Fifty years ago this week, on January 17, 1976, Barry Manilow scored his second No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with the pop anthem “I Write The Songs.” Interestingly, Manilow didn’t write the soaring ballad, which was composed by longtime Beach Boys member Bruce Johnston.
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Barry released the tune as the first single for his third studio album, Tryin’ To Get The Feeling, which came out in October 1975.
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Johnston wrote “I Write The Songs” during a several-year hiatus from The Beach Boys in the 1970s. Manilow didn’t initially record the song when he was presented with it, because he was worried that listeners would interpret it as the singer being conceded about his songwriting talents. In reality, Johnson had written the tune about the origin of music being created by God.
Two other popular artists actually released versions of “I Write The Songs” in 1975 before Manilow did.
The first was Captain & Tennille, whose rendition appeared on their hit 1975 album Love Will Keep Us Together. Daryl “Captain” Dragon and his wife, Toni Tennille, had previously worked with Johnston as touring members of The Beach Boys.
The second was teen idol David Cassidy, who released his cover of “I Write The Songs” as a single in May 1975. He also included the track on his album The Higher They Climb, which Johnston co-produced. Cassidy’s version peaked at No. 11 on the U.K. singles chart.
Johnston released his own rendition of “I Write The Songs” in 1977 on his only solo album, Going Public. That same year, Bruce received a Grammy for Song of the Year, thanks to Barry Manilow’s hit recording of the tune.
Bruce Johnston on Writing “I Write The Songs”
In a January 2025 episode of producer Rick Rubin’s Tetragrammaton podcast, Johnston discussed the creation of “I Write The Songs.”
He recalled that he was listening to the radio while driving his Porsche (“’cause I could afford it”), and was moved by some of the pop tunes he heard. They included “Joy To The World” by Three Dog Night, “I Believe In Music” by Mac Davis, and “I’d Love You To Want Me” by Lobo.
Johnston said that hearing those tunes started giving him an idea for his own song.
“I’m thinking to myself, ‘I can’t spell it, but I think it’s happening. Epiphany,’” Bruce shared. “And I go, ‘I should write a song about where music comes from.’”
Johnston then noted, “I always like startling words,” and explained that he’d respected the way Elton John’s longtime lyricist Bernie Taupin writes.
“I’ve done a lot of Elton John’s recording,” he pointed out. “I always like working with Elton, ’cause Bernie’s lyrics are just so whacked out and wonderful.”
Johnston continued, “So I always think, ‘Well, you got to have a really interesting first line.’ So I went, intro, ‘I’ve been alive forever, and I wrote the very first song.’ Now, if you can’t catch them with that, you might as well not finish the song. It’s kind of like, pretend I’m interviewing God, and I go, ‘So God, tell me about yourself.’ [And God says,] ‘Well, okay, I’ve been alive forever, I wrote the very first song. I put the words and melodies together. I am music, and I write the songs.’”
About Barry Manilow’s Initial Apprehension About Recording the Song
After hearing Johnston’s story about how he composed “I Write The Songs,” Rubin commented, “It’s a devotional song.”
Bruce responded, “It is, but I kind of never told Barry what it was really about. I said, ‘Well, it’s just about the spirit of music, Barry,’ because I know he would have loved it.”
Johnston then talked about how Manilow took a while before agreeing to record the tune.
“[H]e waited a year before he called [Arista Records president] Clive [Davis] back,” Bruce said. “So, when he called Clive back, he says, ‘Okay, even though I think people are gonna think I’m conceded, I get it. I hear it.’ He put [in] about 85 key changes, and he put every trick he knew, and it actually worked.”
(Photo by Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)
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