Wishin' and Votin' - the BURT BACHARACH SONGBOOK Poll Results

Make It Easy was my number 3, it's my favourote Walker Bros track bit i couldn't make it my favourite BB track but that version is carved in granite, it's immense

The first song on their first album, huge right out of the gate.

Has anything ever suited Scott's delivery more? I don't think so

https://i.imgur.com/3hE8Le6.jpg

7. Baby It's You — 642 Points, 14 Votes
Lyric: Mack David, "Barney Williams" (Luther Dixon)
The Shirelles, 1961 single, 439 points — https://youtu.be/CRrxjk3qgRc
The Beatles, from Please Please Me (1963), 179 points — https://youtu.be/WEvrCiQ0doQ
Smith, 1969 single, 24 points — https://youtu.be/IuWsRkF5SIo

Fun fact: the Smith version (#5) outperformed the Shirelles (#8) and the Beatles (1995 reissue, #67) on the Billboard Hot 100.

too low

Burt:

Luther Dixon loved the song but he wanted Mack to rewrite the lyrics to make it darker. Luther came up with the "cheat, cheat" part and took a co-songwriting credit for himself under the name Barney Williams. I think he was the one who changed the title to "Baby, It's You."

When we recorded the song, Luther had Shirley Owens, the lead singer of the Shirelles, come into the studio by herself to put a new lead vocal on the track. In every other way, the finished record is exactly the same as my demo, with everything I put on it still there. If you listen carefully right before she starts her lead vocal on the intro and the "sha-la-la-las" come up in the background, you can hear me shouting them out and sounding so bad and really loud.

Has anything ever suited Scott's delivery more? I don't think so

hal david's nickname was mack ? lol

No, Mack David was Hal's brother!

intriguing

mack's writing credits go back to the '30s,like chick webb and stuff

[Mack] David had a varied interest in musical composition. In 1975, according to the New York Times in David's obituary: "Mr. David was granted a patent for inventing an electronic system for composing songs from fractional recordings. The system, which included playback units, stored records of lyrics and melodies. The operator selected words and music that fit together and recorded the combination."[1]

Dang!

I had forgotten about Mack, despite having read and reread The Beatles: An Illustrated Record dozens of times.

the "sha-la-la-las" come up in the background, you can hear me shouting them out and sounding so bad and really loud./

^ lol yup

xp also the original lyrics to "la vie en rose" -- which are in english and were translated into french for edith piaf. i never knew this.

I never noticed it before until I listened for it specifically -- pretty funny. xp

my post about "la vie en rose" was wrong nvm

I thought maybe that “sha-la-la” was The Beatles leaking into the track through a short time travel hop.

I even like the John Sayles film of the same name, which features the Shirelles version of the song, even though he disowned it, I believe. Although I think they monkeyed with the soundtrack after the original release because of rights, substituting “Shout” with “Surfin’ Bird,” for example.

actually i can’t figure out the truth about “la vie en rose” but i will stop talking about it.

“Smith”? Is the artist name really just Smith? Weird.

Not a fan of this song tbh but the Elvis Costello version is OK

https://i.imgur.com/Fz1U6zH.jpg

6. Anyone Who Had a Heart — 654 Points, 12 Votes, 1 first-place vote
Lyric: Hal David
Dionne Warwick, 1963 single, 654 points — https://youtu.be/qMsiGMKHJ8k

"baby it's you" would have been my #1, if i knew enough bacharach songs to vote. (but then again, if i knew more songs, maybe it wouldn't be...nm. love this song so much)

actually i can’t figure out the truth about “la vie en rose” but i will stop talking about it.

Okay here is the later version, missing “Shout” and “A Lover’s Concerto” and I can’t remember what else:
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0085208/soundtrack?ref_=ho_web

#6 my #1

“Smith”? Is the artist name really just Smith? Weird.

Yup. They were a California bar band made good. Their debut album was titled A Group Called Smith. My parents saw them live in 70-71, with an up and coming combo called ZZ Top opening.

You sure that opening act wasn’t called The Zombies?

A funny thing about clips of Smith is that their guitar player is almost a dead ringer for Noddy Holder, down to the big hat.

XP Naw, this was the Top. Dad claimed he bought their first album at the merch stand.

