They're Playing Our Song

by Carole Bayer Sager

  Our job, writing the songs, was easy. David and I always worked well together, and this project was no exception. We wrote most of the required songs and they were really quite good, one or two of them maybe even excellent. They were easily the best things in the film thus far.

  In the story line, the heroine of the movie is about to embark on a dangerous adventure into the treacherous woods, and her mother is worried for her safety. I suggested to David that we write “a prayer” in that scene, where the mother prays for her daughter’s protection. David began playing different melody ideas until I interrupted with what had become my signature line, “Play that again.” That led us to “The Prayer”:

  Lead her to a place

  Guide her with your Grace

  To a place where she’ll be safe

  The leads of the film were unknowns, totally different from the brilliant star casting on the big Disney films (and then subsequently the Pixar and DreamWorks movies). We did have the wasted talents of Gary Oldman as the villain and Eric Idle and Don Rickles as the comical two-headed dragon, which only looked good as a stuffed toy (and I would have made those differently—more plush, not so stiff).

  The only other stars were artists David and I cast to sing the songs, including Céline Dion, Andrea Corr from the Corrs, and Steve Perry, the lead singer of Journey. Not to mention Andrea Bocelli (an opera singer whose greatest success was his hit duet with Sarah Brightman on “Time to Say Goodbye”) singing the end credits in Italian.

  QUEST FOR CAMELOT WAS the only thing that almost threatened my marriage to Bob.

  Many times during the making of it, David threatened to quit, not to be difficult but to disassociate himself from what we both had little faith could ever turn into a good film, even for little children.

  Lorenzo Di Bonaventura, who seemed to be overseeing the project from his post as Warner Bros. head of production, was no fan of musicals. If it had been up to him, he would have taken all the music out and just let things explode for no reason at all. I came home one day and said, “Bob, you have no idea how crazy things are in the animation department. It’s horrible there. No one has a clue what they’re doing.”

  “If you weren’t my wife you wouldn’t be able to tell me this,” Bob said. “I don’t want to hear this information from you. I want to hear it from the people who are supposed to tell it to me.”

  “Well, they are the problem, so they’re not going to tell you. They don’t even know anything’s wrong. I’m telling you this thing is a disaster. You need to get involved. Maybe even shut the whole thing down.”

  “If you were at Disney,” Bob continued, “no matter how famous you and David Foster are, you would still be ‘songwriters for hire’ and would need to go through the proper chain of command. You would not have access to Michael Eisner.”

  Unfortunately, this was not the last time we would have versions of this exchange, and both of us invariably ended up annoyed and misunderstood. One night, Bob said, “I am not going to have this conversation anymore.” His voice and his face were conveying a certain level of anger I hadn’t seen until then. “Consider me out of this project. I don’t want to hear about it again. Ever. You know Terry Semel. Call him.” And so I did.

  I told Terry I had two big issues. One, there was no musical person other than David and me attached to this project, so how did they think it was going to be a musical? We needed to bring another person or two on board who knew about musicals: their structure, their storytelling, choreography, etc. Second, he needed to override Lorenzo, who thought that Céline Dion—the biggest star in this whole film—singing “The Prayer” stopped the story line. As if there were a story line. I didn’t like Lorenzo, who, if you remember, killed my script with Alana. Now he was trying to take the best song in the movie out of the movie.

  “Let me get this straight,” Terry said. “You’re saying that we don’t have a musical person working in production other than you and David.”

  “Yes,” I answered. He agreed to bring in someone from the outside who knew musical theater. “And don’t worry,” he added, “I’m not going to lose a Céline Dion song from the movie.”

  Terry brought in Kenny Ortega, the choreographer of, among other films, Dirty Dancing, but the movie was already unsalvageable. How could he choreograph what was already animated? It was all too late.

  Finally, the premiere was upon us. The Warner Bros. lot was decorated to re-create the look of the movie, and families were invited to view it and celebrate afterward with food, games, and giveaways. But I didn’t feel very celebratory.

