Billy Steinberg, Songwriter Behind 'Like a Virgin' and Four Other No. 1 Hits, Dies at 75

Billy Steinberg, the lyricist whose deceptively simple words powered some of the most recognizable pop songs of the twentieth century, died Monday at his home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. He was 75. His attorney, Laurie Soriano, confirmed to the Los Angeles Times that Steinberg had been battling cancer Billy Steinberg, Songwriter Who Co-Wrote Smashes Including ‘Like a Virgin,’ ‘True Colors,’ ‘Eternal Flame’ and ‘So Emotional,’ Dies at 74variety.com·SecondarySenior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Billy Steinberg, a longtime member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame who is regarded as one of the most successful tunesmiths of the ’80s and ’90s, died Monday in California at age 75. He died after a long battle with cancer, his attorney, Laurie Soriano, confirmed to Variety. Steinberg’s initial run of hits was in tandem with writing partner Tom Kelly, with Steinberg handling nearly all the lyrics and Kelly responsible for almost all the music..

The news sent ripples through a music industry that owes a remarkably large share of its 1980s catalog to one man's pen. Steinberg, working almost exclusively with composer Tom Kelly, co-wrote five singles that reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 — Madonna's "Like a Virgin," Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors," Whitney Houston's "So Emotional," the Bangles' "Eternal Flame" and Heart's "Alone" Billy Steinberg, Songwriter Who Co-Wrote Smashes Including ‘Like a Virgin,’ ‘True Colors,’ ‘Eternal Flame’ and ‘So Emotional,’ Dies at 74variety.com·SecondarySenior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Billy Steinberg, a longtime member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame who is regarded as one of the most successful tunesmiths of the ’80s and ’90s, died Monday in California at age 75. He died after a long battle with cancer, his attorney, Laurie Soriano, confirmed to Variety. Steinberg’s initial run of hits was in tandem with writing partner Tom Kelly, with Steinberg handling nearly all the lyrics and Kelly responsible for almost all the music.. It is a run of chart dominance that few songwriting teams in any era have matched.

Cyndi Lauper was among the first artists to publicly mourn, posting a tribute on social media hours after the news broke Billy Steinberg Dies: Hall Of Fame Songwriter Who Co-Penned Five U.S. No. 1 Hits Including “Like A Virgin” Was 75deadline.com·SecondaryBilly Steinberg, a Hall of Fame songwriter who co-wrote Madonna‘s smash “Like a Virgin” and four other U.S. No. 1 singles including Whitney Houston’s “So Emotional” and The Bangles’ “Eternal Flame,” died Monday of cancer in Brentwood. He was 75. His attorney confirmed the news to The Los Angeles Times. Steinberg also was a producer and performer, but his greatest success came as a songwriter. With his writing partner Tom Kelly, he co-penned five singles that hit No.. The Songwriters Hall of Fame, which inducted Steinberg and Kelly in 2011, had long highlighted the pair's extraordinary track record of chart-topping compositions Billy Steinberg, Songwriter Who Co-Wrote Smashes Including ‘Like a Virgin,’ ‘True Colors,’ ‘Eternal Flame’ and ‘So Emotional,’ Dies at 74variety.com·SecondarySenior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Billy Steinberg, a longtime member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame who is regarded as one of the most successful tunesmiths of the ’80s and ’90s, died Monday in California at age 75. He died after a long battle with cancer, his attorney, Laurie Soriano, confirmed to Variety. Steinberg’s initial run of hits was in tandem with writing partner Tom Kelly, with Steinberg handling nearly all the lyrics and Kelly responsible for almost all the music.. For the artists whose careers Steinberg's lyrics helped define, his death closes a chapter that began when a lyricist from the Coachella Valley discovered he could write lines that entire generations would sing by heart.

What made the Steinberg-Kelly partnership distinctive was its division of labor. Steinberg supplied lyrics — vivid, often provocative titles that doubled as cultural shorthand — and Kelly transformed them into melodies. "Every hit that Tom and I wrote, all the biggest hits, were always lyrics first," Steinberg told Songfacts in one of his many interviews about the craft. "I would come in with a lyric, whether it was 'True Colors' or 'Like a Virgin' or 'Eternal Flame' or whatever, and he would pick up a guitar, sit down at a piano, and start banging out melodies to the lyric that I put in front of him" Billy Steinberg, Songwriter Who Co-Wrote Smashes Including ‘Like a Virgin,’ ‘True Colors,’ ‘Eternal Flame’ and ‘So Emotional,’ Dies at 74variety.com·SecondarySenior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Billy Steinberg, a longtime member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame who is regarded as one of the most successful tunesmiths of the ’80s and ’90s, died Monday in California at age 75. He died after a long battle with cancer, his attorney, Laurie Soriano, confirmed to Variety. Steinberg’s initial run of hits was in tandem with writing partner Tom Kelly, with Steinberg handling nearly all the lyrics and Kelly responsible for almost all the music..

