Do you know the way to San José? Do you have any idea what the world urgently needs right now? And do you know what to do when you meet your ex on the street and bring tears to your eyes? Exactly: move on quickly.
The hits “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?”, “What the World Needs Now” and “Walk On By”, written by Burt Bacharach for soul singer Dionne Warwick, are among the most heartwarming, saddest and greatest songs in pop history.
The lyrics were provided by the congenial lyricist Hal David. Embedded in velvety orchestral arrangements, these three to five-minute symphonies exude a euphoria that has always been saturated with melancholy. Because everything in life has to end eventually, even love.
Along with Cole Porter, George Gershwin and Beatles leaders Lennon/McCartney, Burt Bacharach was one of the most successful composers of the 20th century. His evergreens like “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head”, “This Guy’s In Love With You” or “Wishin’ and Hopin'” have been recorded by dozens of artists.
Incidentally, Bacharach received three Oscars for his soundtracks to the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the comedy Arthur. When asked how one writes a hit, he still replied: “I have no idea.” Then he added that improvising is important, letting yourself drift, trying things out. “Until suddenly there’s a melody that just won’t let you go.” Making the difficult sound easy and elegant was an art he had mastered.
Bacharach, who was born in Kansas City in 1928 and grew up in New York, had studied classical music at a conservatory before attending a Dizzy Gillespie concert converted him to jazz. At the age of 28 he was hired by Marlene Dietrich as a pianist and bandleader and toured the world with her. Their relationship, he later emphasized, remained a purely musical one, despite all the rumours. “She could be a real beast when she didn’t like something,” he recalled in an interview. “But when I said: Marlene, the tempo isn’t right, you’re singing too slowly, then she listened as if God were speaking.”
The 1960s and early 1970s, when Burt Bacharach created more than a hundred songs with Hal David, were his greatest triumphs. The records they produced with Dionne Warwick alone have sold over 12 million copies.
Although Bacharach’s music got the easy-listening label, it was also covered by jazz musicians like Cal Tjader, Grant Green and Wes Montgomery because of its compositional finesse. When saxophonist Stan Getz released an entire album of his songs on the Verve label, Bacharach felt it was an artistic accolade.
Newsweek magazine hailed the composer as “The Music Man 1970” in a cover story, and Barbra Streisand, Tom Jones and dancer Rudolf Nureyev paid homage to him in a nationally broadcast TV special. But when the fantasy musical “Lost Horizon”, for which they had provided the film music, became a financial disaster, Bacharach and David fell out.
Legal disputes followed and the temporary end of the collaboration with Warwick. The composer’s renaissance began when Britpop band Oasis featured a poster of him on the cover of their debut album, Definitely Maybe, in 1994. Soon after, Bacharach was cruising around Las Vegas in an open car in the spy comedy Austin Powers, along with his hit song What the World Needs Now.
Burt Bacharach died in Los Angeles on Wednesday at the age of 94. The whole world is whistling his song “I Say a Little Prayer” for him today.
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