Review: They're Playing Our Song

They're Playing Our Song by Carole Bayer Sager
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read many music industry books because I like reading about the creative process and I like reading about the business aspects of a creative industry. Successful pop song lyricist Bayer Sager, I would think, would have a lot to say on the creative process and perhaps on the industry. But in this book, the focus is more on her life story, centered mostly on her romances and marriages and friendships. To her credit, she runs in an a-list crowd, having Elizabeth Taylor as a good friend, dating George Lucas and Davy Jones, and marrying Burt Bacharach. There are some interesting stories about the people she interacts with, and that accounts for most of the book.

But I was more interested in song writing and the music industry. Here, Bayer Sager sheds light on the process she used to write with a variety of other writers, including Bacharach, Paul Simon, Michael Jackson, and Bob Dylan. Ends up they are all have their unique creating styles, but also seem to be similar in the basic approach to songwriting. As for industry insight, you get a lot of grousing that the author feels underappreciated, but then she slips into a personal story, which leads me to wonder how seriously upset she really was. You do get some aspects of the industry through her marriages. She married a record producer, a songwriter/performer, and a music company executive, working her way up the “steady income” ladder of the music business. Interestingly, she seems happiest with the husband that is in the least creative line of work.

I found her descriptions of the writing process to be the best parts in the book. And her characterizations of Burt Bacharach’s comments and voice were often hilariously odd. I learned a bit about song writing, but I learned a lot about the author that I probably didn’t need to know.


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