The pair met in 1981 at a party hosted by producer Keith Olsen, who had been working with Pat Benatar. By then Steinberg had already tasted modest success as frontman of the Los Angeles new-wave band Billy Thermal, whose name combined his own with the Coachella Valley town of Thermal, where his father had a vineyard . One of the group's songs, "How Do I Make You" — which he tried to write in the style of the Knack's "My Sharona" — was covered by Linda Ronstadt and became a top 10 hit in 1980 Billy Steinberg, Songwriter Who Co-Wrote Smashes Including ‘Like a Virgin,’ ‘True Colors,’ ‘Eternal Flame’ and ‘So Emotional,’ Dies at 74variety.com·SecondarySenior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Billy Steinberg, a longtime member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame who is regarded as one of the most successful tunesmiths of the ’80s and ’90s, died Monday in California at age 75. He died after a long battle with cancer, his attorney, Laurie Soriano, confirmed to Variety. Steinberg’s initial run of hits was in tandem with writing partner Tom Kelly, with Steinberg handling nearly all the lyrics and Kelly responsible for almost all the music..

Steinberg became friends with Benatar's producer Keith Olsen, and it was at one of Olsen's parties that he fatefully met Kelly. In an interview with Songfacts, he explained how the collaboration developed with very specific roles. "When we got together, I didn't really have a conscious idea that I was more adept at writing lyrics than I was at writing chords or melodies," Steinberg recalled. "But when I got together with Tom, it was clear immediately that he was a far superior musician, and that his melodies were magnificent. Whereas at my best I was writing in a simple Buddy Holly sort of song structure" Billy Steinberg, Songwriter Who Co-Wrote Smashes Including ‘Like a Virgin,’ ‘True Colors,’ ‘Eternal Flame’ and ‘So Emotional,’ Dies at 74variety.com·SecondarySenior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Billy Steinberg, a longtime member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame who is regarded as one of the most successful tunesmiths of the ’80s and ’90s, died Monday in California at age 75. He died after a long battle with cancer, his attorney, Laurie Soriano, confirmed to Variety. Steinberg’s initial run of hits was in tandem with writing partner Tom Kelly, with Steinberg handling nearly all the lyrics and Kelly responsible for almost all the music..

But it was "Like a Virgin" that turned Steinberg from a working songwriter into a fixture of pop-culture history. He wrote the lyric in 1983, drawing on personal romantic turmoil. Kelly initially approached it as a ballad, but the earnest treatment never clicked. "One day, out of frustration, Tom started playing a Motown-inspired bass line while singing the lyrics in falsetto. Immediately, I got excited and said, 'That's it!'" Steinberg recalled . The pair shopped the demo to multiple A&R executives who passed — until it landed with Madonna, then an ascending New York club act looking for material. The song spent six weeks at No. 1 in late 1984, and Madonna's floor-writhing performance of it at the inaugural MTV Video Music Awards became one of the decade's defining television moments Billy Steinberg, Songwriter Who Co-Wrote Smashes Including ‘Like a Virgin,’ ‘True Colors,’ ‘Eternal Flame’ and ‘So Emotional,’ Dies at 74variety.com·SecondarySenior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Billy Steinberg, a longtime member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame who is regarded as one of the most successful tunesmiths of the ’80s and ’90s, died Monday in California at age 75. He died after a long battle with cancer, his attorney, Laurie Soriano, confirmed to Variety. Steinberg’s initial run of hits was in tandem with writing partner Tom Kelly, with Steinberg handling nearly all the lyrics and Kelly responsible for almost all the music..

