Notes from Composer Marvin Hamlisch about the film “The Way We Were” and his musical score for this film:

When Ray Stark said to me: “Marvin, I’m working on a new picture which needs a theme song. I think this is up your alley, and I’d like to give you a chance, he didn’t tell me till the end of the conversation that the director was Sydney Pollack, the stars were Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford, and the movie was The Way We Were. For this I would certainly work “on spec,” and I must confess that I sensed from the beginning that this was going to be my watershed in the movies.

I couldn’t wait to get to the piano, and I put in weeks and weeks of struggle to find the right theme. How many The Way We Were’s there were, I cannot tell you. Unlike Juilliard, where a jury of three decided whether I would maintain my scholarship, here there was a jury of one. Never was there a more harsh critic of my work than me.

In the musical score for this film, and the theme song, I wanted to reflect the sorrow and despondency and pain of the relationship and its outcome, the frustration and yearning of the woman in the relationship, and the star‐crossed nature of it all. And Although this song would reflect a heartbreaking story, I decided to write it in the major mode, not in the minor mode. By doing this, I tried to give a sense of hope to this tragic story.

You may wonder how I knew when I’d written the “right” melody. I can only say that one day I wrote a melody that just got to me. I can’t give you a musical explanation of why one melody is better than another‐I either respond or I don’t. The years of theory and harmony at Juilliard can take you just so far. One’s response is not rational or technical. It goes beyond that. When I feel the emotional tug, when I react the way I hope the audience will, then I know I’ve got it.