Dionne Warwick - "(Theme From) Valley of the Dolls"

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Is this a dream, am I here, where are you
What's in back of the sky, why do we cry

― a collectivist romantic fling! (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 27 May 2005 04:01 (twenty-one years ago)

why does ilm hate the sixties?

― a collectivist romantic fling! (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 27 May 2005 04:11 (twenty-one years ago)

my thread about "classical gas" bombed too.

― a collectivist romantic fling! (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 27 May 2005 04:12 (twenty-one years ago)

I think ILM just hates 1 AM.

― David R. (popshots75`), Friday, 27 May 2005 04:13 (twenty-one years ago)

it's 10 pm here!

― a collectivist romantic fling! (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 27 May 2005 04:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Wow. Someone mentioned Dionne Warwick. That's pretty cool.

― The Silent Disco of Glastonbury (Bimble...), Friday, 27 May 2005 04:16 (twenty-one years ago)

I love Dionne Warwick. The "(Theme From) Valley of the Dolls" used to really depress the hell out of me when I was a kid. I still find it a little too depressing.

It's 1:47 AM here. I think the sweet potato and beet chips (WTF?!) I ate are keeping me awake. I took the silicone earplugs out of my ears, but then the ticking of my alarm clock was so loud it was keeping me awake, so I got up to find batteries to see if that would make the clock run more smoothly. It's probably just me.

― RS (Catalino) LaRue (RSLaRue), Friday, 27 May 2005 04:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Bizarrely, I've only ever heard the version by Hermine.

http://www2.odn.ne.jp/airstructures/Resources/image512.gif

― mnm, Friday, 27 May 2005 07:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Great song, great movie. What does Patti Duke's character call her pills? "My Little Pets" or something? Dionne's also got a couple songs in a similarly campy movie from around 1970, The Love Machine.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Friday, 27 May 2005 09:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Not of her very best but still better than anything Coldplay have ever
done.
The better Dionne songs are always pitifully sad:
The Last To Be Loved
House Is Not Home
Loneliness Remembers What Happiness Forgets etc

― wtin, Friday, 27 May 2005 09:40 (twenty-one years ago)

TS: this tune vs. The Carrie Nations' "Come With the Gentle People"

― Keith C (kcraw916), Friday, 27 May 2005 11:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Dionne Warwick is the single best thing ever to happen to pop music

― Banana Nutrament (ghostface), Friday, 27 May 2005 13:04 (twenty-one years ago)

I enjoyed hearing Helena B-C deedle-dum a few bars of it in Fight Club.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 27 May 2005 13:19 (twenty-one years ago)

It's not Bacharach-David. Boo.

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Friday, 27 May 2005 13:31 (twenty-one years ago)

I like "Robin Stone" from the "Love Machine" sdtk. it's better than VoD but not nearly as good as "In the long run" from Beyond VoD.

― amandalucia, Friday, 27 May 2005 14:59 (twenty-one years ago)

It's not Bacharach-David. Boo.

some of my favorite music of the '60s was done by songwriters who weren't burt bacharach who were shamelessly aping burt bacharach.

― a collectivist romantic fling! (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 27 May 2005 17:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I once had one of those half-asleep/half awake dreams that was incredibly sad, and the music accompanying it was back-announced as "Love Theme from V ot D" but I remember it as an instrumental. And I couldn't seem to find any info about it online (probably got a bunch of "Beyond the ..." hits). Is this a different song than the Warwick song? I am tempted to hunt it down, but I figure it'll likely be disappointing.

― nickn (nickn), Friday, 27 May 2005 18:28 (twenty-one years ago)

there's an instrumental version of the song that plays throughout the movie.

― a collectivist romantic fling! (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 27 May 2005 18:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Dud. I adore the movie on more levels than I should (it was a prereq for the membership card) but the song is clunky and clumsy to my ears, and while its dirgelike pacing is appropriate to the film theme, I nevertheless find myself rooting for someone to hurry up and drown herself every time I hear it.

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Friday, 27 May 2005 19:52 (twenty-one years ago)

i don't like this song much

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 27 May 2005 20:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Not having heard the song, but having read the comments, I'm going to have to go with the Carrie Nations.

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 27 May 2005 20:02 (twenty-one years ago)

I must have heard the damn thing, I just don't remember it, can I dud it based on that?

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 27 May 2005 20:03 (twenty-one years ago)

you can TRY dudding it based on that, ken, but there's a chance you might get audited, so be careful.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 27 May 2005 20:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Zapped- by the fcc!

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 27 May 2005 20:06 (twenty-one years ago)

i fucking love this song, deeply--and i dont know why

― anthony easton (anthony), Saturday, 28 May 2005 10:56 (twenty-one years ago)

It's not Bacharach-David. Boo.

No, it's Dory Previn and Andre Previn!!

― tokyo nursery school: afternoon session (rosemary), Saturday, 28 May 2005 11:43 (twenty-one years ago)

i like it because it sounds like a female henry nillison!

― anthony easton (anthony), Saturday, 28 May 2005 13:09 (twenty-one years ago)

i don't hear that, anthony. what makes you say that?

what i find classic about the song is how dionne sings the "is this a dream" passage -- the way "dream" is syncopated into a (i guess) grace note, sliding down to the "si" from the high "do" (where the "do" is just tiny and decorative but still goes on a microsecond longer than it's supposed to given that the chord is pulling the phrase downward). it's elegant, but that's dionne for ya. does that make sense?