Rolling Stone later placed "Like a Virgin" at No. 4 on its list of the 100 Greatest Pop Songs Billy Steinberg Dies: Hall Of Fame Songwriter Who Co-Penned Five U.S. No. 1 Hits Including “Like A Virgin” Was 75deadline.com·SecondaryBilly Steinberg, a Hall of Fame songwriter who co-wrote Madonna‘s smash “Like a Virgin” and four other U.S. No. 1 singles including Whitney Houston’s “So Emotional” and The Bangles’ “Eternal Flame,” died Monday of cancer in Brentwood. He was 75. His attorney confirmed the news to The Los Angeles Times. Steinberg also was a producer and performer, but his greatest success came as a songwriter. With his writing partner Tom Kelly, he co-penned five singles that hit No.. Music critics have long debated whether the song's lasting power lies in Steinberg's lyrical ambiguity — the tension between innocence and experience in the title phrase — or in the production that gave it a dance-floor pulse. The answer, as with most great pop, is likely both.

Steinberg's catalog was far from a one-hit story. "True Colors," released by Lauper in 1986, became an anthem of personal authenticity that has been covered hundreds of times. "Eternal Flame" gave the Bangles a global smash in 1989, topping charts in multiple countries. "So Emotional" carried Houston's powerhouse vocals to No. 1 that same year Billy Steinberg, Songwriter Who Co-Wrote Smashes Including ‘Like a Virgin,’ ‘True Colors,’ ‘Eternal Flame’ and ‘So Emotional,’ Dies at 74variety.com·SecondarySenior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Billy Steinberg, a longtime member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame who is regarded as one of the most successful tunesmiths of the ’80s and ’90s, died Monday in California at age 75. He died after a long battle with cancer, his attorney, Laurie Soriano, confirmed to Variety. Steinberg’s initial run of hits was in tandem with writing partner Tom Kelly, with Steinberg handling nearly all the lyrics and Kelly responsible for almost all the music..

Beyond the chart-toppers, the deeper Steinberg-Kelly catalog reads like a who's who of 1980s and 1990s pop and rock. The Divinyls' "I Touch Myself" reached the Top 5 in the United States and hit No. 1 in the band's native Australia . The Pretenders' "I'll Stand by You" went Top 10 in four countries and hit No. 16 in the U.S. . "I Drove All Night" was first recorded by Roy Orbison in 1987 and appeared on his posthumous 1992 album, then became a hit for Lauper . Other artists who recorded Steinberg-Kelly compositions included Tina Turner, Pat Benatar, Bette Midler, Belinda Carlisle, Carrie Underwood, Rod Stewart, Chicago, REO Speedwagon and Little River Band Billy Steinberg, Songwriter Who Co-Wrote Smashes Including ‘Like a Virgin,’ ‘True Colors,’ ‘Eternal Flame’ and ‘So Emotional,’ Dies at 74variety.com·SecondarySenior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Billy Steinberg, a longtime member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame who is regarded as one of the most successful tunesmiths of the ’80s and ’90s, died Monday in California at age 75. He died after a long battle with cancer, his attorney, Laurie Soriano, confirmed to Variety. Steinberg’s initial run of hits was in tandem with writing partner Tom Kelly, with Steinberg handling nearly all the lyrics and Kelly responsible for almost all the music..

Steinberg took particular pride in his gift for titles. "Whether we're talking about 'Night In My Veins' or 'Like a Virgin' or 'I Touch Myself,' even 'I Drove All Night' — these are not ordinary song titles," he told Songfacts. "They have a certain bite to them. And I guess that would be something I would be proud of" Billy Steinberg, Songwriter Who Co-Wrote Smashes Including ‘Like a Virgin,’ ‘True Colors,’ ‘Eternal Flame’ and ‘So Emotional,’ Dies at 74variety.com·SecondarySenior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Billy Steinberg, a longtime member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame who is regarded as one of the most successful tunesmiths of the ’80s and ’90s, died Monday in California at age 75. He died after a long battle with cancer, his attorney, Laurie Soriano, confirmed to Variety. Steinberg’s initial run of hits was in tandem with writing partner Tom Kelly, with Steinberg handling nearly all the lyrics and Kelly responsible for almost all the music.. That instinct for a phrase that lodges itself in the listener's mind before a single note is played was arguably Steinberg's greatest commercial asset.

