They're Playing Our Song

July 25, 2016
Sager’s daily scene was something most only dream about: celebrity parties and red carpets, decked-out studios, and trips cross-country to create the perfect song. Carole Bayer Sager, known in her circle as “the woman with many names,” is a prolific songwriter who’s been sought after for decades. In this memoir, its title taken from the Broadway musical that Neil Simon based on her life in the early 1980s with composer Marvin Hamlisch, Sager tenderly illustrates an insider’s account of life behind the music. She has hundreds of hits to her credit, including “Don’t Cry Out Loud,” “That’s What Friends Are For,” and, more recently, “The Prayer”; her songs are treasured the world over. She recalls her friendship with Elizabeth Taylor and notes that Michael Jackson often called on her to ease his nerves. After Hamlisch, Sager spent a decade of her life, love, and talent with the once-unstoppable composer Burt Bacharach and for the last 20 years has shared her life with studio giant Bob Daly. Underscoring the glitz of her circle are a rich songwriting vocabulary, an emotional well, and an endless need to create. As a girlfriend and wife, she didn’t feel she measured up; as a woman, she rarely felt beautiful or thin enough; as a mom, she felt she could be doing more; but as a songwriter, she’s always had everything needed to create magical works of music. Sager’s writing is comfortably conversational, and her stories are lovingly told. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM.

September 15, 2016
The driven life of an award-winning, hit-producing singer/songwriter.Sager's star-studded memoir begins with her personal recollections of growing up an indulgent "sneak eater" in the shadow of an anxious, pragmatic mother and a beloved father who died of heart failure just as her first hit song, "A Groovy Kind of Love," ascended the pop charts in 1965. Music grounded the author from a young age as she found herself writing songs as a teenager in the early 1960s, then abandoning a teaching career to write lyrics full time. Sager's treasury of chart-topping music includes "That's What Friends Are For," the Academy Award-winning "Arthur's Theme," and the book's title, from a Neil Simon-created 1978 Broadway musical based on the author's enchanted relationship with Marvin Hamlisch. Sager writes forthrightly about the irrationality of fears haunting her throughout her adolescence and into adulthood. Afraid of contracting polio in childhood, she grew into a successful woman battling a crippling fear of flying. These anxieties, she admits, "led me to my long-standing relationship with sleeping pills." However, these hurdles take a back seat to Sager's true passion for music, which comes through in enlightening chapters spotlighting her songwriting efforts for artists like Bette Midler and Carly Simon and, in later years, with Hamlisch and Burt Bacharach, whom she married in the 1980s and adored enough to endure a series of body enhancement surgeries "to look like I belonged with [him]." Socially, Sager nurtured a friendship with Elizabeth Taylor and, for better or worse, wrote career-reviving music for Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston. While sensitively chronicling her numerous ups and downs, the author is generous in her sharing of the anecdotes behind the music. The narrative is breezy and accessible, with writing that plays to the strengths of her crisp sense of humor, deep attachment to music, and resonant lust for life. An undemanding yet deeply felt memoir of a life lived through melody, lyrics, and the limelight of hard-won fame.

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August 1, 2016

This is Sager's recollection of her life's work as a songwriter, lyricist, and collaborator with well-known popular composers, including Marvin Hamlisch and Burt Bacharach. Many women struggling in a man's world will enjoy the author's stories about her early family life and the challenges she faced growing up. It's fascinating to read about her path, especially working at New York's Brill Building. What makes this account appealing and different from typical celebrity biographies is Sager's honesty and forthright way of approaching her work. She relates her fears and neuroses: when Neil Simon's Broadway musical, They're Playing Our Song (based on the relationship between Hamlisch and Sager) becomes a hit, she mentions that many sought to interview her, to see if their lives were as portrayed on stage. She writes, "I was not all that sunny and quirky. Well, maybe a little quirk.... If Edward Albee had written it, it might have been a bit closer to the truth." VERDICT An enjoyable read for those who seek to understand the creative process of songwriting and the American songbook, as told by a woman.--Amy Lewontin, Northeastern Univ. Lib., Boston

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