Now 87, composer Burt Bacharach admits that four marriages means there have been "a lot of bodies strewn in your wake".
In a remarkably candid interview with British newspaper The Telegraph, he said: "I thought I was a good kid, and I didn't mean to hurt anybody, but when you wind up being married four times, there are a lot of bodies strewn in your wake."
Bacharach's second wife was the actress Angie Dickinson, whom he takes out to dinner about three times a year. Their daughter, Nikki, took her own life at the age of 40.
"It was hard losing Nikki for both of us, but especially for Angie, because they were very, very close," he said.
Meanwhile, a new show, Bacharach Reimagined is at London's Menier Chocolate Factory until September 5.
Twenty-seven-year-old Canadian musician Kyle Riabko has newly arranged the songwriter's timeless hits including I'll Never Fall in Love Again, Do You Know the Way to San José and What the World Needs Now is Love.
Bacharach was not afraid to mention the trials of growing old for The Telegraph, as he recalled his previous night's performance at the Hampton Court Festival.
"I don't think I've ever felt so cold in my life. At one point I put a cough drop in my mouth, just before singing Hey Little Girl, and I tried to chew it as quickly as I could, but didn't finish it in time for my next song and started coughing into the mic instead. I tried to get it out and then my fingers made the keyboard sticky."
Bacharach was once having dinner in Italy when it dawned on him that the pianist was playing That's What Friends Are For. "Look, it's a high compliment to hear your music played anywhere," he remarked, while pointedly mentioning the tricky chord change which the pianist didn't employ.
"A little later I went over and said, 'Can I show you what that chord is?' In a nice way, like it was a gift from me to him."