― a collectivist romantic fling! (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 28 May 2005 16:03 (twenty-one years ago)

also i love the pacing of the thing; it's like a cowboy song.

― a collectivist romantic fling! (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 28 May 2005 16:06 (twenty-one years ago)

also the gentle dipthonging of "are you" -- how the vowels opaquely morph into one another ("ahheeeouuuu"). i think a contemporary american singer would really hammer that "r" sound and ruin the effect.

― a collectivist romantic fling! (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 28 May 2005 16:12 (twenty-one years ago)

eleven months pass...

This song is very dreamy, I like it. Of course I love Dionne singing Bacharach almost always (which this is not). Previn certainly owes Bacharach for this approach to structure and harmony(and use of flugelhorns). I like someone here calling this "aping."
Who here mentioned contemporary American Singers? My theory is; Since there has been such little real innovation in pop in the last 15 years, these singers hit their R's extra hard in an attempt to differentiate their sound from the singers of previous decades. In the 90's singers like alannis M., Vedder etc have come up with these abhorrant pronounsiational variations (gimmicks I call them).
I don't miss David Clayton Thomas terribly much but I think it's funny that Eddie Vedder and the rock singers of this ilk remind me of him. Sucked then, sucks now. At least Cobain sang like himself.

THINGS THAT SUCK in the Grand World of Music: Trip hop, Big hit "Punk" Ballads (weezer, g'day), NPR (where white chick trip-hop is always in fashion), World Cafe, Recent kiddie ganster rap

Wanna Fight?

― j t SLUGGETT, Tuesday, 2 May 2006 16:40 (twenty years ago)

careful, people around here tend to go gaga for white-chick trip-hop and kiddie gangsta.

― jbr with a z (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 2 May 2006 17:21 (twenty years ago)

one year passes...

as far as dionne warwick songs go, the vocal arrangement is kinda bland, no?

"as long as there's an apple tree" is so freaking beautiful.

― john. a resident of chicago., Friday, 25 January 2008 01:40 (eighteen years ago)

Believe it or not, I saw Sandra Bernhard do a pleading, deeply earnest version of this song on some television show (maybe her own? must have been cuz she had on guests like Michelle Lee). Hands outstretched to the camera and all that. It was as if she was trying to live up to the song. She did and then some. I'd love to see it again

― Kevin John Bozelka, Friday, 25 January 2008 11:34 (eighteen years ago)

two months pass...

holy crap I knew the Bacharach-David phase and the short-lived Thom Bell phase and the whole Arista era but I had missed her album Just Being Myself. You guys who like Dionne: go get this album NOW.

― J0hn D., Tuesday, 15 April 2008 16:21 (eighteen years ago)

Yep, it's magic. By far my favorite thing by her.

― matt2, Tuesday, 15 April 2008 16:46 (eighteen years ago)

two years pass...

So really though. Is there anything else in the Dionne Warwick oeuvre that is in the same vein as Just Being Myself? If so, I really need it.

― matt2, Monday, 24 May 2010 21:07 (sixteen years ago)

Like as far as I know she never went the Holland/Dozier(/Holland) route again, so the answer is probably not, but figured I would ask.

― matt2, Monday, 24 May 2010 21:13 (sixteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fon2Fp4axeo&feature=related

― scott seward, Monday, 24 May 2010 21:22 (sixteen years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG9kiYji5G8

― scott seward, Monday, 24 May 2010 21:23 (sixteen years ago)

you might like her album SOULFUL. mostly soul and r&b covers and her first non-bacharach/david album. she made it with chips moman. not funky like the best HDH tracks on just being myself, but rilly good all the same.

― scott seward, Monday, 24 May 2010 21:33 (sixteen years ago)

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http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2613/3735294516_413c579535.jpg

― are we human or are we dancer (m coleman), Monday, 24 May 2010 21:41 (sixteen years ago)

Thanks for the HDL-Warwick recommendation, gentlemen!

― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 24 May 2010 22:02 (sixteen years ago)

I like "Robin Stone" from the "Love Machine" sdtk. it's better than VoD but not nearly as good as "In the long run" from Beyond VoD.

― amandalucia, Friday, May 27, 2005 9:59 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark

i saw this post and i was like "otm" then i realized that i wrote it 5 years ago :-/

― an outlet to express the dark invocations of (La Lechera), Monday, 24 May 2010 22:08 (sixteen years ago)

nearly 5, i guess

― an outlet to express the dark invocations of (La Lechera), Monday, 24 May 2010 22:09 (sixteen years ago)

MY BAD! totally forgot Track Of The Cat! Just Being Myself was her Detroit/Motown album and Cat is her Philly Soul album. She made Cat with Thom Bell and MFSB at Sigma Sound in Philly. Came out in 1975. Title cut is awesome slinky Philly soul stuff with super cool jungle cat intro. Most of the album is Creed/Bell stuff. mostly ballads though. so maybe more for fans of the sweeping Philly strings and production. (funny how the philadelphia orchestra was always famous for its big bad string section and so was philly international.)

― scott seward, Thursday, 27 May 2010 18:58 (sixteen years ago)

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