Burt Bacharach and Hal David: Classic or Dud?

Can't comment on David's lyrics, never much paid attention.

1. I don't know the material as well as I should. Lots of their songs I have simply never heard.

2. Lots of the songs I have heard disappoint me; or rather, I don't like them - 'The Look Of Love', for example.

3. I think that some of the songs I would like in other arrangements or styles or with other singers, but I don't love them as they are. I don't like Cilla Black (I meant to do a CorD on her, too!), and I don't like what I've heard of Aretha Franklin.

4. Nonetheless - and this sounds silly after all those reservations - I still think Classic. I have heard just enough to convince me of the greatness here - my favourite is surely 'I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself', certainly my favourite Dusty S performance too. And more generally, even with the songs I don't like that much, I back totally what the earlier contributor said re. the greatness of the melodies and their relationships with the music (which is, as I have said a million times, the main thing for me in a song). I feel like even the songs I haven't heard are probably equally great. In a way, I suppose I have a feeling about Bacharach which may sound irrational to you: which is that he is so talented at the particular thing he does - that his gift runs so deep - that almost everything he does is in some way worthwhile, touched by genius. (I feel somehow the same way about McCartney and Merritt.)

5. So, Classic, especially in theory, with reservations about the practice. I need to hear more, much more. But as said previously, I consider Painted From Memory a masterpiece.

David's lyrics are great, I think. They don't draw attention to themselves with classic rock wordplay, and they're all the better for it. He wrote about adult situations in a way that seems pretty unimaginable in modern pop, and they've lasted better than all that 60s lysergic sage nonsense. Actually, I was wondering about that Atomic Kitten song the other day, the extent to which it's an answer to 'Walk on by': "If you see me walking down the street..." - meta-pop irony or plain half-inching?

>>> Actually, I was wondering about that Atomic Kitten song the other day, the extent to which it's an answer to 'Walk on by': "If you see me walking down the street..." - meta-pop irony or plain half-inching?

What are you on about here?

Good call to Stevie T on the English girl singers. His description is one of those lines that should be bottled and sold to anyone who wants to write eloquently about music.

And good call to the Pinefox on "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself". Rarely has there been a recording that sounds so consumnately like rebirth and renewal of an entire country and social milieu, while at the same time being transcendent pop. Stunning.

fun to play/sing too

Bacharach-as-a-guy has always struck me as hard to dislike. I always recall his being interviewed for a documentary on Dusty in complete ski gear on the side of a mountain. A star!

OK, I've been obsessing about Burt for a few years now and I finally need to let some of it out here.

Yes yes, we all know Walk On By, and Look of Love, and Raindrops, and House is not a Home, etc. are completely undisputeable pop genius, but I never hear anyone talking about some of smaller hits. The darker shit.

Where's the love for the ultimately creepy "Everybody's Out of Town" by BJ Thomas? The strings and french horn at the start and end make it sound like someone fucking with an orchestra recording on a tape machine. It was a completely surreal soundtrack to my first return to post-Katrina New Orleans. Driving around those devastated empty streets on a bright sunny day with this confused not-quite-happy-go-lucky song on repeat is probably the strangest sober experience I will ever have.

And speaking of BJ Thomas, he's also got a really perfect version of "Long Ago Tomorrow", with verses gloomier than any of the yawns that radiohead have been crapping out the last few years and a desperately hopeful to wistful to defeated chorus that really just nails down the feeling of a dying hope.

And what about Manfred Mann's version of "Little Red Book"? Everyone always talks about Love's version and yay Arthur Lee and yay Syd Barrett and all that but seriously, there's a reason Burt didn't like Love's version and it's not an aversion to distortion. Love took out the real dark heart of the song when they just appropriated the bassline as a riff and threw the vocals over it without keeping those creepy dissonant piano chords that gave the song so much tension (not too mention how awesome that organ riff sounds! Was this song written for Halloween parties??).

And then there's Chuck Jackson's near-manic version of "Breaking Point" where he's practically channeling Screamin' Jay at some point. Goddamn, I don't want to break up with this dude.

There really ain't enough drooling over Burt on this board and whoever's idea it was to make an OPO thread is just cruel and doesn't understand the human heart.

What Burt really fucking does it for you?

You people are psychic. I just got all my Dionne Warwick albums out because I'm tired of not having them on computer. I also snap up sixties Bacharach by anyone, I have to go fishing to see what I find!

Since you asked, I like all of Dionne Warwick's sixties albums, not just the hits, especially the earlier records. Stuff like "This Empty Place" is a favorite.

you can see parts of Lost Horizon on YouTube, which is one of those it-was-awesome-as-a-legend things - bonkers in reality, too, but I liked knowing it had been a train wreck and not knowing just what kind

xpost - Oooohhhh, haven't heard Dionne's version of that, i'll have to dig it up!

watching clips of Lost Horizon right now. WTF exactly was this thing?!? From what I can gather it's some kind of Wicker Man musical??

it's a movie that cost an incredible amount of money and was an utter disaster - the aftermath of its failure effectively ended the Bacharach/David partnership for quite some time, or so the story goes. one of the all-time legendary train wrecks.

