Peter Allen was on an airplane circling over Kennedy Airport in a holding pattern when he looked out the window and saw the moon.
The line “when you get caught between the moon and New York City” came to him. Allen and Carole Bayer Sager tried writing a song around the idea but never finished it.
Later, Sager, her future husband Burt Bacharach and Christopher Cross were working on a theme song for the 1981 movie, Arthur. They watched clips of the film about an alcoholic playboy living it up in New York City and wanted to work the moon into the lyrics.
Sager had just the line they needed. She phoned Allen, who agreed to let them use it, and “Arthur’s Theme (The Best That You Can Do)” was born.
Orion Pictures originally approached Cross to write the score for Arthur. Steve Gordon, the film’s writer and director, wanted someone with film-scoring experience. The studio hired the legendary Bacharach, who won two Oscars writing music for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
“Which was fine with me,” Cross said during an episode of Overheard with Evan Smith. “I was amazed they asked me anyway.”
Orion still wanted Cross to help write the movie’s theme song, a wise choice considering Cross’ 1979 self-titled debut album went five times platinum in the U.S. and won five Grammys in 1981.
“It was an amazing experience to sit with him,” Cross said of Bacharach. “Harmonically, he’s really a genius.”
As Cross left Bacharach’s home at 5 a.m. with a demo of the song on a cassette tape, Sager and Bacharach offered a prediction: “I think this is an Oscar song.”
On Oct. 17, 1981, the song hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed there for three weeks. And Sager and Bacharach’s prediction was right on: “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do)” won the Oscar for best original song in 1982, with Cross, Bacharach, Sager and Allen sharing the honor.
The song won a Golden Globe in the same category and was nominated for three Grammys in 1982, including Record and Song of the Year. The American Film Institute ranked “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do)” 79th on its list of the 100 greatest songs from American cinema in the 20th century.
“I think it’s a good collaborative effort,” Cross told Gary James of Classic Bands. “One of the songwriter’s codes is you generally don’t dissect a song and say he put in that word, and I put in that word. It doesn’t really matter. The song came out great in the end and I think without the collective sum of the parts it wouldn’t have.”
