The timeless words of Alan and Marilyn Bergman

Lyricists are an underestimated lot. Although they get half of the credit and 50 percent of all royalties earned by the songs, they are more often than not, bypassed or even forgotten.

That must have been the reason why the great Levi Celerio could not be a National Artist for Music. He did make it for Literature. But please note that composer Ray Alinsod’s nice melody acquired life only when Celerio turned it into Ang Pipit. Then can you imagine what Filipino pop music would be like today if Dennis Garcia had not written Pers Lab?

Lyrics are important. They turn melodies into songs. Songwriting teams like Rodgers and Hammerstein and Lerner and Lowe got it right by sharing the bill for words and music. Still, it is always Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story, although it was Stephen Sondheim who wrote lyrics to America and Somewhere and everything else.

There is no way though that could happen to Alan and Marilyn Bergman. The Los Angeles-based husband-and-wife tandem provided the score to countless romantic moments of the past 50 years or so with some of the most beautiful songs ever written. And everybody knows who wrote the words that generations now remember with so much feeling.

The Windmills of Your Mind with music by Michel Legrand: “Round like a circle in a spiral/ like a wheel within a wheel/ never ending or beginning in an ever spinning reel/ like a snowball down a mountain or a carnival balloon/ like a carousel that’s turning/ running rings around the moon/ like a clock whose hands are ticking past the minutes of its face/ and the world is like an apple whirling silently in space/ like the circles that you find/ in the windmills of your mind.”

What Matters Most music by Dave Grusin: “It’s not how long we held each other’s hand/ what matters is how well we loved each other… it’s not how many summer times we had to give to fall/ the early morning smiles we tearfully recall/ what matters most is that we loved at all/ what matters most is that we loved at all.”

What are You Doing the Rest of Your Life with music by Michel Legrand: “Those tomorrows waiting deep in your eyes/ in the world of love that you keep in your eyes/ I’ll awaken what’s asleep in your eyes/ it may take a kiss or two/ Through all of my life/ summer, winter, spring and fall of my life/ all I ever will recall of my life/ is all of my life with you.”

The Way We Were with music by Marvin Hamlisch: “Mem’ries light the shadows of my mind/ misty water colored mem’ries of the way we were….Mem’ries maybe beautiful and yet/ What’s too painful to remember we simply choose to forget/ So it’s the laughter we will remember, whenever we remember the way we were.’

Alan lost Marilyn last Jan. 8, 2022. She was 94 years old. They were married for 63 years. She may now be gone but the music and their lyrics go on…

“The summer knows the summer’s wise…Something’s telling me it might be you… How do you keep the music playing/ how do you make it last…I knew I loved you before I met you…When someone in the dark reaches out to you….Little boy lost in search of little boy found…

And the promise they made, put into words to the music of David Shire and took to heart during the many years they were together. From the motion picture of the same title. The Promise: I’ll Never Say Goodbye: “Say goodbye/ why? I can barely say good night… When I say always/ I mean forever/ I trust tomorrow as much as today/ I am not afraid to say I love you/ and I promise you I’ll never say goodbye.”