The Smith vote was from me, a nostalgic vote from my Orange County days. Gayle McCormick really delivers on that one.

did Warwick's sister record any BB tunes?

Didn't vote Anyone Who Had a Heart cos of Cilla ambivalence, but then nobody voted for hwr version so

There’s a lot more consensus than I expected on which is the definitive version with regard to the Top 20 placers.

Or maybe it’s just hard to look past Dionne a lot of the time.

Morbs, I'm not seeing any in Discogs. She recorded the original "You're No Good," which Linda Ronstadt had a big hit with.

https://i.imgur.com/uRvFNxt.jpg

5. This Guy's/Girl's In Love With You — 680 Points, 13 Votes
lyric: Hal David
Herb Alpert, 1968 single, 595 points — https://youtu.be/GWjbUAYcxII
Bobbie Gentry, from The Girl from Chickasaw County box set (2018), 55 points — https://youtu.be/5E11C6xNKaU
Aretha Franklin, 1970 single, 30 points — https://youtu.be/45cydmpmPNo

Herb Alpert:

Burt wrote the arrangement for "This Guy's in Love with You" and he was in the studio when we cut it at Gold Star Recording. In the studio, I'm the opposite of Burt. He is a perfectionist who likes everything to sound exactly the way he hears it in his hear. I close my eyes and I'm from the feel-it school. Obviously, Burt feels it as well but I take a different approach. If it feels right, I stop.

So we had the track and I wanted to see whether my voice would sound good on it. A bunch of the singers and Burt and a couple of musicians were in the control room while was doing a demo of the vocal. I did one take and went back into the control room and they all looked at me and said, "Don't touch it." I said, "What do you mean, don't touch it? That's just the demo." Burt said, "Don't touch it, man. It sounds great." I touched up a couple of things here and there but that was the take.

Really loving these biography snippets today btw Wm

Alpert is so endearingly dorky on it.

Great Picture Sleeve:

https://static.stereogum.com/uploads/2018/11/Herb-Alpert-This-Guys-In-Love-With-You-1541434972-compressed.jpg

Thanks, I renewed Burt's book from the library and am taking them all from that. I decided against the Noel Gallagher parts on this song. xp

It's hard for me to separate out pure childhood nostalgia from the jazz craft of a lot of these tunes but i assume that the craft is explaining a lot of the permanent love, for me, anyway

not surprised at consensus, but maybe bcz the greatest seem obvious to me

I mean this stuff remains classic and evocative for a bunch of reasons i hadn't thought through until we did this

some dickhole on wikipedia described Guy Klucevsek's version as a "dirge" and I just want to punch 'em so bad

xps -- mmmmmaybe? But I find the songs so amazing I even like "bad" versions, and craft can't explain that for me.

Also yes what Morbs said

https://i.imgur.com/7V3kpxA.jpg

4. I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself — 751 Points, 15 Votes, 1 first-place vote
Lyric: Hal David
Dusty Springfield, 1964 single, 572 points — https://youtu.be/xpsDE6KCY9s
The White Stripes, 2003 single, 84 points — https://youtu.be/jpZjuvI-s8Y
Linda Ronstadt, from Winter Light (1993), 65 points — https://youtu.be/CfC_Ngtdj8I
Isaac Hayes, from The Isaac Hayes Movement (1970), 30 points — https://youtu.be/L_Mtumgu5yM

Burt

Tommy Hunt, the former lead singer of the Flamingos, a really terrific doo-wop group, had just had a big hit on Scepter with "Human," so the label decided to let him cut this as a follow-up. I did the arrangement and conducted the orchestra, and Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller produced the session.

I thought it was a terrific record, but because Florence Greenberg didn't like the fact that Tommy Hunt was dating one of the Shirelles while also being kept by some other woman, she did nothing to promote it and the song went nowhere. It didn't become a hit until Dusty Springfield covered it two years later.

Tommy Hunt original — https://youtu.be/7It1ATSCRxM

Dusty my number 1,totally personal, totally perfect, can't think of another pop song that nails that feeling so well

XP Naw, this was the Top. Dad claimed he bought their first album at the merch stand.

Dusty my number 1,totally personal, totally perfect, can't think of another pop song that nails that feeling so well