  When we got home, Bob went into his office. I followed and sat down on his big blue sofa looking very unhappy.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Didn’t you have fun?”

  “Fun?” I started to cry.

  “Why are you crying?”

  “It was awful,” I said. “I hated the movie. It was everything I was afraid it was going to be. I feel so terrible.”

  “Carole, you’re not responsible for the whole movie,” Bob said empathetically. “You’re only responsible for your songs, and they came out great. What are you getting all upset about? You need to let it go.”

  The movie opened to very mixed reviews, grossed under $7 million in its opening weekend, and that was that. It was the beginning and the end of Warner Bros. going into the animated musical business. They realized they had no structure in place to make these types of films.

  The irony for me is that out of this rubble came one of my most important copyrights and one of the songs I am proudest of, “The Prayer.” The duet with Céline Dion and Andrea Bocelli found its way out of this silly movie to be nominated for the Golden Globe and the Oscar.

  This was the song Lorenzo wanted to cut.

  Over the end credits, having secured Andrea Bocelli to sing with Céline, we added a bridge that musically opened up the song even further, giving both artists a place to display their phenomenal voices, with all the inherent money notes they were both capable of hitting with ease. And the last verse of the song was sung jointly in Italian by Andrea and English by Céline:

  We ask that life be kind

  And watch us from above

  We hope each soul will find

  Another soul to love

  It was easy for me to write this lyric. It fit the story perfectly, and it was also about the thing I had prayed to feel during so much of my life. Safe. David Foster and I flew to New York City, where he produced Andrea singing the song.

  On meeting Andrea, I was struck by how handsome he was. His wife came with him. She spoke very little English and was extremely beautiful. David, who I mentioned often has no filter, was taken with her beauty. Later in the evening, he took Andrea aside and said, with the help of a translator, “Andrea, you’re blind. How did you choose such a fantastic-looking woman as your wife? Is there some sixth sense that blind people have?” Andrea laughed and said, “I asked my brother!”

  CÉLINE DION WAS DOING a Christmas special for CBS called These Are Special Times. Her guest star on the show was to be Andrea, and they planned to sing “The Prayer.” Lightbulb! We should invite the members of the Hollywood foreign press to come and watch the rehearsal. Afterward, they’d enjoy a Q&A with Bocelli.

  About thirty members showed up, sitting happily in the theater alone with the crew. Luckily, Céline was not happy with the first take, so she and Andrea sang it three more times before the rehearsal was completed. This meant that the Golden Globe members heard it three more times. A song can grow on you by the second time you hear it, so imagine a good song sung by two of the world’s greatest voices four times. I couldn’t have felt happier.

  The members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association were genuinely excited to meet Andrea, and to their collective delight, Céline joined all of us soon after. I had arranged for each member to take a photograph with Céline and Andrea. When the photographs were returned, both singers signed each one, along with an autographed copy of the sheet
music signed by all four of us. I wasn’t all that surprised when David and I were nominated for “The Prayer.”

  On the night of the awards, a few of the Golden Globe members were photographers from different countries, and were working the red carpet. When Bob and I walked in, one of them winked at me and another gave me a “thumbs-up” sign. I saw this, correctly as it turned out, as a good omen.

  Having won the Globe for Best Song, the question for me instantly became how to get Andrea to come to the Grammys and sing the song with Céline so that it could be heard again, and thus help it be nominated for an Academy Award. Remember, we’re not talking about Titanic here. This was a movie seen by maybe four hundred children and their disappointed parents.

  Unfortunately, this came at the precise moment that Andrea had convinced himself he was here on earth to sing only opera—“no more pop-era”—so he had no desire whatsoever to come back to America and sing this song again.

  Tony Renis, who wrote the Italian translation for “The Prayer,” was Andrea’s friend. David sent him to Italy to convince Andrea to come and sing at the Grammys, but Andrea was adamant: “No more pop-era.”

