I had written hundreds, maybe thousands of songs already when I was invited to participate in Music Speaks Louder Than Words. It was the first-ever arts exchange between Soviet and American artists, and it wasn’t ballet or Beethoven. It was American songwriters going to Russia to co-write and collaborate with our Soviet counterparts.
It was during glasnost and Gorbachev, and it was a magical experience. Along on the trip were some great women songwriters like Brenda Russell (“Piano in the Dark”), Franne Golde (“Night Shift”), Holly Knight (“Love is a Battlefield”), and Diane Warren (every other song on the radio!).
I had no illusions about why I was invited with all these divas. It was because I was a competent lyricist who could sit in a room with almost anyone and write a good song. I’d written for Frank Sinatra (“Monday Morning Quarterback”), Whitney Houston (“Nobody Loves Me Like You Do”), and I at the time I had a single out with Aretha Franklin & The Four Tops (“If Ever A Love There Was”). These were Russians we’d be writing with, so bringing along at least one English-speaking lyricist was sine qua non, indispensable.