Q & A With Carole Bayer Sager

By Rebecca Winters

This month songwriter Carole Bayer Sager performs in New York City and releases an album for Save the Children

You haven't sung in public in years. Why now?

I thought, well, so much time has gone by...why don't I challenge an old fear?

What's it like seeing Hugh Jackman play your collaborator Peter Allen on Broadway in The Boy from Oz?

Very surreal. Hugh has nuances down that even I had forgotten. Tiny things like sticking his tongue out a little when he's singing a song.

You were once married to Burt Bacharach. Did you compose as you buttered your toast in the morning?

It did become consuming. Burt's brilliant. But he can labor on a note for 40 minutes. "Do you like this chord? Do you like that chord?" It was hard to leave the music room and just be Carole and Burt.

What was it like to write with Bob Dylan?

It was probably the least collaborative collaboration in all my life. You know when kids in school cover their paper on a test? That's sort of how we wrote the whole song.

And Britney Spears?

Very girlish. Very unpretentious. I think she would have liked to go shopping with me instead.