Last week I think I completed my memoir. I say "think" because a few key people are now reading what Simon and Schuster call a bound manuscript (think a trade paperback with the actual cover but not typeset, just Xeroxed and shrunk) and they "may have some notes." So I may have some more work to do, which would be as nothing compared to the two years I wrote every day (except on Sundays, and Saturdays, and occasionally some other days when I actually had things I had to do in my life).
It's all very exciting for me because when I hold it in my hand, it has weight. It doesn't look or feel like sheet music. It's an actual book, or soon will be after it goes through the S&S line editing and the S&S legal vetting to see if I've offended anyone enough for them to want to sue me. Me, who's spent my life as a people pleaser. Still, when some suppressed memories that were living like crumbs of meatballs under the carpet in my brain came unburied, I did sometimes find there was more to say than I thought I'd say.
Oh, my book is called They're Playing Our Song, and, I'm told, it will be officially announced probably next week. I say "probably" because it was supposed to be announced today but due to a series of decisions that I have no comprehension of, you are officially now the first people unofficially hearing about it.
It's not just about all the years I've spent as a songwriter - actually so many years that when I see it in print, as you will in the aforementioned forthcoming announcement, it makes me feel very old, which in fact, depending how you define "very," I might be. You won't know that from the cover, though, because what they chose to go with is referred to in book publishing as a "period cover." I imagined a "period cover" as something like a photo of a town from the 1880s, but I now find a period cover is a photo of me at the time I released my first album in 1977.
I do tell stories about writing songs like "A Groovy Kind of Love," "Nobody Does It Better," "On My Own," "The Prayer," "Arthur's Theme" - you know, the one about getting caught between the moon and New York City - and "That's What Friends Are For." But since I wrote most of these songs with people I either lived with (Marvin Hamlisch), married (Burt Bacharach), or loved as a friend (David Foster), I tend to write a lot about my relationships. In the official announcement, which remember has not yet come out, though it was supposed to come out today, but who's counting, they write:
"In They're Playing Our Song, Carole Bayer Sager tells the surprisingly frank and darkly humorous story of a woman whose sometimes crippling fears and devastating relationships inspired many of the songs she would ultimately write."
That sounds like a fun read, doesn't it? Well, actually, it is. I mean, parts of it are. But that's kind of like life, isn't it? When they asked me for a quote, I said, as you'll eventually read in the official Simon & Schuster press release:
"Writing this memoir was a labor of love for me, except for the times when it wasn't."
But I don't want to give everything away today - before the book has even been officially announced. I can wait till tomorrow, or the next day, when it still won't have been announced, and tell you more.
The truth is, they've inadvertently kept my high going longer than I anticipated. This morning I woke up all excited, expecting to spend the day receiving calls and emails congratulating me on this momentous achievement. Once my disappointment faded, I realized I now get to look forward to this feeling again for another week. At least.
In the end I don't think it matters, because they tell me the book won't be available for purchase until October 18th. But they also told me "that date could change."