  I stayed up nights trying to figure out what it would take. There had to be something that would get Andrea back to America. Finally, it hit me. I’d offer him half of my share of the publishing, which after deducting David’s quarter and Warner’s half, amounted to an eighth. Still, as my friend and famed entertainment attorney Alan Grubman always says, “It’s not about the money, it’s about the money.”

  Bob, always seeing the bigger picture, pointed out that whatever deal I was going to make to get him to sing at the Grammys had better include singing at the Oscars as well. God, I was glad he was in my life.

  Andrea showed up at the Grammys and he and Céline got a three-minute standing ovation. I felt so proud to have helped create a song that lifted people’s spirits so dramatically. The Grammy performance led to our being nominated for an Academy Award for a film most of the Academy did not see. We were up against the hit DreamWorks film The Prince of Egypt with its theme “When You Believe,” sung by Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey shouting over each other.

  It’s customary for all the nominated songs to be performed live during the Academy Awards ceremony. Ours was the last, and when Céline and Andrea finished, the audience in the enormous Dorothy Chandler Pavilion leapt to its collective feet and gave them a deafening standing ovation, the only one of the night in the Best Song category. I was sitting next to Bob, who you know by now is not a man who tends to assume anything. If he says, “Give me your bag, I’ll hold it for you,” you can pretty much see yourself polishing your Oscar. And that’s exactly what he said to me.

  When Jennifer Lopez opened the envelope and read, “The winner is ‘When You Believe’ from The Prince of Egypt,” I thought, Wait. That’s wrong. Tony Renis’s reaction was even worse than mine. He actually jumped up and headed toward the stage. He had to be pulled back by David, who was seated behind him.

  Bob whispered in my ear, “If they’d heard the song tonight and seen the standing ovation before they voted, you would have won.”

  If I had a choice today between winning my second Oscar or being the cowriter of “The Prayer,” I would choose the latter. While many Oscar winners find their way into oblivion, the ongoing life of this song even surprises me. It has found its way into our musical culture, becoming a classic without having spent any real time on the American charts. “The Prayer” was the Number One single of the entire year in Australia, renewing my fondness for that country.

  Today “The Prayer” is sung at both weddings and funerals. It has been recorded by great artists including Josh Groban, Charlotte Church, and Yolanda Adams. It touches the hearts of people looking for safety in an unsafe world. To me, hope is one of the greatest gifts you can give.

  BOB DOES NOT ENJOY celebrating his birthday. He does not appreciate parties because he doesn’t like a fuss being made over him, and, more importantly, he hates when friends make toasts about the birthday man or woman, which he finds “redundant and embarrassing after one heartfelt toast. People say the same things over and over again.” He forbade me to ever make a surprise party for him. It almost derailed his first marriage when Nancy attempted to give him a surprise fortieth.

  He truly disliked presents, he opened them each year almost with disdain, wishing no one had brought him anything, with the exception of family photos, which he loves more each year as our family grows. Other than that, there was not much you could give him: unless he needed new Brooks Brothers pajamas, white with blue piping, he wanted for nothing. He was not a shopper, not a consumer, and his presents would often sit piled up in his bathroom, still in their gift boxes.

  “Bob,” I’d say to him each year, “you really need to learn how to show some appreciation when someone gives you a gift. They went to the trouble of picking it out for you, and you give them nothing back. Learning to appreciate a gift is as important as giving one.” He would answer, “But I don’t need anything,” completely missing my point.

  Warner Bros. owned the rights to Superman, and I had the idea to replace the image of Superman with Bob, in his usual business garb but wearing a red cape, several watches, and with a briefcase in hand. This was “Scheduleman.” One of the WB employees was kind enough to help me create this image.

