I was 19 when ET came out and by the time this final scene ended in the movie theater I was sobbing uncontrollably in my seat and didn't care who saw me. I think part of the reason this movie and that score affected me so deeply was not only because that film spoke to the child deep inside my heart but also my beloved stepdad was dying of colon cancer and I couldn't bear the thought of his leaving us. (He passed before my 20th birthday.) Your explanation of how the music is structured to bring out certain emotions and images is both accurate technically and fascinating in showing how it also touches us as human souls. I didn't realize till years later when I was watching the film again that ET's leaving was sad for Elliot but happy for ET and that while he would miss Elliot he was going home, and I think my stepdad was going 'home' as well and glad to be rid of his terrible pain, even though he grieved over leaving us. But just as Elliot was left with a hope that he might see ET again someday, my family and I had a hope or wish of someday seeing Paul again in some other dimension. No wonder that music still makes me a mess, so many intense feelings stirred, all in one captivated listening experience.

John Williams is an absolute legend. HOOK remains a criminally underrated gem in his catalog. And goodness, what a catalog. He just captures the feeling perfectly. Makes my eyes well up.

The final 15 minutes of E.T. is like a little mini symphony, maybe the greatest 15 minutes of film music ever composed. It has everything - awesome chase music, William’s most magical flying music, emotional goodbye music, and a rousing fanfare for the ending. It’s my favorite thing Williams has ever written and that’s saying something. One part of this score that’s often overlooked is the terrific harp work that’s really prominent in some of the scenes in Elliot’s room - it’s such a beautiful way to score the new relationship between Elliot and E.T., and to represent that dreamlike moment in your childhood before the cares of the adult world begin to creep in. This film is really one of the best things Williams (and Spielberg for that matter) has ever done.

I was fortunate enough to see John Williams conduct a live orchestra a few years ago...I barely made it through this ET composition without breaking, but I couldn't hold back the tears any longer at Leia's Theme. I had just lost my grandmother, the world had just lost Carrie Fisher, and I sobbed. This video is a good reminder that the music itself is enough to invoke this emotion on its own merit. Brilliance.

As a trombone player that has had the opportunity to play this with a full symphony orchestra, this song has always given me chills!! Thank you for breaking it all down!!

John Williams, if you really think about it, has written the soundtrack to most of our lives! Such a brilliant composer, arranger, and conductor for DECADES! Making symphony music POPULAR! I think it will be so hard for anyone to match him in the future.

That beautifully gentle C Lydian melody at the very end is also how the score begins in the first scene. Every time I watch the movie, I start crying as soon as I hear those notes at the start. I saw John Williams perform the final 15 minute piece from E.T. with the Boston Pops and a huge movie screen showing the film behind them. At the end, I was bawling my eyes out and was embarrassed until I turned around and saw thousands of other people also crying.

There really aren't sufficient words for how much I love John Williams. He literally IS the soundtrack of my life. When you stop to think about all the greatest, most loved, movies in the past 50 years of my life.... he scored them all!

Anyone else think Rick is an absolute genius?! I love music but know nothing about playing instruments or reading notes. It’s all so natural to Rick. His passion for the details is infectious!

This is exactly why I follow you Rick. Your appreciation of music and the education you provide over genres is rare.

I had no idea what Rick was going to play for us. As soon as he fired up John Williams E.T., I started crying like a baby about 2 minutes in. You are the best Rick!

My father took me to the cinema to watch this movie when I was very little, and I remember perfectly crying so much when ET got into the ship, saying "I don´t want him to go". This scene is so emotional and this amazing music makes it even more.

Of all the great music you’ve talked about on this channel, Bach, Led Zep, Soundgarden even, I never expected you to bust out the soundtrack to ET as the greatest moment in music lol. That being said, my mom’s bootleg of Star Wars: A New Hope, recorded in the theater on a tape recorder, was the music my brother and I played every night before we went to sleep for a good 20 years. He even took it to Iraq with him when he was in the Army. John Williams is amazing and the emotional impact his music made in our lives is unquestionable.

My choir is practicing Mozart's Requiem at the moment. Sometimes it's hard to sing because the music is so beautiful and moving it's actually overwhelming.

I totally agree. I'm 67 years old and I get chills and tear up everytime I listen to this. Like many Lucas and Spielberg films, it's hard to imagine the movie being effective without the music.

John Williams is amazing. He comes up with these huge orchestral themes having such grandeur- themes which grab our hearts and minds with such power. Then he does something like the score to Catch Me If You Can, a completely different animal- smooth 1960s jazz. He can do anything.

John Williams is a national treasure, along with all of his incredible music! And please sit down with Layla for a fun family viewing of ET!