After Kelly retired in the mid-1990s, Steinberg continued writing with other collaborators, most notably Josh Alexander. The post-Kelly years produced further hits: Celine Dion's "Falling Into You," Demi Lovato's "Give Your Heart a Break" and JoJo's "Too Little Too Late" Billy Steinberg, Songwriter Who Co-Wrote Smashes Including ‘Like a Virgin,’ ‘True Colors,’ ‘Eternal Flame’ and ‘So Emotional,’ Dies at 74variety.com·SecondarySenior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Billy Steinberg, a longtime member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame who is regarded as one of the most successful tunesmiths of the ’80s and ’90s, died Monday in California at age 75. He died after a long battle with cancer, his attorney, Laurie Soriano, confirmed to Variety. Steinberg’s initial run of hits was in tandem with writing partner Tom Kelly, with Steinberg handling nearly all the lyrics and Kelly responsible for almost all the music.. Celine Dion also covered "Alone" and "I Drove All Night" Billy Steinberg Dies: Hall Of Fame Songwriter Who Co-Penned Five U.S. No. 1 Hits Including “Like A Virgin” Was 75deadline.com·SecondaryBilly Steinberg, a Hall of Fame songwriter who co-wrote Madonna‘s smash “Like a Virgin” and four other U.S. No. 1 singles including Whitney Houston’s “So Emotional” and The Bangles’ “Eternal Flame,” died Monday of cancer in Brentwood. He was 75. His attorney confirmed the news to The Los Angeles Times. Steinberg also was a producer and performer, but his greatest success came as a songwriter. With his writing partner Tom Kelly, he co-penned five singles that hit No.. The longevity of his career underscored that his talent resided not in a single partnership but in an ear for language that translated private emotion into universal pop sentiment.

Steinberg and Kelly were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2011, a recognition that placed them alongside the most celebrated composers in American popular music Billy Steinberg, Songwriter Who Co-Wrote Smashes Including ‘Like a Virgin,’ ‘True Colors,’ ‘Eternal Flame’ and ‘So Emotional,’ Dies at 74variety.com·SecondarySenior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Billy Steinberg, a longtime member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame who is regarded as one of the most successful tunesmiths of the ’80s and ’90s, died Monday in California at age 75. He died after a long battle with cancer, his attorney, Laurie Soriano, confirmed to Variety. Steinberg’s initial run of hits was in tandem with writing partner Tom Kelly, with Steinberg handling nearly all the lyrics and Kelly responsible for almost all the music.. The honor formalized what the charts had already demonstrated: that the pair's influence on the sound and sensibility of 1980s pop was as significant as that of any producer, label executive or artist with whom they worked.

William Endfield Steinberg was born on February 26, 1950, in Los Angeles. His father's Coachella Valley vineyard gave the family a connection to the agricultural economy of inland Southern California, a world far removed from the recording studios where his son would make his name. Steinberg's early musical ambitions leaned toward singer-songwriting, and the Billy Thermal project reflected that aspiration before the Ronstadt cover redirected his career toward pure lyric writing Billy Steinberg, Songwriter Who Co-Wrote Smashes Including ‘Like a Virgin,’ ‘True Colors,’ ‘Eternal Flame’ and ‘So Emotional,’ Dies at 74variety.com·SecondarySenior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Billy Steinberg, a longtime member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame who is regarded as one of the most successful tunesmiths of the ’80s and ’90s, died Monday in California at age 75. He died after a long battle with cancer, his attorney, Laurie Soriano, confirmed to Variety. Steinberg’s initial run of hits was in tandem with writing partner Tom Kelly, with Steinberg handling nearly all the lyrics and Kelly responsible for almost all the music..

The broader music industry has been grappling for years with how to value the contributions of behind-the-scenes songwriters in an era dominated by artist branding and streaming economics. Steinberg's death arrives at a moment when the role of the professional songwriter is simultaneously more scrutinized and less financially rewarded than at any point in recent memory. Streaming royalties have compressed the earnings that once flowed from radio play and physical sales, and institutions like the Songwriters Hall of Fame have become increasingly important for preserving the legacy of writers whose names never appeared on album covers.

For all the industry context, Steinberg's legacy is ultimately measured in the songs themselves — in the way "Like a Virgin" still provokes debate about irony and sincerity, in the way "True Colors" has outlived its decade to become a standard, in the way "Eternal Flame" remains a staple of wedding playlists and karaoke nights around the world. These are songs that entered the cultural bloodstream and never left, and they did so because a lyricist in Brentwood understood that the best pop writing begins with a title that nobody can forget.

Steinberg is survived by his family. No public memorial service has been announced.