Bacharach and David were on NPR today, talking about all sorts of things: the revival of Promises, Promises; how they met; Lost Horizon; etc. Totally worth a half hour of your day if you care about these guys. Terry Gross (who I'm generally not into) was fantastic, as good as I've ever heard her, getting into the nitty-gritty of time signatures with them. She plays (and they discuss) a couple versions of "Promises, Promises," they get in a little jab at Aretha for her problems with a particular time change, but the segment nicely ends with them acknowledging that her version of "I Say A Little Prayer" slays Dionne's. You get to hear a lot of Dionne too: this segment's a great argument for her as the perfect match for their style, a point I'd heard made but never really understood why until hearing this. And it's fascinating to hear Bacharach openly discuss the ways his temperament shaped his career and his relationship with David. He kept coming back to the phrase "woulda, coulda, shoulda," like he's both got regrets and is trying not to; I'd love to hear them work on a song built around that phrase.

Cool. I will listen to that later. Public radio's Terry Gross is married to blues and jazz critic and author Francis Davis by the way.

thanks for the heads up ... has gross interviewed bacharach before? maybe it was a different NPR show I'm thinking of ...

This is awesome. Thanks for the link A-Dad!

Bacharach's songs all seem kinda psychotic to me

or at least deeply neurotic

hmm guess I should blame Hal David for that tho

Nice. I've been thinking about them lately -- since last week's Glee episode, I guess.

i'm pretty sure terry has interviewed bacharach before. in fact, i'm sure of it. was it around the time of the elvis costello collaboration?

thanks for this link. i love B&D.

sorry jerry orbach fans but his rendition of promises, promises is horrid.

granted that's a fucking difficult song to sing. just try it.

This was cool. For some reason I had thought Hal David died years ago, so it was neat to hear them interviewed together.

yeah, nice interview ... i love Burt bein' all like "all i wanted to do was get to palm springs / go to my beach house in del mar" etc. That's exactly what Burt Bacarach would want to do!

sorry jerry orbach fans but his rendition of promises, promises is horrid.

Just listening to this now (it's still up...don't think all NPR stuff is up forever), but "horrid" only if you detest show tunes. I'm no fan of them myself, but clearly Dionne turned it into a pop song.

Bacharach sounds like he's a hundred in this interview. Reminds me that these guys aren't going to be around forever.

Now that I have Spotify, it's time for some brainstorming:

Bacharach Hits

I Say A Little POLL For You: a Burt Bacharach singles poll

Insomnia is good for something:
http://open.spotify.com/user/jseraf/playlist/7FqJDuaP4u9mJ7H787uPxp

i love jimmy webb's bacharach rip "the girl's song"

Thx for that Spotify playlist. I wish the BB volume of the "Great Jewish Music" series was available on Spotify -- it's really good.

Sorry to hear about this:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=160441207

The genius of all those Bacharach/David songs was primarily melodic, I'd say, but when you think about the lyrics to "I Say a Little Prayer" or "What the World Needs Now is Love," they were pretty great too. Probably a mistake to even try keeping score.

:(

Always thought Hal David was under appreciated.

I should have mentioned "Walk on By" before anything else. Lyrically, it doesn't get much more subtle than that.

Aww. RIPHD

RIP. Wow, he wrote the lyrics to "A House is not a Home"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ9ZVGM7smE&feature=related

RIP

The Rhino box is all-time.

Gutted
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qviQw0kvyYo

incomparable

Obama giving it up for Bacharach and David makes me seriously proud. What a legacy these two have. I'm gonna be completely slayed when Burt goes.

Bacharach never was as good as he was with David. An immense loss to music.

yes yes yes

byebye Hal D

listenin' to Dusty torch her way through "The Look of Love" and trying not to cry....

will miss you HD

Just typed "The Windows of the World" into Spotify -- and came up with dozens of versions of the most appropriate song of the day.

rip

"I Just Don't Know What to do with Myself" . Discovered this one via the Elvis Costello version on Stiffs Live

RIP

I had forgotten the anecdote where Dionne said to B&D early on, "Don't make me over, man"

RIP. "This Guy's In Love With You" is probably my fave bacharach/david collab -- just the combo of the totally vulnerable, almost desperate lyrics and the majestic chorus, such an amazing song. alpert's low-key delivery is great too.

I'm always impressed by songs so powerful they overcome the disadvantage of a less-than-great singer.

Burt's remembrance:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-hal-david-burt-bacharach-appreciation-20120904,0,2503388.story

I still get a little tingle when I go into the Brill Building for a film screening.

From: Burt Bacharach and John Zorn, a section of some guy's dissertation:

In 'Alfie', the melody is supported by the chords; the melody note often extends the chord (cf. for instance bars 8, 10, 21, and 33). Unfamiliar with jazz chords, the use of unresolved melodic cadences in 'Alfie' can leave the listener hanging. Furthermore, the melody constantly runs the risk of simply extending outwards in a series of increasingly far-flung spirals, losing the possibility of circling acceptably back. How far can it drift from the starting point or opening motif before the literate listener (performer, analyst) loses all hope that it is ever going to get back? The melody meanders so unpredictably that it is threatened with unbridgeable gaps and unexpected dissonances. But then Bacharach abruptly brings it home by using some type of deft shortcut or another (cf. for instance bars 10 and 25-6).

<3<3<3

I don’t have the technical musical knowledge to really understand this but just the idea is great !

Agreed. I'm gonna try to get a friend of mine who was a music major to dissect it with me.

the melodic lines in some of his songs are indeed really really extended, with minimal repetition by pop-song standards (which is still a lot of repetition by the standards of the sort of music bacharach was trained in).

i'm mighty skeptical of a derridean reading of bachrach though!

102nd anniversary of Hal David's birth today