Barry Manilow: They Write The Songs

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They Write the Songs

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Barry Manilow looks at the lives and works of composers of the Great American Songbook.

Barry Manilow looks at the lives and works of ten famous composers of the Great American Songbook, playing rare recordings and de-constructing their songs at his piano.

They Write the Songs: Series 4: Episode 4

Episode 4

Series 4

BBC Radio 2 - They Write the Songs, Series 4, Episode 4

Barry Manilow is back with a fourth series of 'They Write The Songs'.

Barry Manilow returns with episode four of the current series. In this programme he discusses the songwriting of Elton John and Bernie Taupin.

Barry turns his attention to the unique collaboration between Elton John and Bernie Taupin. The two writers came together when both  responded to the same advertisement in the New Musical Express asking for songwriters. While Taupin wrote lyrics, he couldn’t write melodies and vice versa for Elton John. When both came together, an extraordinary partnership began. There would be no sitting in a room together bashing out songs (as with Carole King and Gerry Goffin or Barry Mann and Cynthia Weill) instead Taupin would simply write a lyric and send it to John. Unlike other writers who plan and discuss what kind of song they wanted to write, for Bernie Taupin and Elton John neither knows what the other is writing until the lyric is put on the piano – then inspiration for the melody strikes – or not! As Barry comments ‘It may just be the purest way of collaborating I’ve ever heard of, because you’re not creating with your mind, you’re creating with your gut’.

They Write the Songs: Series 4

Amazing music. Played by an amazing line up.

Radio 2: Amazing music. Played by an amazing line-up. The home of great music, entertainment and documentaries

Barry Manilow returns to celebrate the lives and work of the great songwriters.

International superstar Barry Manilow returns with a fourth series celebrating the lives and work of the great songwriters.

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They Write the Songs

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