  And so I threw him a birthday party. Not a surprise party. Just a surprise theme! Guests (only family and a few very close friends) were each given Scheduleman watches, agendas, and whistles. The entire party ran On Schedule. A minute-by-minute agenda, with a drawing of Bob as Scheduleman on the front, was given to each guest. Sample entries:

  7:30—ARRIVAL

  Please enter home promptly and with a minimum of small talk and please deposit your gift on the gift table. This is not a sightseeing tour, so please stay focused on your objective. Get your gift to the table.

  7:40—You should now be in the living room, enjoying approximately 11/2 hors d’oeuvres. Reminder: Those of you who require medication for mood regulation, please dose yourself before arrival, as there is no time allotted for mood swings that may slow down or speed up our schedule. Henry, stop eating the hors d’oeuvres.

  7:50—Enter dining room and take your assigned seat. Please place your stopwatch around your necks so you can pace yourself, as you only have ten minutes to eat your salad, which should be arriving momentarily. After eating and enjoying your salad, please pick up your special pencil and cross it off the list.

  8:10—Even though you are still eating, at this point you might want to shoot loving glances and make a few gratuitous statements to the Birthday Boy, to remind us of why this night is so rigid.

  8:20—Arrival of surprise guest Elizabeth Taylor, amazingly ON TIME!!!!

  8:28—Cake comes out. Sing “Happy Birthday” as quickly as possible. Bob hates it anyway.

  8:29—Make a toast. “Yeah, yeah, he’s a great guy. Wrap him in cotton.”

  8:44—Please remove yourselves to the living room where we will open presents and make appropriate “oohs” and “ahhs.” If you have written a lengthy sentimental card, can it!

  8:50—Prepare to go home. Explain that the babysitter has to leave, you have an early meeting, any bogus excuse will do. Just go.

  Upstairs afterward, Bob thanked me for his party, and particularly for keeping it to just under ninety minutes. This gave him time to watch the nightly news and his obligatory late-night shows. (Because of his years at CBS and now at Warner Bros., Bob was able to get the East Coast feeds, so when most people in LA were starting to watch The Tonight Show, we had seen it, crossed it off our list, and were ready to fall asleep.) Before he turned the light out, he tore up his card for the day.

  Forty-Two

  ONE OF THE HIGH points in my songwriting came when I got to write with Carole King, whose music I’d loved since I was a teenager.

  Carole hadn’t written in years—she’d moved to a ranch in Idaho in the late Seventies
and had become very active in the environmental movement. I ran into her at some industry thing and, decades after she’d turned me down the first time, I again suggested that we might collaborate. Maybe it was because she had just started going out with director Phil Robinson (Field of Dreams) and might just have been looking for a reason to spend more time in her Malibu home, but she agreed to give it a try.

  This was another one of those moments like Dylan for me. Here I was sitting next to Carole King! She was at my piano. My mind went back to when I first heard Tapestry and I realized I was sitting next to a genius.

  And we still looked like polar opposites. I took time with my hair; Carole was wash and wear. I fussed over makeup; Carole barely bothered. She lived on a rural ranch in Idaho; I lived in Bel Air. She was the true definition of her famous song “A Natural Woman.” She enjoyed communing with nature; I liked to admire it from a distance. Carole never tried to be anyone other than herself; I was trying always to be something more than myself.

  She began to play a few chords on the piano and started to hum. I immediately heard words. “I like that,” I said. “Keep playing those chords.” I offered a few words, and she liked them. It’s not important what they were, because the song, “I’d Do It All for You,” turned out to be unextraordinary. Still, I fell in love with it because it was the first one Carole and I had written. And to hear her voice, a voice I’d adored so much for so long, singing our song, delighted me.

  For me, the blush of infatuation with anyone’s music—even Carole’s—only lasts so long, and soon my ears begin to hear the difference between melodies that feel like hits and ones that don’t. I’m not sure either one of us were in our hit zone at this juncture in our lives, but I was very pleased with the songs we wrote together.