John Williams has been the score to my childhood.

I love Rick's expressions as he listens to any piece of music - now that's entertainment!

John Williams comes from a very interesting lineage. His father was studio drummer Johnny Williams who also played with the famous Raymond Scott Quintette who did all the great cartoon music and such. And his son is currently the lead singer in TOTO. Fascinating. John Williams also played jazz piano and recorded a lot in the studio as a pianist. He played the classic Peter Gunn riff.

Y E S !!! The final sequence of E.T. is still one of the greatest bits of film making and composition EVER. Just those first few notes still bring me to tears. From the moment E.T. wakes up...the bike chase, the landing, every beat is perfect.

"I love the sound of John Williams in the morning" - sounds like victory indeed! You must be very proud of your daughter Rick!

Rick, you haven’t even hit your full stride yet brother. Keep doing what your doing. BIGGER things to come for you. You’re so informative/instructional and entertaining!! Request: Keep interviewing legends! It’s so great to watch you converse with them all and you do a GREAT job of listening and letting them express...whatever they have to express! Looking forward to seeing you in Seattle in a few weeks!

RICK!! You’re bringing so much education and entertainment to people’s lives. I’m wildly appreciative of how you can explain the nuance without being exhaustive. I just have so much dang fun watching your videos!

John Williams is awesomeness personified. Quite literally the musical voice of the late 20th century. Nobody can evoke emotion like he can. Nobody. His legacy is as important as Mozart, Beethoven and Bach.

It really is uplifting isn't it? John Williams is a true master.

Dude. Thank you SO much for making this video. Finally, someone who gets it. For the past 40 years, this piece of music has been more important to me than I can express. Your video helped me understand why.

You should do a whole series onf John Williams' soundtracks! ET, Star Wars, Jaws, Indiana Jones...just some of the most classic soundtracks of a generation. He and Vangelis are two of my favourite soundtrack composers.

I cannot listen to this piece or watch this movie clip without being moved to tears. Every. Time. Thank you Rick, for the reminder and the analysis. And for you being you. 😀🎹🎵

Over the years you have definitely taught me the most about music then any other teacher, you're the best Rick!!

Rick, thank you so much for turning people of all ages into more sophisticated, ambitious things, and tangibly making the world slightly better every video you post. So many dark things going, but your videos are a light. Your passion is infectious and your knowledge is inspiring. Can't think of a better marriage of education and entertainment as your channel, and that's how education should always be, really! There's no bigger reason to learn than to enjoy life and make life more enjoyable.

I hear the cracking emotion in your voice as you narrate, Rick. We’re all feeling it! John Williams would be the first to confess his debt to Stravinsky, Holst, Copland, Barry and countless others upon whose shoulders all score composers stand and soar.

Nobody conveys emotion like John Williams, especially when paired with Spielberg or Lucas. When it comes to celebrity and pop culture, John Williams has had the most profound effect on my life. The sheer virtuosity of his compositions are just breath taking and has a longer list of hits than anybody not named Beethoven or Mozart. He wears his influences on his sleeve, sometimes a little too much, but everything he writes is pure emotion. I got the pleasure of seeing him at the beginning of this summer in Pittsburgh and even at his age, the show was electric and extremely emotional. I've been to high energy shows like Slipknot, U2, and Paul McCartney, but John Williams was on another level. By the end half the people, if not all, were in full tears of joy and emotion from his scores, everybody has chills, everybody was in awe, and the standing ovation went on for a full 15 minutes (there were also 4 encore pieces with their own standing ovations too), it was incredible!

I have always LOVED the fact that John Williams had the foresight to take major seventh chords (ET, Indiana Jones, etc), put them in the BRASS, and play them at FFF. So freaking awesome.

Totally surprised and delighted by this choice of "one minute of musical perfection"! John Williams never gets old. His scores have walked with many of us through our childhood and into adulthood. We have a lot of great movie moments and memories that are made by his music. And thank you for the masterful breakdown of this piece.

As a piccolo player this is my all-time favourite score to play, so many nice solos for me! Williams knows how to make use of instrumental colours - such a genius!

I couldn’t agree more. The E.T finale is an absolutely magnificent piece of music.

That music lifted the scene to a level that had me crying like a baby....beautiful.

