2025’s “Top” Ten Music Losses: Alan Bergman (#9)

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Things are looking up, but not me. I have fluid in my Eustachian tube, so I get dizzy when I tilt my head. Meanwhile, I’ll salute another music great that we lost in 2025. Another name you don’t know but songs you probably do. #9: Alan Bergman Alan Bergman and wife Marilyn (1928-2022) were a Tony short of an EGOT. It’s too bad they didn’t win a Tony, because it would have been a 4,3,2,1 EGOT: they already had the four Grammys, three Oscars, and two Emmys. (They did write five songs that ended up in plays; however, none were ever nominated.) The Bergmans won Oscars for “The Windmills of Your Mind” and “The Way We Were.” They were also nominated for “It Might Be You” from Tootsie (which had the misfortune of being nominated against “Up Where We Belong” that year) and a bunch more. Then there was “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.” That either makes you happy or disgusted. (Well, these were pop songwriters, don’t expect any headbanging. ) Barbra Streisand had a history of recording Bergman songs (another Oscar of theirs was for the soundtrack to her film Yentl), and Neil Diamond recorded the song separately at first. A DJ right here in Louisville, KY put the two versions together and played it on his radio show, and the next thing you know, Columbia Records put Babs and Neil in the studio for the “real” duet. (The local DJ was Gary Guthrie, and we in Louisville remember that, even if the rest of the world forgot it! ) The Bergmans even put lyrics to an old calypso tune, “Choucoune,” and it became a hit as “Yellow Bird” in the early 1960s. Their appeal was, yes, MOR/easy listening, but it was expansive and very successful. Marilyn died in 2022, and Alan died last July, two months short of his 100th birthday. The songs they left will be recorded for another 100 years or longer. Alan Bergman Born September 11, 1925, New York City Died July 17, 2025, Los Angeles, California (natural causes) (age 99) HALL OF FAME: Songwriters, 1980 (with Marilyn Bergman) Alan Bergman doing his Oscar-nominated song “It Might Be You” (from Tootsie). Not as good a singer as Stephen Bishop, but…