Bette Midler

Released: October 10, 2000

Songwriter: Elvis Costello Burt Bacharach

Producer: Don Was

Now I have nothing, so God give me strength
'Cause I'm weak anyway
And if I'm strong, I might still break

And I don't have anything to share
That I won't throw away into the air
That song is sung out
This bell is rung out

He was the light that I'd bless
He took my last chance of happiness
So God give me strength
God give me strength

I can't hold on to him
God give me strength
When the phone doesn't ring
And I'm lost in imagining
Everything that kind of love is worth
As I tumble back down to the earth

That song is sung out
This bell is rung out
He was the light that I'd bless
He took my last chance of happiness
So God give me strength

God, if he'd grant me his indulgence and decline
I might as well wipe him from my memory
Fracture the spell as he becomes my enemy
And maybe I was washed out
Like a lip print on a shirt
See, I'm only human, I want him to hurt
I want him, I want him to hurt

Since I lost the power to pretend
That there could ever be a happy ending
That song is sung out
This bell is rung out

He was the light that I'd bless
He took my last chance of happiness
So God give me strength
God give me strength

Ooh, ooh
Wipe him from my memory
Ooh, I got to him wipe him from my memory
Mmmm, ooh

Bette Midler is a Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, comedienne and actress. Named in honor of Bette Davis, Midler’s career began performing off-broadway until she developed the stage persona The Divine Miss M while singing at the world-famous Continental Baths gay bathhouse. A pre-fame Barry Manilow, the venue’s in-house piano player, produced her Grammy-nominated debut album which scored three US top 40 singles including the Grammy-nominated “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”. Midler took home the Best New Artist Grammy that year, her first of three career wins.

Throughout the 1970s, Midler found further success with music, Broadway, television and film. The Rose, Midler’s 1979 acting debut, earned her both Oscar and Academy Award nominations, and its namesake song won her a Golden Globe and another Grammy – also giving Midler her first success overseas.

The early 1980s proved less successful for Midler with four under-performing singles and a box office flop with the film Jinxed. However, the second half of the decade would prove far more fruitful with a handful of very successful films including Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Ruthless People, Outrageous Fortune and Beaches, the latter featuring a chart-topping cover of “Wind Beneath My Wings” that won Midler her third Grammy and is considered one of the greatest songs in American film history.

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