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Home , Marty Paich, Ray Stark, The Way We Were

ISSUE #41 MMUSICMAG.COM BEHIND THE CLASSICS WRITTEN BY: AND MARILYN & ALAN BERGMAN RECORDED: RCA STUDIO, L.A., 1973 PRODUCED: MARTY PAICH ARRANGED BY: MARTY PAICH ALBUM: (1974)

Barbra Streisand

“The Way We Were”

“Every night I would say a prayer: Please, Finally Hamlisch wrote a melody “that Streisand, she told Hamlisch the song was God, one day, let Barbra Streisand sing one just got to me.” He added, “I’d been trying too sentimental. “So is ‘My Funny Valentine,’” of my songs,” recalled Marvin Hamlisch. It minor key melodies, but thought it might he countered. “I hate ‘My Funny Valentine,” was 1964 and he was working as a rehearsal telegraph too much in advance that Streisand Streisand snapped. pianist for Streisand’s Broadway debut, and Redford were never going to get together. After all the drama, the song was omitted . Though he’d penned “Sunshine, So I wrote a major key melody that was sad from the fi lm, but a test screening showed the Lollipops and Rainbows,” a minor hit for Lesley but also had a great deal of hope in it.” audience was unmoved by the emotional fi nal Gore, his credentials were hardly enough to Lyric-writing team Alan and Marilyn scene. Hamlisch begged Columbia to let him turn the head of the diva-to-be. Bergman, who’d won an Oscar for “The rescore the scene with the song. They relented Ten years and a few movie soundtracks Windmills of Your Mind” and had a long- but on condition that he pay for the recording later, Hamlisch received a call from standing relationship with Streisand, session. “It wasn’t mere pocket change,” producer Stark about writing a song added a beautiful lyric that began with Hamlisch said, “but I got what I wanted.” With for a fi lm that followed the stormy, decade- the unforgettable line: “Memories light the the song in the fi nal scene, the fi lm was re- long love affair between a politically active corners of my mind.” The trio performed it tested. “I heard a woman start to cry. And then Jewish girl and a carefree WASPy hunk. for Streisand—and she liked it. another. And within minutes, there wasn’t a The capper: The picture starred Robert Hamlisch thought they were home free. dry eye left. I knew I was right,” Hamlisch said. Redford and Barbra Streisand. “But on the way home, Alan suggested that The song was a chart-topper for Hamlisch aimed to capture the “sorrow, maybe we could do even better,” he recalled. Streisand, and won both the Academy despondency and pain of the relationship” in “I had poured my heart into what I had written Award and Golden Globe Award for Best the song. But knowing it was for Streisand and just didn’t think I had a better ‘The Way Original Song in 1974. For Hamlisch, who made him cautious. “No matter what I was We Were’ in me. There was absolutely no died in 2012, it remained his personal doing, I could hear Barbra’s voice in my way to rethink it.” favorite, as much for the song as the struggle head and recall how wonderful she sounds But rethink it they did, creating a second to get it heard. “For all the times a composer when she holds certain notes. I wanted to version that was “more complex and less is turned down by a singer, for all the times let her soar. But I was determined not to sentimental.” Streisand recorded both, and a composer doesn’t get his fi rst choice of write something drippingly sentimental. I’d a vote was taken by director , vocalist, for all the frustrations—this made work for hours then leave the piano, and try the fi lm’s stars, and Columbia executives. for all of them.” again the next day.” According to Anne Edwards’ biography on –Bill DeMain

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