>> good evening from los angeles. i'm tavis smiley. tonight a trip down memory lane for those nostalgic about the way we were. renown eed lyricists alan and marilyn bergman are on the show. coming up right now.

and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ i'm not just pleased or honored. i am always tickled with marilyn and alan bergman come to this program. this month was the world premiere of their latest project different kind of memories, a new take of many classic songs and stars tyne daly and robert forester. here is a highlight from tyne in the project. ♪ running away could lead you

further astray ♪ ♪ and for fishing in streams for pieces of dreams ♪ ♪ those pieces will never fit what is the sense of it ♪ ♪ little boy >> so a little birdie told me it's already been extended because the tickets are so hot. >> yeah that's what they tell us. >> how cool is that? >> yeah, really cool. >> let me shut up for a second and i will let the two of you explain what this is. i'm dying to see it. what is it exactly? >> well, it's a play -- >> a play with music. >> it's not a musical. it's a different kind of musical. that is what they are calling it. >> yeah. >> many of the songs, songs that occurred to the characters they know them from their lives. and they're not performances.

usually in a musical, somebody sings to the audience. it's not like that. they are all inner thoughts. inner dialogue. there are four or five old songs and four or five new songs. >> that you wrote? >> that we wrote. and all songs that we wrote. >> right. >> and you know, we -- people ask us, who do you write it with? for instance, shelly graham, i have been writing with for many years. we have a library of his melo melodi melodies. any time he comes to the house, we say, give us your melodies and we put them away. and in this case, we found two melodies that really work with what the story is telling and we wrote new songs with him. >> across the miles. >> across the miles. yeah. >> i know this because i know the two of you. and i know that every day you wake up -- you wake up first and

go play tennis. >> absolutely. >> exactly. >> you still do every day? >> yeah. >> at what age? >> 92. >> 92 he wakes up and plays tennis. mrs. bergman wakes up later. >> i'm much younger than him. i don't need as much -- >> you don't need as much exercise or sleep. and you head up to the writing room. >> that's true. >> i haven with there a few times. there's something surreal about being in that space where you write every day and the first time you invited me, and i went in that room, something came over me. started to think about all the genius, all the genius that you guys have -- that's come out of that room. hoped it would rub off on me a bit. this is where you create every day. >> we rubbed it off already. >> you are a june yus at what

you do. >> you're too sweet. >> you wake up and you don't have any way of knowing on any given wday whether something's going to come, do you? >> no, we don't -- unless we're working on specific project. then we know what -- but you know -- people ask us, about our ages and are you still writing? we are still breathing. it's what we. >> do the fact that it still comes to you, that is the tricky part. you still have thoughts -- >> well, flohopefully you still have something to say. and for years, we always try write a different way to say i love you. that still occurs to us. but -- >> better. >> it better, huh? what have you learned, marilyn,

all these years later to alan's point, all these years later act the inexhaustibility of love. you are still finding ways to say something about love. what do you make of that? >> well, it helps to be in a love-filled marriage. and to be working with really good composers. that's really the fig their sets us off. >> nae yeah that is the inspiration, the melodies and they are hold er harder and harder to come back. >> what happened to melody? why is the disappearing? >> i don't know. >> and also another disappearing act is the way to express the young people i love you. they don't say i love you in these songs. >> yeah, it's everything but i love you.

>> yeah, it's a shame. >> i want you. let me tell you all the ways i want you. here's i want you. >> yeah. >> i think though we're missing something because of the absence of melody. >> no question. >> what are we missing because of its -- well, for us, it's the inspiration. people -- writers -- they -- the rhymes are in the melodies. you have to find them. >> the text is in the mel odies ols. >> and i'm curious to know about the -- >> well, a wonderful play write, josh, he said i just listened to all of your songs and he suggests an idea for me. and he said, i don't want do a

musical. and he said, i don't want that either. so there was a few old songs because of the context in which we find them working, and then there are four or five new songs. it's -- you know, it's not a musical. it's a play with music. >> yeah. >> and -- as i said, i think the songs -- interior dialogues, through the dialogue of the play. >> take one song. pick any one of the new songs and talk about it. >> new songs. >> yeah, the new songs. >> there are three character plays. the widow, the husband who appears and the son. >> right. >> and the son is having, as most of his generation, trouble committing. there's a commitment that he can't -- and so he -- and he will is a product of a beautiful

