“Thank you,” I said, taking my head out of my bag long enough to take his ballpoint pen, which I wished had a thicker tip.
I refocused. “So, do you have any ideas of what you feel like writing?”
“Well, I’ve got a little bit of an idea.”
He mumbled his words very softly. I thought he said “I godda libble bid a deer.”
He started strumming his guitar. I had to admit, this was cool. Bob Dylan strumming a guitar. And then he began humming a melody. It was a simple one. He didn’t ask me if I liked it but he sang,
“Something about you that I can’t shake.”
And he played the melody to the next line and I nervously said, “Feels like it’s more than my heart can take?” I was kind of writing and asking a question at the same time. And he sang,
“Don’t know how much more of this I can take / Baby, I’m under your spell.”
Usually the composer waited for me to come up with the lyrics, playing the melody for me until I heard words I wanted to write. In this case, Bob was way ahead of me. “That’s good,” I said, feeling more like a stenographer than a lyricist.
As we continued I kept offering him lines. Sometimes he’d say, “I like that” and I would be so happy as I wrote something down.
In the middle of the song, I went over to look at his lyric sheet and I felt like an eighth grader who was trying to cheat on her English test. Bob was essentially the student you didn’t try and cheat off of. He was hunched over his paper, hiding it with his left hand and his curly head of hair.
“Can I see?” I asked.
Most of my lyrics that I thought he’d liked weren’t even written down—just one or two lines.
Finally, I said, “I feel like you don’t really need me here writing this with you because you seem to have your own idea of what the lyric should be.” I was being honest.
“No, I need you here,” he said. “I wouldn’t be writing this if you weren’t here.”
He played the same melody again. Another verse.
I was knocked out loaded in the naked night
When my dream exploded . . .
And I said, “What about ‘and I lost your light’?”
He sang, “I noticed your light.”
Well, that was a little something. He continued, “Baby . . .”
I said, “How about, ‘Baby you know me so well.’ ”
He was quiet and then sang, “Baby, oh, what a story I could tell.”
I would toss out a line and he would say, “That’s good,” and sometimes even sing the whole line, so by the time we finished I thought I had contributed maybe twelve lines to the lengthy song.
A few days later he had laid a rough version down on a cassette and sent it to me.
Of the twelve lines I thought I had written, maybe there were three or four left in the song. I immediately called him.
“Bob . . .”
“Hey.”
“Listen, I don’t think it’s fair to you to say we wrote this song together. So much of the lyric is yours. I just don’t feel right taking a credit.”
“Never would have written it if you weren’t here,” he said again. “And you wrote some good lines.”
Most of them never to be heard, I thought.
“Well, I don’t feel right taking fifty percent of the song,” I said, and he quickly said, “Well, how ’bout you own half of the lyric and I’ll own half.”
“Sure, that sounds better.”
When the record came out he called the whole album Knocked Out Loaded, a line from “our” song. I would have been proud, but that wasn’t one of my five lines. Anyway, it gave me great bragging rights, because how many people can say they wrote a song with Bob Dylan? He worked with very few writers during his career, and I certainly know why. Still, it was bizarrely thrilling.
USA Today said in the last paragraph of its review of Knocked Out Loaded, “It’s ironic and appropriate then, that the album’s best song, ‘Under Your Spell,’ was written with old-fashioned tunesmith Carole Bayer Sager. Dylan can’t help but sing its delicate melody, and when he reaches the last line, ‘Pray that I don’t die of thirst two feet from the well,’ old friends will be happy to give him water.”
I loved that last line, too. I wished it were mine.
Twenty-Seven
DIONNE ASKED BURT IF he and I would write and produce a few songs for her new album. That same afternoon, he sat at the piano and played her “That’s What Friends Are For.” She loved it and immediately wanted to do it as a duet with Stevie Wonder.
I invited Elizabeth to come down and meet Stevie, since I knew what a fan she was.
Listening to the playback, an idea came to me. Since Elizabeth was so committed to raising funds and awareness for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmfAR), we should donate the proceeds from this record to the foundation. Dionne Warwick has taken credit for this idea in every interview she’s done, and Clive Davis also claimed it to be his idea in his otherwise enjoyable autobiography. I would like to set the record straight and say that because Elizabeth was my friend, and was there in the studio when Stevie did his vocals, the idea was right in front of me. (When I asked Dionne about donating her share to AIDS research, she initially replied, “Do I have to? I just gave money for ‘We Are the World.’ ”)
Once we knew its purpose, Burt and I thought we should add two more iconic artists to make the record that much more anthemic. Gladys Knight was perfect. She lifted it one step higher than I thought it could go. Our last thought was Luther Vandross, a great R&B singer, but his vocal, though excellent, still left us wanting that cleanup batter to hit it out of the park.
We voiced our concern to Clive, who broke the news to Luther. To Clive’s credit, he then suggested—yes, this was Clive’s idea—Elton John. More important, Elton said yes and then added a vocal so undeniably brilliant that on listening back to what would soon be the entire record, he said, “If this record is not a fucking Number One song, I am leaving the business.”