The best job I ever had was the summer of 1987 when I worked as an usher at the Hollywood Bowl. I actually was *paid* to listen to the best music in the world played by the best musicians in the world. And, as it happens, I got to hear John Williams conduct one night. IIRC, John Williams was conducting the Boston Pops Orchestra. And I got to see John Williams interrupted by a helicopter or small plane, can't remember which, on the precipice of a pause in the music. John Williams completely stopped, he froze in place, and he maintained his half-crouch position until the aircraft passed, and then he turned around, still in half-crouch, to face the audience. Everybody cracked up, following which he turned again to face the orchestra and thereupon launched right back into whatever piece they were all doing when the plane overhead was first heard. The orchestra never broke silence, and never missed a beat. One of those moments of my life that I absolutely will NEVER forget. Thank you, John Williams.

YES! When I was in college years ago my music theory professor and I were constantly at each others throats about John Williams. This professor was the very definition of pretentious. He kept trying to convince all his students that Williams was a hack. He convinced a lot of them too. Not me, though. I argued with him non stop. The only ammunition he had was comparing the imperial march to Holst's Mars, the bringer of war. That and "There's nothing particularly complex in his scores." My argument was always "Complicated doesn't mean better." I would argue that Williams isn't a classical composer. He's a film composer. His job is to enhance the movie through music and anyone who says he hasn't done that as good or better than any other film composer is full of crap. ET, Jaws and Indiana Jones were my aces in the hole for that argument. To this day I don't know how I managed to pass that class. He did everything he could to fail my ass.

John Williams is the pinnacle of music scoring. He uses all the hooks to make really powerful, engaging, moving, and memorable soundtracks that take their movie to a whole new level. Thank you, Rick, for reminding us what a treasure trove of memories JW has given the world.

'The Natural' is the one that always gets me. Goosebumps every time. I don't even remember much of the movie I was so young, but the theme is one of the most triumphant, uplifting pieces of music I've ever heard.

I literally have goosebumps. Simply an amazing piece of music.

In my humble opinion, John Williams is the greatest composer of our time. The totality of his work is astounding.

John Williams is, simply put, the Maestro of Maestros. He is now ninety years old and, per his work on Kenobi, still has it.

I cried - as I always do when I hear this music. Not sure why, but it just hits you in such a way. Great reminder of the power of music.. why songs can bring you right back to a place/time/event… John Williams is a MASTER; thank-you for this wonderful breakdown, and reminder of why he is!

As a certified geezer finger-picker, i appreciate your body of work on this channel.You're also one of the few real music guys that have interviewed Tommy Emmanuel. That, too was great. Keep up the good work.

Rick Beato, a wonderful teacher and talent who brings tremendous passion and knowledge and love for music. Providing wonderful insights of the artistry, craftmanship and greatness of music. Besides all that he has a wonderful spirit, that is why we love him. Thank you Rick

I love how you don’t restrict yourself in your music appreciation. My tastes are all over the map too, but classical music is tied for first place with rock for me. Where would we be were it not for symphonic/orchestral music? Prog would never have happened without it. And then there's also blues, jazz and cowboy/folk songs that led to what we would consider mainstream rock and roll. Keep bringing in the classical stuff! I sure hope that people enjoy it as much as I do.

I had the privilege of seeing John Williams perform live in NYC and in Boston. In NY, they had a screen behind the NY Philharmonic and they played clips from the movies while the orchestra conducted by John Williams himself, played live to the scenes. With E.T., it was the last 15 minutes of the movie. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever experienced. He is the greatest film composer of all time.

This is such a coincidence. This is literally the same epiphany I had the other day. That this piece of music from ET at the end of the movie is in my opinion the most spectacular single moment of music ever. Insane storytelling

Not enough can be said about the work John Williams puts into his melodies. He doesn't just wake up one day and the ET theme pours out - he painstakingly tries every interval and note combination over and over and over again until he finds the ones that sound "inevitable." He is the ultimate representative of hard work, and how it can pay off.

I'm in my 50's and this scene still makes me tear up.

John William's Schindler's List theme is one of the greatest melodies ever written, IMHO

John Williams plucks musical perfection out of the ether and translates it for the rest of us to hear.

This music elicits such a strong emotional response for me. Brings tears to my eyes. Sweeping, powerful, completely satisfying. As usual you do such a stellar job explaining things.

My go to John Williams music is “ Journey to the Island “ from Jurassic Park. Epic and wonderful.

Nobody conveys emotion like Rick Beato listening to John Williams!

It’s a bit longer than a minute, but for me the greatest in this category is Il Triello by Ennio Morricone, from the final duel of the Good the Bad and the Ugly. For me, it’s the finest example of music that enhances what’s on screen, but is itself enhanced by the cinematography. The dramatic progression means so much more with the weight of the characters behind it. Pure symbiosis. I go there whenever I need to feel motivated and inspired :) That said, John Williams is a genius in his own right, and one of the finest composers to have lived.

