Marvin Hamlisch’s music was everywhere in the 70s and 80s, even though you may not have realized it at the time (soundtrack songwriters especially have a lot of music in their catalog which people are surprised to learn about—“Oh, he wrote that?”).  I’m not sure why, but I seem to recall seeing him on TV all the time when I was a kid—definitely at awards ceremonies, and possibly on The Muppet Show a few times—and it’s always sad when someone you associate with childhood, even if it’s tangentially, passes away.

Hamlisch’s biggest successes include adapting Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer” for the film The Sting, and for co-writing “The Way We Were” for Barbra Streisand and the James Bond theme “Nobody Does It Better” for Carly Simon.  I, however, will always remember him for his first hit song, from 1965, because it was played at my wedding as my wife and I walked back down the aisle right after our “I do’s.”

Thank you, Marvin.  Nobody did it better.