https://i.imgur.com/UrjhRtj.jpg
16. Twenty-Four Hours from Tulsa — 409 Points, 10 VotesLyric: Hal DavidGene Pitney, 1963 Musicor single, 250 points — https://youtu.be/jIjUaxP7PPEDusty Springfield, from A Girl Called Dusty (1964), 89 points — https://youtu.be/ne9UuzivW1ABurt Bacharach, from Plays His Hits (1966), 70 points — https://youtu.be/5qaR6-iZe-Q
The graphic has Dusty's points wrong, it's 89 for her.
― WmC, Thursday, 16 May 2019 19:47 (five years ago) link
My number 4, a bit of an outlier for Bacharach i think but it's a classic for a reason. The lyric absolutely works.
― Doctor Nu (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 16 May 2019 19:58 (five years ago) link
I gave this one a lot of points, but settled on Burt's wordless version as I enjoyed pretending it was the score to a western or something.
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Thursday, 16 May 2019 22:12 (five years ago) link
The lyrics are good though. It's somewhat tangled up with "By The Time I Get To Phoenix" in my mind. No doubt due partly to the specific place names, but also the way travel, separation and guilt are handled in each. I seem to like the idea of the USA as a land of endless highways with people being sad, or at least contemplative, in distant hotel rooms, as "Check Out Time" involves something quite similar! :)
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Thursday, 16 May 2019 23:16 (five years ago) link
promise us anything
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 May 2019 02:52 (five years ago) link
"Twenty-Four Hours from Tulsa" has this weird, mesmerizing beat that I also associate with "Down in the Boondocks," but I can't think of any other songs that have it. Dusty edged out Gene for me to come in at #10.
― Careless Love Battery (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 17 May 2019 10:34 (five years ago) link
Good morning, top 15 today! At least until tomorrow, I'll never run a poll again!
― WmC, Friday, 17 May 2019 11:36 (five years ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/HfUoDp6.jpg
15. (They Long To Be) Close To You — 426 Points, 12 VotesLyric: Hal DavidThe Carpenters, 1970 single, 410 points — https://youtu.be/iFx-5PGLgb4Gwen Guthrie, 1986 single, 16 points — https://youtu.be/VRMYxp86mOU
Extended version of the Gwen Guthrie version, I guess this was on the 12" single — https://youtu.be/l0VWo8g5Y_o
― WmC, Friday, 17 May 2019 11:40 (five years ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/8etQvsO.jpg
14. Wishin' and Hopin' — 441 Points, 11 VotesLyric: Hal DavidDusty Springfield, 1964 single, 441 points — https://youtu.be/gAdTsAKvVTUDusty and Martha Reeves duetting on "Ready Steady Go - The Sound of Motown", 1965 — https://youtu.be/CXP7tt7TQUk
― WmC, Friday, 17 May 2019 11:53 (five years ago) link
My #2
― Jeff W, Friday, 17 May 2019 12:00 (five years ago) link
Are there any gender swap versions of this? Trying to decide if that would work or not.
― Jeff W, Friday, 17 May 2019 12:04 (five years ago) link
Dusty was a great girl with a really soulful voice, but she was very hard to record. We were both perfectionists but Dusty was much harder on herself than she needed to be and I think that if we had ever tried to do an album together, we would have destroyed one another.
― WmC, Friday, 17 May 2019 12:05 (five years ago) link
xp - The Merseybeats do a version. They're gonna wear their hair just for her.
― WmC, Friday, 17 May 2019 12:08 (five years ago) link
Also The Bad Boys, a weirdly slow version.
― WmC, Friday, 17 May 2019 12:13 (five years ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/2o9xCag.jpg
13. Don't Make Me Over — 495 Points, 10 VotesLyric: Hal DavidDionne Warwick, b-side of "I Smiled Yesterday," 1962, 467 points — https://youtu.be/LEgxuE7WD6USybil, 1989 single, 28 points — https://youtu.be/fvb6ovTNQPk
Dionne live tv version, 1967 — https://youtu.be/nFvLcCDvdEA
― WmC, Friday, 17 May 2019 12:28 (five years ago) link
Fun fact: I have no recollection of hearing "Close To You" before Kim Gordon chose it in a Desert Island Discs type segment on radio here in the early 90s. I don't remember hearing Bacharach at all earlier in childhood, with exactly two exceptions: "Raindrops..." and one other that's presumably coming up soon. I'm not sure how I managed this lack of exposure.
