Among my favourites of all the many film songs I have written, the theme from The Sand Pebbles, entitled “And We Were Lovers,” was originally composed by that most talented of screen composers, Jerry Goldsmith. The melody is so ravishingly beautiful, I have often wondered why Jerry wrote, comparatively speaking, so few songs during his extraordinarily brilliant and productive career. His record as a dramatic composer is second to none, but only a handful of dramatic composers, for some reason I have never figured out, have the additional ability to write a great song melody. Henry Mancini was one. John Barry another, and John Williams another. And Jerry Goldsmith most certainly another. The film lyricist is a lucky fellow. Comparatively, his is the easiest of tasks, and yet one of the most rewarding, and frequently one of the most lasting. He gets to encapsulate the essence of the film that has taken others probably two or three years to make, and on a good day it maybe takes him sometimes only a matter of minutes, or at most a few hours, to do it!