"The Way We Were": Memories of a song.

 

I was a high school freshman when I saw “The Way We Were” in the theater with my clique of friends, one of those irritating groups of young people who attend films to socialize and watch the screen only during conversation lulls. So, I retained only two distinct memories of that viewing. Number one: When inebriated Hubble Gardiner momentarily rolls on top of an eagerly waiting Katie Moronsky, my friend Barb turned to me and whispered, “Did they just…?” I had no answer for her since I was just as clueless. You’ll have to cut us some slack; we were both sheltered 13-year-olds, and whatever the characters did during that brief scene remained very much under the covers.

The second memory was the music. Perhaps that’s why my babysitting family gifted me with the soundtrack album for Christmas the following year, which I listened to nonstop, despite my mother’s constant complaint that Streisand was just “yelling.”  

Mom was a choir singer with an excellent musical ear, but she and her contemporaries, who inhabited the tiny close-knit world of first-generation Dutch Americans, had been raised by Old-World parents who forbade their children to watch films or otherwise interact with popular culture. Although Mom snuck out to see The Wizard of Oz (naughty, naughty!), Judy Garland’s vocals apparently didn't ignite a life-long love affair with pop music; I later discovered a scrapbook Mom affectionately put together--programs from church and school choir concerts. While she clearly possessed a devoted affection for vocal performance, it was impossible that Streisand's exquisite sound would find a place in her heart. 

But I was mesmerized by the singer as was the rest of the world: I recently learned that 50 years ago, February 1974, the album's title song, “The Way We Were,” became the number one single on the US Billboard for three weeks, remaining in the top 100 for 24 weeks. It was Streisand’s first single to make it that far, which I found surprising, since she had been a star for more than a decade and The Way We Were was her fourteenth album. Yet the album’s title song was, indeed, her first number one.

Inauspiciously, this Oscar-, Golden Globe-, and Grammy-winning song was written on spec; composer Marvin Hamlisch hadn’t yet made a name for himself. But film producer Ray Stark promised him that if director Sydney Pollack liked Hamlisch's attempted title song, he would not only be reimbursed for its composition, but would also be hired to score the entire film. Hamlisch eagerly agreed. He and Streisand had been friends since the Broadway production of “Funny Girl” when she was the young rising star and he the rehearsal pianist.

He went to work, deciding early on that though the film tells the tale of a doomed love affair, the theme song should be in a major key, so as not to give away the ending. Working for three hours a day, composing draft after draft, he finally created something he loved, before nervously auditioning it for the film director. Pollock’s young assistant director, in the room when Hamlisch presented the song, was smitten: “From the moment I heard the first notes…chills ran up and down my spine. It was hauntingly beautiful.” (1)

Apparently, Pollack shared his opinion, because the tune was then turned over to Alan and Marilyn Bergman, a successful wordsmith team, who, together with Hamlisch, presented the finished product to Streisand in May 1972. She loved it, suggested a few brilliant alterations, and it was finished. 

The song was placed throughout the film, first during the opening credits, which portray Katie and Hubble as Cornell students at opposite ends of the 1930s cultural/political spectrum. Hamlisch was so concerned about overusing the song, he initially decided not to include it in the film's final scene, when the two leads have a brief encounter before parting forever. But when he sat through the first screening, he realized the music at the end wasn't working and should be replaced with the main theme.

He paid for some last-minute orchestration and attended the next screening. Tom Santopietro, in his book, The Way We Were: The Making of a Romantic Classic, relates what happened next:

“[Hamlisch] braced himself as Katie and Hubbell said goodbye and the orchestra swelled. He waited tensely—until he heard the sound of a single woman crying, and then another, and yet one more, until crying jags broke out throughout the theater. The song worked and the movie worked.” (2)

I hadn’t experienced enough of life in 1973 to join this throng of weeping fans, and I only saw the film once in the theater, so for years, all I had with which to encounter the song was my record album. It was plenty. The title song became a siren call, beckoning me to the beauty that could be discovered in not only listening to a song, but in performing one. Fifty years ago, “The Way We Were” catapulted its way into the consciousness of every musically inclined individual, even a sheltered suburban teenager who couldn’t get enough of its soul-tugging power.

 

(1)   Santopietro, Tom. The Way We Were: The Making of a Romantic Classic. Essex, CN: Applause Theater & Cinema Books, p. 108.

(2)   Santopietro, page 136.