The Lasting Musical ‘Might’ of Alan and Marilyn Bergman

Many songwriters love to embrace the ambiguity. Lorenz Hart leaned towards a lyric where there’s doubt and conflict and you’re not quite sure what’s happening, and who knows where or when? But not Alan and Marilyn Bergman. Their favorite kind of song was the one that said I love you forever, without any uncertainty. In the Bergmans’ key songs, it’s not enough to love someone for the rest of your life. In their songs, eternal love is as inevitable as the seasons, as in “The Summer Knows” and “Summer Me, Winter Me.” Further, it extends beyond the grave, or, in “I Was Born in Love With You,” precedes the cradle and even the womb.I remember talking to Alan, who was a dear friend for many years, about one of my favorite of his songs, “It Might Be You.” It was unique in the Bergmanesque canon in that there was this element of doubt in it, and Alan responded that he liked that song less than some of his other classics for that very same reason. To him, saying “It might be you” just wasn’t strong enough, he wanted to remove any element of uncertainty. his preferred message would have been, “It Must Be You.” “It Might Be You,” was sung and played beautifully by Billy Stritch at 92NY this past weekend in “Every Kind of Light: The Love and Lyrics of Alan & Marilyn Bergman.” It was a well-chosen title, as the show accurately portrayed how well the Bergmans captured their own experience in their songs. They were inseparable for almost 65 years, from before their marriage in 1958 until Mrs. Bergman’s death in 2022. Nearly all their songs reflect that kind of complete commitment, even “How Do You Keep the Music Playing?” This was a signature song for Tony Bennett — and for that reason was wisely assigned to a female singer at the Y, Broadway’s Ali Stroker. You may think that there’s an element of doubt in this text, but not really. The song answers its own question almost immediately; many songs are about the question, but this one is only concerned with the answer. You almost get the feeling that they could only write a devastating downer of a song with external help, as when Neal Diamond collaborated with the team on “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” their 1977 hit. “Flowers” was sung by Anne Hampton Callaway and Mr. Stritch, the latter wearing multiple hats through the evening as musical director and primary pianist. It was an especially well-cast show in that the other two singers were the superb Nikki Renee Daniels and Brandon Victor Dixon. The only downside of the evening was, for virtually the only time in my 40 years of going to the Kaufmann Concert Hall at 92NY, the audio was off, and even the amazingly resonant Ms. Callaway somehow sounded shrill. The trick for the creators is forming an evening out of the Bergmans canon; how many songs of eternal undying love can you sing one after the other? There’s not tremendous variety in their output, even though they worked with at least a dozen of the greatest composers in the second half of the 20th century. Nearly all their major songs were written as main title themes for films, and they had comparatively little success on Broadway, although “Fifty Percent” from “Ballroom,” as touchingly sung by Ms. Daniels, is a classic show tune. Barbra Streisand’s 1983 film “Yentl,” is a major work of musical storytelling that could be handily re-tooled as a live theater piece; Ms. Daniels also took the honors in “Papa, Can You Hear Me?” The best moments, audio-wise and otherwise, were the most intimate, as when the singers worked with just Mr. Stritch’s solo piano. There were clever bits, as when Mr. Stritch and Mr. Dixon got into a faux argument as to whether “The Windmills of Your Mind” derived from the 1968 “The Thomas Crown Affair” or the recent streaming TV series “Severance”; this was funny, and the singing, in which the two baritones alternated lines, was exquisite. There were rarities, like “A Child is Born,” no connection to the better known song of that title by Thad Jones and Alec Wilder, by Ms. Daniels again, and the charmingly light bossa nova “Pretty World,” by Mr. Stritch.They also made a clever sequence depicting how the Bergmans’ songs far outshined the often-forgettable movies they were written for. I mean, who remembers “Best Friends” from 1982 or “Bogus” from 1996? Which is not to mention “The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart” (1970), which gave us “Sweet Gingerbread Man,” a delectable treat of a tune that didn’t make it into the 92NY show. Alas, there was hardly room for everything.“Where Do You Start,” marvelously rendered by Brandon Victor Dixon, is another remarkable exception. But in general, the couple transmuted their own experiences and their own feelings into some of the most meaningful love lyrics ever written. How they were able to come together and stay together and create so much professionally and personally, a family as well as an amazing catalog of music, seems like a miracle in the contemporary era, a time when neither songs nor relationships are built to last. Thankfully, even after Alan’s death last summer — two months before his own centennial — we are all still the beneficiaries of that creative miracle.

The Lasting Musical ‘Might’ of Alan and Marilyn Bergman

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