"They're Playing Our Song: A Memoir"--Grammy and Academy Award–winning songwriter Carole Bayer Sager shares the remarkably frank and darkly funny story of her life

They're Playing Our Song: A Memoir

by Carole Bayer Sager

The New York Times Bestseller

Grammy and Academy Award–winning songwriter Carole Bayer Sager shares the remarkably frank and darkly funny story of her life in and out of the recording studio, from her fascinating (and sometimes calamitous) relationships to her collaborations with some of the greatest composers and musical artists of our time.

For five decades, Carole Bayer Sager has been among the most admired and successful songwriters at work, responsible for her lyrical contributions to some of the most popular songs in the English language, including “Nobody Does It Better,” “A Groovy Kind of Love,” “Don’t Cry Out Loud,” and the theme from the movie Arthur, “The Best That You Can Do” (about getting lost between the moon and New York City).

She has collaborated with (and written for) a dizzying number of stars, including Peter Allen, Ray Charles, Celine Dion, Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, Clint Eastwood, Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds, Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Carole King, Melissa Manchester, Reba McEntire, Bette Midler, Dolly Parton, Carly Simon, Frank Sinatra, and Barbra Streisand.

Her relationship with composer Marvin Hamlisch was the basis of the long-running hit musical, They’re Playing Our Song, for which she wrote the lyrics. And her work with composer Burt Bacharach, to whom she was also married for ten years, produced pop standards such as “On My Own” and “That’s What Friends Are For” (inspired by her friendship with Elizabeth Taylor), which raised over two million dollars for AIDS research.

But while her professional life was filled with success and fascinating people, her personal life was far more difficult and dramatic. In this memoir, Carole Bayer Sager tells the surprisingly frank and darkly humorous story of a woman whose sometimes crippling fears and devastating relationships inspired many of the songs she would ultimately write.

They’re Playing Our Song will fascinate anyone interested in the craft of songwriting and the joy of collaboration, but Carole Bayer Sager’s memoir is also a deeply personal account of how love and heartbreak made her the woman, and the writer, she is.

Carole Bayer Sager

 


Carole Bayer Sager is a lyricist, singer, songwriter and painter. Her songs have been recorded by such artists as Carly Simon, Richard Marx, Leo Sayer, Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Bette Midler, Celine Dion, and Reba McEntire. Many of Sager's 1980s songs were co-written with her former husband, composer and pianist Burt Bacharach.

Sager won the Academy Award for Best Song in 1981 for "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)", which was the theme song of the movie Arthur. Sager has won a Grammy Award and two Golden Globes. She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987.

Sager lives in Los Angeles and New York with her husband, Bob Daly. She also has an adult son Cristopher Elton Bacharach.

http://www.carolebayersager.com/