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    They're Playing Our Song: A Memoir
    They're Playing Our Song: A Memoir
    They're Playing Our Song: A Memoir
    Audiobook10 hours

    They're Playing Our Song: A Memoir

    By Carole Bayer Sager

    Narrated by Carole Bayer Sager

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    About this audiobook

    A New York Times bestseller from Grammy and Academy Award–winning songwriter Carole Bayer Sager shares “a delightful and funny tell-all crammed with famous names and famous songs” (Steve Martin), from her fascinating (and sometimes calamitous) relationships to her collaborations with 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 caught 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, Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Carole King, Melissa Manchester, Reba McEntire, Bette Midler, Dolly Parton, Carly Simon, Frank Sinatra, and Barbra Streisand.

    But while her professional life was filled with success and fascinating people, her personal life was far more difficult and dramatic. In this memoir that “reads like a candid conversation over a bottle of Mersault on a breezy Bel Air night” (Vanity Fair), 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.

    “This exceptionally candid memoir” (Los Angeles Times) will fascinate anyone interested in the craft of songwriting and the joy of collaboration, but They’re Playing Our Song is also a deeply personal account of how love and heartbreak made her the woman, and the writer, she is. “Carole Bayer Sager is simply the finest….and this book is one of the best, most lasting songs she has ever written” (Carly Simon).
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateOct 18, 2016
    ISBN9781508226444
    Author

    Carole Bayer Sager

    Carole Bayer Sager has written more than four hundred songs. Nominated for over fifteen awards, she has won an Oscar, two Golden Globes, and a Grammy for Song of the Year. She recorded three solo albums and with Marvin Hamlisch wrote the hit Broadway musical, They’re Playing Our Song. With Peter Allen she cowrote half of the songs used in in the Broadway musical The Boy From Oz, which starred Hugh Jackman and told the story of Peter’s life. She is a member of the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame and was awarded a Star on Hollywood Boulevard. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Robert Daly, and shares their bed with three unruly dogs who are unimpressed with their accomplishments.

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    Reviews for They're Playing Our Song

    4/5

    31 ratings4 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This was insightful and ultimately inspiring. Thank you, Carole, for sharing your life and lessons.
    • 4/5
      Read it in one sitting, great narrative flow, interesting back story to some of my favourite music
    • 4/5
      Very good autobiography by songwriter Carole Bayer Sager. While I can relate to some of her insecurities as a child, I was surprised to find that even after she was successful, she was still insecure about so many things. Being a lyricist seemed to come easy to Sager but her relationships with men were difficult. She seemed to always find men who constantly criticized her. It was interesting to read about her different collaborators as well as her relationships with Marvin Hamlisch (who she did not marry) and Burt Bacharach (who she did marry). I'm glad she was able to finally find someone who loves her for herself. I would have liked to have heard a bit as to what she thinks of lyrics by some of the great songwriters, i.e. Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, but that is not mentioned at all.
    • 4/5
      They're Playing Our Song, Carole Bayer Sager's memoir, was, for me, very uneven and somewhat disappointing. Part of it was my expectations and part of it was simply who she apparently is.I have long admired her songwriting abilities and looked forward to this memoir. I think I was expecting to hear about life's usual ups and downs, about struggles and accomplishments, all told with a compassionate voice and maybe even a bit of wisdom thrown in. That is, in many ways, how I heard many of her lyrics over the years. While some compassion was there and even some wisdom, it seemed like her career consisted far more of succeeding in spite of people's failings rather than through collaboration, which is strange since her musical success was largely the result of who she collaborated with.I don't want to sound overly negative, I did enjoy the book and most of the stories within it. Perhaps I put her on too high a pedestal and when she didn't seem to come near that height I was disappointed. I would still recommend this book to anyone who remembers her music fondly as well as anyone interested in behind the scenes celebrity tell-alls. The tell-all part is probably where I sometimes lost interest and lowered the pedestal a couple notches.Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.