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Friday, 17 May 2019 12:42 (five years ago) link
Burt on "Don't Make Me Over" --
We cut the song at Bell Sound, and when Hal and I brought it to Florence Greenberg, she cried. Not because of how much she liked the record. Florence cried because of how much she [i]didn't like it. Both of us were really taken aback by her reaction but there was nothing we could do or say to make her change her mind. She wound up putting out "Don't Make Me Over" as the B-side of "I Smiled Yesterday," a song we had cut at the same session.[/i]
― WmC, Friday, 17 May 2019 12:53 (five years ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/RixxQlU.jpg
12. My Little Red Book — 523 Points, 10 Votes, 1 first-place voteLyric: Hal DavidLove, 1966 single, 434 points — https://youtu.be/f-SuGfLhqo4Manfred Mann, 1965 single, 89 points — https://youtu.be/se7Ywa668aw
― WmC, Friday, 17 May 2019 13:02 (five years ago) link
Don't Make Me Over was my number 2, would be number 1 some days
The way Dusty sings "you will be his" on Wishin' is absolute joy
― Doctor Nu (Noodle Vague), Friday, 17 May 2019 13:03 (five years ago) link
if Don't Make Me Over has any flaw it's that the first two lines are the peak, really
― Doctor Nu (Noodle Vague), Friday, 17 May 2019 13:04 (five years ago) link
Hadn't thought of that, but it really does announce itself from the start.
― WmC, Friday, 17 May 2019 13:11 (five years ago) link
It's the soul of the song, the rest is - admittedly beautiful - elaboration
― Doctor Nu (Noodle Vague), Friday, 17 May 2019 13:13 (five years ago) link
What was the first recorded version of “My Little Red Book”?
― Careless Love Battery (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 17 May 2019 13:15 (five years ago) link
The Manfred Mann version.
― WmC, Friday, 17 May 2019 13:18 (five years ago) link
I gave my points to Manfred Mann's. It's BB's preference too, apparently. Love simplified some chords too much for his liking, or something!?
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Friday, 17 May 2019 13:23 (five years ago) link
Paul Jones, the vocalist on the track:
Manfred Mann could read music and he was a jazz piano player and a jazz fan and wrote a fortnightly column in Jazz News, but he couldn't play Burt's stuff. The story about Burt having to move Manfred off the piano bench is absolutely true. In fact, it was slightly more subtle than that. Burt said to Manfred, "Look, I tell you what. You play the left hand and I'll do the right hand." Then they switched and Manfred did the right hand and Burt did the left hand and eventually Burt was sitting at the piano alone. Manfred didn't hold it against Burt for a moment, and has actually said that he admired the tactful way he had been edged out.
― WmC, Friday, 17 May 2019 13:24 (five years ago) link
I voted for the Manfred Mann version too. It was Love 8, Mann 2.
― WmC, Friday, 17 May 2019 13:27 (five years ago) link
"Twenty-Four Hours from Tulsa" has this weird, mesmerizing beat that I also associate with "Down in the Boondocks,"
really sharp observation
― budo jeru, Friday, 17 May 2019 13:29 (five years ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/GMfOvlH.jpg
11. Do You Know the Way to San Jose — 576 Points, 12 VotesLyric: Hal DavidDionne Warwick, 1968 single, 538 points — https://youtu.be/CnzTgUc5yccFrankie Goes to Hollywood, from Welcome to the Pleasuredome (1984), 38 points — https://youtu.be/wgy3p-L8RRg
― WmC, Friday, 17 May 2019 13:33 (five years ago) link
upthread there was a suggestion of a side poll for songwriters that write like burt. i think arthur lee and bacharach definitely have an affinity. i think "a house is not a motel" is almost certainly a BB reference, i think it's significant that the first love single was a burt tune, and i think it helps to explain the really quite sophisticated and sometimes baffling chord changes on "forever changes" if you imagine arthur lee sitting around the house and plunking out the melody lines to various BB songs on the piano
xp
― budo jeru, Friday, 17 May 2019 13:34 (five years ago) link
impossible for me to untangle "san jose" from childhood, but dionne's version is something i cherish
― budo jeru, Friday, 17 May 2019 13:35 (five years ago) link
love the little organ flourishes around "and all the stars that never were ... "
love the tone of the kick drum
― budo jeru, Friday, 17 May 2019 13:36 (five years ago) link
Ah, I had no idea that Burt had something to do with the Manfred Mann version, with which I was barely familiar with, voted for the other one. Always figured there was some kind of Scepter artist or someone else in the US that he had done it with first, now I see that it was recorded for What’s New Pussy at? One tiny extra thing in favor of the Love version for me is that it morphed through a game of Red Telephone into “Interstellar Overdrive.” i think "a house is not a motel" is almost certainly a BB referenceWas thinking the same thing yesterday
― Careless Love Battery (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 17 May 2019 13:41 (five years ago) link
Agree with both your posts about “San Jose”
― Careless Love Battery (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 17 May 2019 13:44 (five years ago) link
San Jose is one of my karaoke faves. LA is a great big freeway has always been powerfully evocative to my small town arse. Put it at 5
― Doctor Nu (Noodle Vague), Friday, 17 May 2019 13:50 (five years ago) link
From the Mann himself: https://www.manfredmann.co.uk/?story=the-1960s-my-little-red-book
― Careless Love Battery (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 17 May 2019 13:54 (five years ago) link
If "The Last One To Be Loved" doesn't place, I'll be very sorry I didn't vote.