Fortunately for us, he got to stay. “That’s What Friends Are For” went to Number One and remained there for a month in early 1986. Everyone donated their royalties, and we raised almost two million dollars for AmfAR, something I will always feel proud of.
When it went to Number One I was ecstatic. Finally, a huge hit that Burt and I wrote together, just the two of us. I was so happy not to have shared it with a third—let alone a fourth—collaborator. It went on to be the Number One single for 1986 and it was nominated for Song of the Year. It probably meant too much to me, but I really wanted us to win together. I guess I felt these successes were much of the glue that held our marriage together. My insecurity about whether Burt really loved me often reared its head, and somewhere I believed if I could keep laying golden eggs, he’d stay with me. It made me feel horrible knowing that this was a big part of the truth of us.
On the Grammy broadcast of February 24, 1987, I introduced the performance of our song, which featured Burt, Dionne, Stevie, Gladys, and Elton. It was the last of the Song of the Year nominees to be performed, and it was received with applause that felt like it was infused with adulation. Burt and I were standing backstage afterward as Julio Iglesias and Olivia Newton-John announced the nominees for Song of the Year (all but ours by singer-songwriters): Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love,” Paul Simon’s “Graceland,” Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love,” Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer,” and ours. I was a little nervous that “Graceland” and “Higher Love” had a chance (and in fact, Graceland was named Album of the Year and “Higher Love” Record of the Year). But I also knew that aside from our song being a really good one, it stood for something more—shining a light on a devastating illness while raising money to defeat it at the same time—and I felt that might be considered by NARAS (National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences) voters.
When Olivia Newton-John called our names and presented us with the greatest songwriting award the music industry has t
o bestow, it was one of the purest moments of joy I’d ever experienced. The entire audience was on its feet and the applause was loud and long. It was a few things: One, an acknowledgment of Burt being back. Two, it was an acknowledgment of the song’s purpose, and three, there was a deep appreciation for the four iconic voices on the song. We had a one-year-old baby waiting for us at our beautiful home, and in that moment my life was completely perfect.
I recently viewed the moment again on YouTube and was able to step back and see it as any viewer might. This attractive couple that wrote these beautiful songs together was such a romantic image, one that I lived in far more than my day-to-day not-overly-romantic life. When the two of us would perform together on stage and sing a duet of Burt’s “Close to You,” I along with the audience believed we were That Couple. Or when photographers stood in line to take our picture, and Burt would look at me so lovingly, I would ask for the photo, frame it, and many a day stare at it trying to believe that snapshot was who we really were. Burt was often the most romantic toward me in the music room, where sex was unlikely to happen but you could count on my lyrics flowing, and so that little flirtation I’d pick up was his way of saying thanks, more words, please! I was the only woman I know who “put out” in rhyme.
After the momentous high of winning the Song of the Year Grammy, where could you possibly go? Four nights later we hosted Elizabeth Taylor’s fifty-fifth birthday party at our home in Bel Air.
I like giving parties. I like all of the details that go into planning them: the look of the room, the lighting, the table settings, the food, the mementos, and seeing it all come to life. I enjoy it when people have a good time together who might not have met if I hadn’t invited them all to the same gathering.
For the invitation I found a wonderful black-and-white photograph of a ten-year-old Elizabeth with Lassie by her side. On her fourth finger on her left hand I pasted a large rectangular crystal, and sparkly crystal baubles around her neck to evoke two of the famous gifts given her by Richard Burton. I called and asked Ralph Destino, president of Cartier at the time, if he would consider making up big faux diamond rings to be presented in the famous red Cartier boxes to all the forty women in attendance, and invited him to the party to watch their reactions. He enthusiastically said yes. What president of a jewelry firm wouldn’t?
I had a life-size cutout of an exquisite teenage Elizabeth on display at the valet station. Later in the evening, I handed out copies of the sheet music from our song “Turn On Your Heartlight,” retitled “Put On Your Diamonds” and featuring parody lyrics. Before it was performed, the women were invited to open their gifts and wear their giant rings while singing the song.
The guest list was a mix of many of Elizabeth’s friends and some of our own. I was surprised one morning to pick up the phone and recognize the unmistakable voice of Bette Davis calling to RSVP. After telling me she would be attending, she mentioned what a fine songwriter my husband was. “And you, Mrs. Bacharach,” she added, making it clear that she had no idea who I was, “make a lovely invitation.”
On the night of the party, Michael Jackson arrived early, bringing with him his own chef. Michael whispered in my ear, “I am so nervous. Can we go upstairs to your bedroom?”
“Well, I am hosting this party—”
“Pleeeease,” he pleaded.
“Okay,” I said. “Follow me.”
He sat on my bed looking very handsome, dressed all in black. He had not yet gone over the top in his facial surgeries. He was quite beautiful looking in a Diana Ross way. He had not altered his skin tone and he had not yet begun to sabotage his career. Still, he was afraid.
“Can you stay up here with me?” he asked me in his breathy little-boy voice. “I’m so shy.”
“Not when you’re singing in front of fifty thousand people,” I said.
