Top 10 Paul Williams Songs

Photo: Louise Palanker, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

It was hard to get through the 1970s without seeing Paul Williams pop up somewhere. Not only was he a prolific and famous songwriter, but he was also an actor who starred in many films and television shows and made frequent talk-show guest appearances because of his quick wit. He played all sorts of characters and sometimes even just himself. We all loved Paul Williams as “Little Enos Burdette” in the great Burt Reynolds motion picture Smokey and the Bandit and its sequels. Who could ever forget Paul Williams as Virgil in Battle for the Planet of the Apes?

Younger fans might recognize him as the voice of the Penguin in Batman: The Animated Series. He also appeared opposite Billy Bob Thornton in the Amazon drama Goliath. Beyond performing, Williams became one of the music industry’s leading advocates for songwriters as President and Chairman of the Board of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, better known as ASCAP. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2001 and received its Johnny Mercer Award in 2022.

It’s tough just to compose a Top 10 Paul Williams Songs list because the man has written so many brilliant songs in his lifetime and has had a hand in television themes and motion-picture music. Williams co-wrote the theme for The Love Boat with Charles Fox and composed the theme music for The McLean Stevenson Show. His film and television songwriting credits include Bugsy Malone, Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas, The Muppet Movie, Ishtar, and The Muppet Christmas Carol.

One of Paul Williams’s career highlights was the music he wrote for Brian De Palma’s cult classic Phantom of the Paradise, released in 1974. Williams also played Swan, one of the film’s central characters. The music for that picture was simply fabulous, and it remains one of the most distinctive projects of his career.

Williams remained active well into the twenty-first century. He co-wrote “Touch” and “Beyond” for Daft Punk’s 2013 album Random Access Memories, singing lead vocals on “Touch” and sharing in the album’s Grammy Award for Album of the Year. In 2025, he collaborated with Portugal. The Man on the single “I Got This” and also participated in a new version of “Rainbow Connection.”

Before we get into the Top 10, we wanted to create a special category for three Paul Williams songs that Three Dog Night turned into major hits.

Three Dog Night Songs Written by Paul Williams

Out in the Country

“Out in the Country” was written by Paul Williams and Roger Nichols. It appeared on Three Dog Night’s 1970 album It Ain’t Easy and became a major hit that year, reaching number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Family of Man

This great Paul Williams song was released on the Three Dog Night album Harmony. Paul Williams and Jack Conrad wrote it. Released as a single in 1972, “The Family of Man” reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100.

An Old Fashioned Love Song

This is easily one of Paul Williams’ greatest songs. It was also released on the album Harmony and hit number four on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1971. It became one of Three Dog Night’s signature songs and stands as one of the great pop-rock ballads released in the 1970s.

# 10 – Evergreen

This was a massive hit for Barbra Streisand, who wrote the melody while Paul Williams supplied the lyrics. Williams later recalled Streisand playing the melody for him on guitar and his encouraging her not to change it. The collaboration produced one of the most enduring movie songs of the decade.

“Evergreen (Love Theme from A Star Is Born)” won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for the 1976 film A Star Is Born, the Golden Globe for Best Original Song, and the Grammy Award for Song of the Year. Paul Williams performs the version below from the compilation Evergreens: The Best of the A&M Years.

# 9 – Fill Your Heart

Any song that David Bowie thought was worthy of being covered deserves to be listed on any Top 10 Paul Williams Songs list. This was the only outside composition that appeared on David Bowie’s 1971 classic album Hunky Dory. Tiny Tim also covered it. This time, Paul Williams collaborated with Biff Rose, the man who helped Williams get started in the music business. “Fill Your Heart” originally appeared on Biff Rose’s 1968 debut album, The Thorn in Mrs. Rose’s Side. David Bowie made the song part of his own repertoire, and his recording remains one of its best-known versions.

# 8 – Touch

Collaborating with others was nothing new for Paul Williams, but this time he worked with Daft Punk, the famously eccentric French electronic duo. Williams co-wrote two songs on their acclaimed 2013 album Random Access Memories: “Touch” and “Beyond.” “Touch” is an eight-and-a-half-minute epic journey that moves through electronic textures, orchestral passages, choral sections, and Paul Williams singing against a lone piano. This is wildly different from all the other songs on the list and just plain audacious coming from a songwriter in his seventies working with two musicians who performed as robots.

