Barbra Streisand lit the corners of our minds with this wistful romantic reminiscence. 'The Way We Were' starred Streisand and Robert Redford as Katie Morosky and Hubbell Gardiner, a couple that struggle through their differences in a doomed relationship as they deal with the black list in McCarthy era Hollywood. Arthur Laurents wrote the screenplay based on his own experiences. The film and its title song were a major success for Streisand. Marvin Hamlisch wrote the music with lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman.
Marilyn Bergman considered: “Well, first of all it's a wonderful title. The main title of the movie had to function as a passage way back in time. We were underscoring the flashback, in a way...[Barbra] made two suggestions. One was the change of a note in the first phrase of the tune. And the other was a change of a word, a very important suggestion. We had the lyric beginning with ‘daydreams light the corners of your mind,’ and she suggested that the first word of the song be ‘mem'ries.’"
Hamlisch remarked: “You are tailor-making a song for an artist. And if it's Barbra Streisand it has to fit her until she's comfortable.”
The film was a box office smash while the song 'The Way We Were' became a huge hit for Streisand, going to number thirty-one in the UK and number one on both the adult contemporary and pop charts in Canada and the US. It was her first chart topper in the US, spending three non-consecutive weeks there, eventually being certified platinum. The soundtrack for 'The Way We Were' sold in excess of one million copies and spent twenty-three weeks on the album chart. The film earned Streisand an Oscar nomination for Best Actress and won Academy Awards for Best Original Dramatic Score and Best Original Song for "The Way We Were".
http://www.barbrastreisand.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNEcQS4tXgQ
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Mmm. Mmm.
Mem'ries, light the corners of my mind
Misty watercolor memories of the way we were.
Scattered pictures of the smiles we left behind
smiles we give to one another
for the way we were.
Can it be that it was all so simple then
or has time rewritten every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again
tell me would we? Could we?
Mem'ries, may be beautiful and yet
what's too painful to remember
we simply choose to forget
So it's the laughter we will remember
whenever we remember
the way we were.