“That’s different. That’s a different me. Right now I’m just so nervous.”
“Well, Michael, I do have guests arriving. How about you stay here, and I’ll come and get you when Elizabeth gets here?”
“Okay,” he agreed reluctantly.
It was very difficult to reconcile all the Michaels in my mind. There was the musical genius, the shrewd businessman, and the self-destructive Michael at the heart of whom was the abused child who really seemed unequipped to function in an adult world. I had real empathy for him and the unlived childhood his abusive father robbed him of. As Elizabeth often said, she connected with Michael on a soul level because they were both deprived of a childhood by early stardom, yet they each looked at life at times through the eyes of a child.
Despite the fact that the Elizabeth I knew had seen everything, done everything, been everywhere, she was never jaded.
I remember this conversation at a dinner at our home.
David Geffen said to Elizabeth, “I’m thinking of going to Yugoslavia. Have you ever been there?”
“Yes, I have,” she answered.
“Well, what would be the best place for me to stay there?”
“Ohhhh,” she answered, “I wouldn’t know. I always stayed with President Tito.”
Here’s a woman who stayed with presidents and was made a dame by the queen, whose legendary romance with Richard Burton almost invented the paparazzi, who I saw watch Cirque du Soleil at the Santa Monica pier with the awe and wonder of a young child. I enjoyed it. She was enthralled by it. She bought the Cirque CD of that performance, and for months it was all I heard when I visited.
Elizabeth walked in looking more exquisite than anyone could possibly be at fifty-five years old. She was accompanied by a tan and handsome George Hamilton, an actor who was also famous as an escort to some of the world’s most celebrated and wealthy women. He was also the first husband of my girlfriend Alana (who later married Rod Stewart). Elizabeth and George together looked as though they had popped off the top of the most gorgeous wedding cake ever made.
I sent someone up to get Michael, and once in the room he never left Elizabeth’s side, even holding her hand for most of the evening.
I have the most fantastic photographs from the party, including a shot of Bob Dylan kissing Elizabeth on the lips. I’ll never forget Bette Davis’s line on seeing my friend Bette Midler for the first time. “How da-a-aare she come to your home looking that way? She owes it to her public to dress like a sta-a-a-h-h-h-r,” she said, turning her head away in disgust. What she didn’t know is that Bette had given birth three weeks earlier and was understandably overweight and exhausted. Nothing else she owned fit, and this was way before one had to endure two hours of hair and makeup even to go on a grocery run.
I know Burt had a great time because well after most of the guests—Elizabeth included—had gone home, he was still at the piano, jamming away with Stevie Nicks on guitar, Stevie Wonder on electric piano, Bob Dylan on yet another guitar (which he signed and left for Cristopher), and Michael Jackson losing all of his earlier shyness and singing some of his hits. Stevie and Bob and Dionne joined in with Burt until the wee hours of the morning. Something I’ve noticed about stars: it’s hard to get them to come out, but it’s even harder to get them to go home.
I went to bed that night awed by the week I’d been living, and knowing that one more incredible evening still lay ahead—my induction in New York a week from Monday into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
FOR THE NEXT FEW days, our rooms were filled with elaborate flower arrangements and the sound of ringing telephones. “Congratulations on the Grammy,” “Thank you for the most wonderful party,” “Would you and Burt do an interview for us?”
Life was exciting, and in a way, the best was yet to come. I was still having some difficulty believing that I would really be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, alongside names I would never think of in the same sentence as mine. My idol Carole King and her partner Gerry Goffin. Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. Bob Merrill. Sam Cooke. It was crazy. Me and John Lennon and Paul McCartney. I mean, that’s all you really have to say to know there was a mi
stake.
But there wasn’t. We were all going to be members of the same club. It was unbelievable. Even Burt, who’d gotten in sixteen years earlier, was excited for me. I couldn’t help wondering if his and Marvin’s were the two votes that carried me over the top. How could I continue to think of my whole songwriting career as a fluke? I couldn’t.
I knew exactly what I was going to wear—a black Armani suit that I could dress up or down, and I decided to go up. I hired a hairdresser in New York and looked forward to our stay at the Regency.
So it came as a total shock to me when I awakened later in the week feeling complete despair.
Everything around me was bleak. I was completely unalive. I believe I was deeply depressed. Nothing mattered to me. Just like that, overnight. Crying, sad, dull, unable to eat. It felt like a nervous breakdown. I didn’t relate to who I was and I didn’t care. Burt said something to me like “You’ve got to pull yourself together. You’ve got the Songwriters Hall of Fame dinner Monday night.” He could as easily have been speaking in Chinese. I heard the words, but they had no meaning. And the Songwriters Hall of Fame ceremony didn’t even register. Wherever I was, it was a place I’d never been and pray I will never be again.
I’ve always maintained that my life could be crumbling around me, like bricks collapsing from skyscrapers above, and there would remain this one lane—the music lane, the career lane—that not only would I be safe in, but that not one brick could penetrate. Here was the exception. This was my career, its culminating moment, and not just a brick but a boulder crashed right in the middle of my clear open lane.
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