The collaboration brought Williams another major career milestone when Random Access Memories won the 2014 Grammy Award for Album of the Year, with Williams recognized as a featured artist.

# 7 – To Put Up With You

Paul Williams is best when he looks at the peculiar side of love. Here, he and collaborator Roger Nichols have a frank “it’s not you, it’s me” discussion with a female admirer. The original version has a very period-specific 1970 arrangement, but the song is strong enough to delight regardless. It appears on his 1970 debut solo album Someday Man.

# 6 – Carpenters Hits: Rainy Days and Mondays / I Won’t Last a Day Without You / We’ve Only Just Begun

Paul Williams and Roger Nichols wrote several songs that became inseparable from the Carpenters. “Rainy Days and Mondays” appeared on the 1971 album Carpenters and became one of Karen Carpenter’s defining vocal performances. Williams later recorded his own version for the 1974 album Here Comes Inspiration.

“I Won’t Last a Day Without You” appeared on the Carpenters’ 1972 album A Song for You and was released as a U.S. single in 1974. “We’ve Only Just Begun,” meanwhile, began as music for a Crocker Bank television commercial before the Carpenters transformed it into a classic 1970 single. All three songs show just how perfectly Williams’s lyrics and Nichols’s melodies suited Karen and Richard Carpenter.

And, of course, we could not forget the Carpenters when celebrating Paul Williams’s greatest songs.

# 5 – Nilsson Sings Newman

This is a great pop song compressed into less than a minute. The title refers to the acclaimed 1970 album Nilsson Sings Newman, on which Harry Nilsson devoted an entire record to songs written by Randy Newman. You don’t need to know that to get the song, which is about the age-old topic of a guy trying to persuade a woman to spend the night with him. Williams co-wrote the miniature with his bandmate Kenny Ascher. It is the opening track on Paul Williams’s 1974 album Here Comes Inspiration.

# 4 – What Would They Say

This is yet another song from Here Comes Inspiration because that was a real standout album. The song later served as the theme for the 1976 television movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, starring John Travolta. In interviews years later, Paul Williams talked about how much it meant to him when people told him they had used the song at their weddings.

# 3 – You and Me Against the World

Paul Williams and longtime collaborator and bandmate Kenny Ascher voiced what perhaps all couples sometimes feel: that everyone in the world is against them. The song is flexible enough to interpret “You and Me” as two lovers or as a parent and child. Helen Reddy turned it into a major hit in 1974, famously framing the song as a mother-and-child statement. “You and Me Against the World” also appeared on Paul Williams’s 1974 album Here Comes Inspiration.

# 2 – Rainbow Connection

When Paul Williams did a guest spot on The Muppet Show, his relationship with Jim Henson led to Williams writing songs for Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas and eventually The Muppet Movie. Williams brought in his friend and collaborator Kenny Ascher, and together they wrote a collection of songs that became inseparable from the Muppets.

“Rainbow Connection” is the show-stopper and opening song of The Muppet Movie, with Kermit the Frog singing from a lily pad. Williams has explained that he and Ascher were reaching for the emotional territory of “When You Wish Upon a Star.” The song was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, while Williams and Ascher also received an Oscar nomination for the film’s song score and adaptation score.

# 1 – Phantom of the Paradise Soundtrack

It’s tough to pick just one song from the Phantom of the Paradise soundtrack because they all work wonderfully together. The Brian De Palma film was released in 1974 and did not become a major U.S. box-office success, but it developed a devoted cult following. Paul Williams wrote the songs and score material and also starred as the sinister record producer Swan.

The soundtrack moves through pop, glam rock, old-fashioned teen tragedy, hard rock, and theatrical balladry while parodying and celebrating all of them at once. Songs such as “Special to Me,” “The Phantom’s Theme,” “Old Souls,” “Life at Last,” and “The Hell of It” make the record feel like a complete work rather than merely a collection of soundtrack cues. This was one of the most enjoyable music projects Paul Williams ever released, and I think many classic rock fans would pick it as their favorite.