Morrissey Central "THIS CHARMING LIFE" (February 9, 2023)

Burt Bacharach, RIP

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[Uncleskinny]

Always been a huge fan of Bacharach. A couple of favourites...

 

[Light Housework]

Always been a huge fan of Bacharach. A couple of favourites...

Herp Alpert looks like the singer of The Stranglers.

 

[Light Housework]

The Stranglers doing Walk On By
Composer: Burt Bacharach

 

[ZOOM FROM GLOOM]

He was the best.

Always loved Scott’s version, his delivery is breathtaking..

 

[caramel sea salt]

Always loved Scott’s version, his delivery is breathtaking..

It's SO great!!!

I have to admit though that I always come back to Dionne. The Burt Bacharach/Dionne Warwick combo is magical.

Good to see you, Ket!

 

[caramel sea salt]

 

[goinghome]

From the album of his songs covered by Elvis Costello, Painted From Memory


Another great cover, as mentioned

 

[caramel sea salt]

@nicky wire's legs

 

[nicky wire's legs]

@nicky wire's legs

finally this thread has gotten good!!

 

[Johnnie Ray]

I always thought that guy looks like Paul Westerberg, which is to say cool.

 

[Redacted]

I always thought that guy looks like Paul Westerberg, which is to say cool.

He does Paul has always been handsome and he's aged very well.

 

[Anonymous]

Heresy I know but…
Those songwriters of the 60’s & 70’s who wrote songs to order for others never touched me. It was all too middle of the road for me. Especially at a time when bands in Britain started writing their own work and performing it.
It’s sad when someone dies but I grew up in that era, Bacharach songs were for your parents to listen to, literally easy listening.
Meanwhile Jagger and Richards, Page and Plant, Townshend, Davies, Lennon and McCartney, Bolan, Bowie et al were searching their souls and performing out their tracks that changed the culture.
I know Bacharach songs are great light pop songs and are incredibly well crafted but give me ‘communication breakdown,’ ‘Won’t Get fooled again,’ ‘Street Fighting Man,’ ‘Rain,’ ‘Jeepster,’ ‘Hang on to yourself’ etc any day I am afraid.
I am for the wild, the out there, those that wrenched the wheel from the driver’s hand and cut a fast crazy slab of art and threw it out at us and told us to deal with it.
No offence to Bacharach, he was in the same camp as Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra etc - it just was too old fashioned, too tame, too middle brow, too manufactured for me, that’s all.
Sorry people, just how I see it, personal view only…

 

[nicky wire's legs]

Heresy I know but…
Those songwriters of the 60’s & 70’s who wrote songs to order for others never touched me. It was all too middle of the road for me. Especially at a time when bands in Britain started writing their own work and performing it.
It’s sad when someone dies but I grew up in that era, Bacharach songs were for your parents to listen to, literally easy listening.
Meanwhile Jagger and Richards, Page and Plant, Townshend, Davies, Lennon and McCartney, Bolan, Bowie et al were searching their souls and performing out their tracks that changed the culture.
I know Bacharach songs are great light pop songs and are incredibly well crafted but give me ‘communication breakdown,’ ‘Won’t Get fooled again,’ ‘Street Fighting Man,’ ‘Rain,’ ‘Jeepster,’ ‘Hang on to yourself’ etc any day I am afraid.
I am for the wild, the out there, those that wrenched the wheel from the driver’s hand and cut a fast crazy slab of art and threw it out at us and told us to deal with it.
No offence to Bacharach, he was in the same camp as Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra etc - it just was too old fashioned, too tame, too middle brow, too manufactured for me, that’s all.
Sorry people, just how I see it, personal view only…

I am for the wild, the out there, those that wrenched the wheel from the driver’s hand and cut a fast crazy slab of art and threw it out at us and told us to deal with it.

love that!!

 

[gashonthenail]

Heresy I know but…
Those songwriters of the 60’s & 70’s who wrote songs to order for others never touched me. It was all too middle of the road for me. Especially at a time when bands in Britain started writing their own work and performing it.
It’s sad when someone dies but I grew up in that era, Bacharach songs were for your parents to listen to, literally easy listening.
Meanwhile Jagger and Richards, Page and Plant, Townshend, Davies, Lennon and McCartney, Bolan, Bowie et al were searching their souls and performing out their tracks that changed the culture.
I know Bacharach songs are great light pop songs and are incredibly well crafted but give me ‘communication breakdown,’ ‘Won’t Get fooled again,’ ‘Street Fighting Man,’ ‘Rain,’ ‘Jeepster,’ ‘Hang on to yourself’ etc any day I am afraid.
I am for the wild, the out there, those that wrenched the wheel from the driver’s hand and cut a fast crazy slab of art and threw it out at us and told us to deal with it.
No offence to Bacharach, he was in the same camp as Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra etc - it just was too old fashioned, too tame, too middle brow, too manufactured for me, that’s all.
Sorry people, just how I see it, personal view only…

There's definitely a simplicity to the style. But great art should be simple. See William Blake. I agree about those artists who went on to write their own songs. But where would they have been without Bacharach and Hal David, or Lieber and Stoller to show them the way? Or to rebel against and tear up the rule book? Everyone needs a starting off point. Many of the artists you mention above were very open about how they owed a debt to earlier writers. Both Morrissey and Marr certainly did so.

 

[caramel sea salt]

Well said by Julie Burchill in The Spectator:

"Often when we mourn our heroes we mostly mourn for ourselves and our own thwarted dreams. The death of Bacharach is different. It marks the end of an era when the future looked bright and beautiful rather than the ceaseless drab cycle of outrage and apologies the 21st century is turning out to be. The songs of Bacharach and David are an epitaph for those lost sunlit decades when we really did believe that our future would outshine our past – when we really did live in modern times. Watching Sam Smith and Madonna make seven sorts of fools of themselves at the Grammys just three nights before Bacharach died, the contrast between the pinnacle of popular music then and now was surreal. The Age of Accomplishment is gone – welcome to the Age of Attention-Seeking, which will leave us all the poorer. RIP, Maestro."

Burt Bacharach and the end of the age of accomplishment

Hearing about the death of Burt Bacharach at the age of 94, I thought of one word: maestro. The word is variously defined as ‘a master, usually in an art’ (Merriam-Webster) or ‘a man who is very skilled at playing or conducting’ (Cambridge), but my favourite is the beautiful simplicity of the...

www.spectator.co.uk