marriage. his mother and father. so he sings a song about what happened to moon light and roses? what happened to romance? that is one of the songs he sings. new. >> i was watching -- i was telling you earlier, i saw your friend, my friend norman leer. a week ago, he did my podcast. we were together a couple hours and he loves you all. he told me you guys just wrote a new song for him. >> he has a project guess who died. and he called us and said, can you write a song -- sure. he is 95. he calls his friends the bergmans who are in their 90s and said, i have a new project. it's a new project -- >> not me. please, for the record. >> your husband is. >> yeah, he is. >> he calls the bergmans and says i want to you write a song

for me and it's a new show called "guess who died" and he told me nbc had picked it up as a pilot. another network deal for norman leery. he goes to his friends who write a song for the pilot. i said to me in my mind, it kills me how beautiful and how long-lasting this friendship is you have had with the bergmans. i said to him, last night i found this television channel and fetv and every night at 9:00, they are doing reruns of " "moll". >> yeah, we wrote that. >> and the night before -- i had forgot than you all did that song and what blew me away, i

forgot that donnie hathaway sang it. >> i did too. >> it was amazing to me. you think about maud and what it was, and donnie hathaway was hotter than fire. we saw good times and all that stuff you have done all the time. but maud isn't on like every night. when i saw that and i heard that donnie hathaway kill that opening song. and credits roll, bergmans. >> when we wrote requested good times" you know who sang the demo? >> who sang the demo? >> quincy jones. >> the connections you have are mind boggling. quincy told me one time, he -- speaking of the room in your house. he came to visit you one time and either her heard or saw lang around.

>> no. >> tell the story. >> well, he we had just finished it and he was living was at the time. >> that's right. >> and on the tpiano, how do yo keep the music plays and he said, would you sing it? and he took it off the piano, and he said, it's mine. it's mine. and he produced the record that was in the movie. and, you know, it's in his book too. i saved his life once. he called me and said, allean, can't move. and i said, i will be there in a minute. and i carried him, put him in -- in my car, took him to his doctor and he had a ruptured appendix and the doctor said 45 to an hour more and he would have been not with us anymore. >> it wasn't enough to give the

guy great music over the years. you went and saved his life. quincy says to me, to him that is the greatest song ever. >> yeah, he loves that song. >> how to keep the music plays. he said, tavis, when you listen to the lyrics of this song. he has done them all. he said the greatest song ever. >> well, we wrote a wonderful song with him. ray charles, wonderful experience. >> when you -- i guess you're sfos forced to do this when you come on a show and you have a fan who wants to talk about all the hits you guys had. i assume you are so busy, you don't take time to look back on your career. you don't really realize what you have really done, do you? >> it was a lot to look back on. let's put it that way. >> but you don't ever take the

time to do that. >> not really. people ask us to write a book. marilyn doesn't want to write a book about it. she wants to look forward, not backwards. >> come on. >> not yet. >> not yet. there you go. >> got to love the way she thinks. i got plenty of time. plenty of time. not yet. >> that's the way -- >> to think that way. >> absolutely. >> but i tell you, going back to this -- to e see it -- we have seen it every night, making notes and so forth, the reaction that people have from live theater to josh's work, which is -- just great. and our work, with great composers and dave gruesome and johnny mandell and bill and

mary, they -- it's wonderful. you get a chance to write. >> yeah. >> you said earlier in this conversation, alan, when you were first aproemped by this, you didn't want to do a jukebox musical. you didn't want to do the standard -- >> songs together. >> why did you not want to do that? now did you know -- >> well, we've had one or two attempts, people have asked us to do that. and we said, we will look at it, work, shop and see -- and we don't like any of it. they don't have a point of view. they don't have -- you listen to songs that we wrote. it's not theatrical enough for us. it has to be a fresh -- if someone comes with a fresh idea, fine. but we would rather work to a story and write for characters.

>> when prince died, we learned of all the songses in his vault that e he never put out. michael jackson had a bunch of songs in his vault. i suspect that most persons have stuff they haven't put out. you guys have a vault full of stuff -- >> no we don't. >> i'm shaking my head yes. >> we don't have a bunch of stuff -- >> we don't? >> no, darling. >> you thought you did? >> i thought we did. now i'm scared. what happens if we wake up dry one day. >> we're not going to -- >> that is where you are still rying. >> there is one project that has 18 songs in it that is about jazz. and it played at the theater ten weeks and we wanted to go the next step and we're working on it now. because there are 18 songs that

we love. >> there are two ways to take what you just said. if alan is right and marilyn is wrong -- i don't want to break up this marriage after 60 years. if alan is right and marilyn is wrong that means you just haven't been judicious in your writing. you have written stuff that people liked enough to use. it means that every day you wake up and write stuff, it doesn't get -- it's not in vain. that's a level of e efficiency that is rare to find. >> well, there are some but it's not -- >> yeah. >> what happened with prince. >> 7,000 songs. >> it's better to write new. >> better to write new stuff. it works there. yeah. have you found over the years -- let me ask this question of marilyn first. you said earlier, marilyn, and i

