Remembering Lyricist Alan Bergman / The 'Outrageous' Jessica Mitford

Fresh Air

NPR

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture, Books

4.4 • 34.4K Ratings

🗓️ 25 July 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The lyrics for the songs "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life," "The Way We Were," "Nice 'n' Easy," "You Must Believe in Spring," and "The Windmills of Your Mind" were written by the husband and wife lyric-writing team of Alan and Marilyn Bergman. Alan Bergman died last week at the age of 99. The two wrote songs together for more than 60 years. They spoke with Terry Gross in 2007.

The aristocratic, unconventional British Mitford sisters are the subject of the new BritBox TV series Outrageous. We listen to our 1989 interview with Jessica Mitford, who wrote The American Way of Death, an exposé of the funeral industry that became a best seller in 1963. Mitford also was a communist who refused to give information to the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Also, TV critic David Bianculli review Dexter: Resurrection.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	When you walk into NPR headquarters, one of the first things you see is a big map of the country covered with little blue dots.
0:07.0	Each dot represents a local public radio station. That's the NPR network.
0:12.0	I'm Catherine Marr, CEO of NPR. With federal funding for public media eliminated, your network is under serious threat.
0:19.8	Help us plan for the road ahead at donate.npr.org.
0:24.5	This is Fresh Air. I'm David Being Coulee.
0:26.8	Today, we're going to remember lyricist Alan Bergman,
0:30.1	half of the long-running songwriting duo with his wife, Marilyn Bergman.
0:34.0	Here's a sampling of some of their songs.
0:46.3	Memories like the corners of my mind.
0:58.0	Misty water color memories of the way we were. That face, that face, that wonderful face, it shines, it glows all over the place.
1:13.6	What are you doing the rest of your life?
1:21.6	North and south and east and west of your life.
1:31.3	I have only one request of your life.
1:38.3	Let you spend it all with me Let's take it nice and easy
1:54.0	It's going to be so easy
1:59.0	For us to fall in love.
2:03.6	When lonely feelings chill the meadows of your mind, just think if winter comes
2:20.9	Can spring
2:22.7	Be far behind
2:24.9	Beneath the deepest
2:31.0	Knows
2:33.2	The secret of a rose is merely that it knows you must believe in spring
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 8 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.