― zama roma ding dong (Eric H.), Friday, 17 May 2019 13:55 (five years ago) link
you should be sorry either way !
― budo jeru, Friday, 17 May 2019 13:57 (five years ago) link
Waiting For Eric (To Come Vote)
― Careless Love Battery (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 17 May 2019 14:00 (five years ago) link
xps Nice. Interesting that a jazz background would make unaccented chords hard.
― WmC, Friday, 17 May 2019 14:01 (five years ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/9aYh17X.jpg
10. What the World Needs Now Is Love — 584 Points, 13 Votes, 1 first-place votelyric: Hal DavidJackie DeShannon, 1965 single, 524 points — https://youtu.be/IQ2SAtkEsqUBurt Bacharach and The Posies, from the Austin Powers - International Man of Mystery soundtrack, 1997, 60 points — https://youtu.be/u7uh15s23nQ
― WmC, Friday, 17 May 2019 14:02 (five years ago) link
― Careless Love Battery (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 17 May 2019 14:03 (five years ago) link
xp to nv
agree about the freeway lyric. also love the imagery of "parking cars and pumping gas"
i have no problem saying that i just love the mythology of the song, the mystique of going west to make it big, the fatigue, the disillusionment, the small town that welcomes you back with open arms. i love its wistfulness
― budo jeru, Friday, 17 May 2019 14:04 (five years ago) link
Maybe in the Spinal Tap sense of U.K. Jazz Blues/Blues Jazz etc.
― Careless Love Battery (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 17 May 2019 14:04 (five years ago) link
Well maybe that’s not quite fair. It’s considered corny in jazz to play every beat of the same voicing of the same chord over and over again so he probably wasn’t used to it, as he says.
― Careless Love Battery (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 17 May 2019 14:12 (five years ago) link
i mean he was gigging in jazz clubs in johannesburg in the late '50s, though his stage name was initially a tip of the hat to shelly manne, which sort of gives you a clue as to the type of jazz he was playing
― budo jeru, Friday, 17 May 2019 14:16 (five years ago) link
Did not know all that and just read more about it, thanks.
― Careless Love Battery (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 17 May 2019 14:31 (five years ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/ymV4Mco.jpg
9. I'll Never Fall in Love Again — 601 Points, 14 Votes, 1 first-place votelyric: Hal DavidDionne Warwick, 1970 single, 445 points — https://youtu.be/FzQBOBoPg04Bobbie Gentry, 1969 single, 60 points — https://youtu.be/S-g2RCdk8nIBurt Bacharach & Elvis Costello, from The Spy Who Shagged Me soundtrack (1999), 60 points — https://youtu.be/yNJLrLS6VG0Ella Fitzgerald, 1969 single, 24 points — https://youtu.be/dxfMIAZw1RYJill O'Hara & Jerry Orbach, from the Promises, Promises Broadway cast recording (1968), 12 points — https://youtu.be/1xp_-mHR8gY
― WmC, Friday, 17 May 2019 14:32 (five years ago) link
Voted for Dionne but the Elvis Costello version has grown on me.
― Careless Love Battery (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 17 May 2019 14:37 (five years ago) link