take your point it helps to be in a marriage in a lot of love when you're writing love songs. you have found over the years that your inspiration, the place where you get the ideas, the motivation for the stuff you write, has it changed over the years? >> hmm. i don't know if i ever thought about that. i'm sure it changed and i can't think off hand how. >> i will tell you how it's changed. you know, when we started to write years a go, they used to write i love you. don't love you. i used to love you. >> i don't love you anymore. >> that's what the subject matter is. >> right, right. >> now that -- not only the 32 bar song, now the gates open and you can write, you know, longer songs and so forth.

but the subject matter has also -- the fences are broken and you are write about anything. >> yeah. >> yeah. >> we have written in the last year or so, the songs about the world. and it's -- they haven't been exposed yesterday. that is part of the -- but they will be. we know. because -- you know. there's a song for instance that says -- it starts out if you are holding hands, you can't make a fist. that's the beginning of song. so you can see what it's about. peace. and things like that occur to us. so we try to develop. >> have the times that you have lived through inspired to you write different kinds of stuff? >> absolutely. >> in what ways? >> well, we just finished a song, which we hope will be soon recorded called we the people.

>> i've heard that phrase before. >> we didn't invent it. >> yeah, i heard it once or twice. and in the history of this particular song, and when mandela was in prison, we wrote a song abhim. it was never finished. it said you can cage the singer but not the song. that was the title and that was about mandela. >> that is a great lyric. you can cage the singer and not the song. >> now we rewrote it without mandela being the subject and e we hope it will be -- we have a wonderful composer who is doing it and e we hope it will be exposed. we hardly ever talk about songs that are in incubating at the moment. but that is an example of -- and

that came from, that idea, she came up with it. >> marilyn came up with it. >> because of mandela. >> because of mandela. yeah. give me another the impossible question. if i were to ask you the range of how long you typically have to work on a song to get it right, is that like -- does it sometimes happen when you get it, you nail it in ten minutes or it takes ten weeks -- what is the range? >> yeah, i don't know what -- >> what is the faster you have written a song you love? it came out like that? >> let me think. the fastest song because we had to do it, they told us on a friday and they were recording it on monday, was "it might be you" for tootsy. >> no, no, hold up. hold up. wait a minute. it might be you was written over

a weekend? >> no, we wrote it -- dave gruesome had the melody and he gave it to us on a friday and they recorded it on monday. >> you mean -- ♪ something's telling me it might be -- ♪ >> yeah. >> you should is stick with it. you might make something of yourself. >> i want to tell you another the story. a fast story. there is a song that streisand singses in "the a star is born." she called us on a friday and said it's the song that makes me a star in -- and i have -- i know -- i have a melody. that kenny loggins wrote. and kenny came over to play it for us and he sang it for us and we said, okay. and we wrote that friday night.

and saturday afternoon, sunday, we played it for her and they recorded it on monday or tuesday. i believe in love. >> yeah, come on. yeah. >> that was it. but we don't like to do that. >> but you're good at it. >> well, you know. we don't like to do that because you don't get a chance to go down different streets. to see what -- maybe this idea or that idea. >> it's clear that you have been each other's muse, the bergmans and miss streisand, that relationship -- >> we are very lucky. >> it's a blessing for both of you. that relationship -- >> she's the best. >> she just announced she is doing something for netflix. >> yeah, on the 22nd. >> she will be singing a bunch of your stuff i'm sure. >> i hope. >> but you know, she's just wonderful. great singers, there are very,

very few, but she has -- and they have it in the mind and intelligence and the heart -- >> in the instrument. >> and the instrument. he has a fourth dimension because she's an actor and director and all of that plays into how she sings the songs. >> you guys, you don't come here often enough. you should come here every other week. you have so much stories and lived so much life. i'm always honored when you take the time to get in the car and come over to see us. i love you both. >> it's a pleasure to be here. >> it's called "chasing memorieses" now at the gefin. you want to see it. alan and marilyn berg plan, two of the greatest people on the face of the earth. love you both. thanks for coming out. >> thank you. >> that's our show tonight. thanks for watching and as always, keep the faith.

♪ don't be afraid to open the door ♪ ♪ to do the things you've never done ♪ ♪ before ♪ say hello there putting on a show there ♪ ♪ the curtains are just e getting parted ♪ ♪ time to wake up >> for more information on today's show on, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. join me next time for a conversation with three. time grammy winner wyclef jean. that is next time. see you then.

and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

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