I Write the Songs
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"I Write the Songs" is a song written by Bruce Johnston in 1975, and David Cassidy, Captain & Tennille and Barry Manilow recorded that year. But Manilow released as single EP in 1975, and it reached Billboard number-one in early-1976. This hit song became one of Manilow's signature tunes.
The title has been misunderstood to mean that the singer (or songwriter) "writes the songs," but the actual songwriter, The Beach Boys' Bruce Johnston, has stated that the "I" in the song is "God."
In a December 1980 interview on The Mike Douglas Show, when performing with The Beach Boys in Hawaii, Johnston was asked about the origin of the song and its lyrics. The exchange went as follows:
Douglas: "How did…How did that all come about, how did that song come to you?"
Johnston: "I wanted to write a song about God being the spirit within men and women creating music and art…and it just came to me."
Douglas: "He does write the songs that make the whole world sing!" (audience cheering)
Johnston has also said that songs come from the spirit of music in all of us. "I am music, and I write the songs."
He also stated in several interviews that this song had been written as an homage to Brian Wilson, the "genius" who has written the best music of The Beach Boys.
The single was the first to be taken from the album "Tryin' to Get the Feelin'" and was released on November 15, 1975. It reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 nine weeks later, on January 17, 1976.
This song was recorded also Johnny Mathis, Tom Jones, Dinah Shore, David Osborne, Don Estelle, etc... Frank Sinatra sang it as "I sing the songs".
Manilow once did a parody duet titled "I Write The Songs/I Wreck The Songs" with Rosie O'Donnell on her show on April 18, 1997. A sample of the lyrics are:
B: I write the songs that you sing in the shower
R: You write the songs I mutilate by the hour
B: You sing my songs and make your neighbors complain
B: I write the songs
R: I wreck the songs
B: I am music
R: And I wreck the songs!
Another time Manilow did a shortened performance of this song with Stephen Colbert when he was a guest on The Colbert Report.
[edit] See also
| Preceded by "Convoy" by C.W. McCall |
Billboard Hot 100 number one single January 17, 1976 |
Succeeded by "Theme from Mahogany (Do You Know Where You're Going To)" by Diana Ross |
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