Rick PLEASE take this as a huge compliment!!!!! You are One of the most influential people helping me become hopefully a better person and singer. Barely a singer but working on it, Thank you Rick so much for your support over the years.

Just hearing that again brought a tear to my eyes Rick, and then to have your break down of why it works was just the cherry on the cake. Your daughter seems to have a very good ear for musical mood.

I literally got chills the SECOND you hit play. Unbelievable score!

You couldn't have picked a better piece. It bring tears to my eyes every time i hear that music. Thankyou

John Williams is clearly one of the GREATEST composers of all time. Just STUNNING.

John Williams is truly the modern day Mozart. Truly the GOAT of movie soundtracks.

I was a kid in the 1970s and Williams' themes from Star Wars were the first movie soundtracks to make me notice the soundtrack. The crash to start the opening credits, The Imperial March, and The Force Theme (played during the Tatoine sunset) are still some of my favorite soundtrack pieces.

John Williams is the man. His scores never cease to amaze.

OMG I cannot believe you did this Rick! I listen to you to hear musical breakdowns of rock/pop music, but my first love as a kid was orchestral films scores and this is probably my favorite cue from any movie ever. Makes me cry every time I see it. How awesome of you to step away from rock/pop for a moment and celebrate great music from a totally different genre. Thank you!

I totally agree. John Williams at his absolute best

It just shows how John Williams' magic can reach the core of our emotions through music. Leyla's first impression illustrates that.

Yes, it is. This is musical perfection in one minute, always makes me cry and hits a chill down my spine, after all these years. Wonderful episode Rick. Thank you.

Rick- these videos are awesome! I’m not a piano player but I love music and the way they are broken down!! Thank you!

Music is everything to a movie and John Williams is a master. His compositions always make you feel the emotion of the climax in movies or blow you away like during the opening crawl for Star Wars.

I vote for a whole "What makes this song great" series on just John Williams music.

Awesome peice of music. Even more awesome is how deeply your love spills over for your daughter. Just beautiful brutha.

E.t is the definition of storytelling and soundtrack working in perfect harmony...it doesn't get better than that in my opinion

The way you feel about this is how I feel about James Horner’s theme for Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan. It’s a soundtrack that matches the greatness of its movie.

I had really similar feelings about the music in the first star wars movies. It was as much a character as it was a soundtrack. Almost like a nonverbal narrator. Truly genius work

Rick, thank you for explaining why this minute of music still brings me to tears today! The added, analytical understanding you bring to it doesn't detract from the emotional high at all, rather it enhances it. Also, your transcendent love of the music in and of itself lifts me. You just reminded me what 100% listener reception does for the soul -- something I experienced instinctively as a kid, before the noise of a million other cares and concerns got in the way. Thank you for reminding me to receive good music fully, and bringing in music worth listening to that way. What a gift your show is! 💝

Lovely, Rick! You are such a gift to the world!!

Williams' main theme from Seven Years in Tibet is beautiful as is the theme from Schindler's List. His ability to do both moving and spine tingling is almost unmatched. The John Williams Signature Edition scores are so instructive to look through and have taught me so much about orchestration.

John Williams is beyond amazing... And I respect the hell out of anyone who acknowledges his contribution to the world...

My son learned to play ET End Credits after playing for only 2 1/2 years. Gives me goosebumps. John Williams is the GOAT composer in my opinion. His music elevates imagination for all ages. Rick, Thank you for doing a video on this masterpiece and John.

I always say movie score is the greatest of all for us in the modern era, because it draws from great music of the past and so often plays on emotion. Even incidental music in cinema/score is worth paying close attention to.

Without apology or hint of doubt, John Williams is my favorite musician of all time. I've gotten more hours of joy from his work than I could even count. My wife and I got to see one of his Hollywood Bowl shows in the early 2000's, and it's still one of the highlights of my life. Great breakdown, Rick, and great choice! That ending fanfare with the high B flat also reminds me very much of his Olympic fanfare. The man just knows how to phrase things to use every instrument to its fullest.

It conjures a whole different type of emotion, but for me John Barrie's Somewhere in Time main theme is an outstanding musical moment.

I just love your joy and passion for great music.

Loved the movie! The ending music always makes me cry with joy! John Williams is a genius!

For me it's Howard Shore and his LOTR scores. I love the Rohan theme in particular, it's so sad yet majestic at the same time

I love the '2001: A Space Odyssey' type ending with those heavy timpani drums.

That movement is FILLED with "surprises"! I truly love that you appreciate so many different types of music!

E.T , SUPERMAN and STAR WARS ...you can hear the parallels , all of them so similar yet so distinctive. John Williams magic