They’re Playing Our Song: A Memoir

Sager’s daily scene was something most only dream about: celebrity parties and red carpets, decked-out studios, and trips cross-country to create the perfect song. Carole Bayer Sager, known in her circle as “the woman with many names,” is a prolific songwriter who’s been sought after for decades. In this memoir, its title taken from the Broadway musical that Neil Simon based on her life in the early 1980s with composer Marvin Hamlisch, Sager tenderly illustrates an insider’s account of life behind the music. She has hundreds of hits to her credit, including “Don’t Cry Out Loud,” “That’s What Friends Are For,” and, more recently, “The Prayer”; her songs are treasured the world over. She recalls her friendship with Elizabeth Taylor and notes that Michael Jackson often called on her to ease his nerves. After Hamlisch, Sager spent a decade of her life, love, and talent with the once-unstoppable composer Burt Bacharach and for the last 20 years has shared her life with studio giant Bob Daly. Underscoring the glitz of her circle are a rich songwriting vocabulary, an emotional well, and an endless need to create. As a girlfriend and wife, she didn’t feel she measured up; as a woman, she rarely felt beautiful or thin enough; as a mom, she felt she could be doing more; but as a songwriter, she’s always had everything needed to create magical works of music. Sager’s writing is comfortably conversational, and her stories are lovingly told. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM. (Oct.)