Let's Pretend We're Grown-Up

[Martin Johnson]

Another song dropped from 'Promises, Promises' during the Boston try-out, 'Let's Pretend We're Grown-Up' features probably the most non-PC lyrics Hal David ever wrote, which is really saying something. In common with many of the PP songs, it includes fiendish time changes. As with the 'Tick Tock Goes the Clock' demo, Rose Marie Jun and Leslie Miller are the vocalists with Bacharach once again on the piano.

[pljms]

My two daughters would have been in their early twenties when they first heard me play this track at home and I remember that they both thought the lyrics to be funny and quite daring but also probably not unrepresentative of the way a lot of young women feel towards men a lot of the time. They were just surprised that the words were written by a middle-aged man! I believe this song was replaced in the show by 'Turkey Lurkey Time'.

[Blair N. Cummings]

"...[M]ost non pc lyrics Hal David ever wrote..."?
I think he is in serious competition here with "Wishin` and Hopin`", "Wives and Lovers" and innumerable instances where without a man`s love," I`ll die", arguably the most frequently paired words in Hal`s entire oeuvre.
Nevertheless, I love the brattiness of this as well as the melody.

[Sara D]

I love B&D's so called politically incorrect songs as much as I loathe poltical correctness, which in my opinion is not so much about doing the right thing as to be seen to be doing the right thing, which is something else entirely. Yes Blair, there's quite a few instances in Hal David's lyrics when the singer wants to die at the end of a love affair or at least at the likelihood of the affair ending, but at times of real emotional despair isn't that just the way people can feel, however fleetingly? And it's not just women in Hal David's lyrics who plumb the emotional depths, remember Herb Alpert in 'This Guy's in Love with You'' and the line ".....if not I'll just die"?

My favourite song from 'Promises, Promises' is 'Knowing When to Leave' and this is just about my favourite version, although I don't think there's a really definitive sung version out there:

[Blair N. Cummings]

I read an article years ago - it may have been in the NYRB before its neo-con conversion - where we were tantalizingly encouraged to imagine what Promises, Promises might have been like had the lyrics been written by Brecht.

[Martin Johnson]

[quote="Sara D"]I love B&D's so called politically incorrect songs as much as I loathe poltical correctness, which in my opinion is not so much about doing the right thing as to be seen to be doing the right thing, which is something else entirely. Yes Blair, there's quite a few instances in Hal David's lyrics when the singer wants to die at the end of a love affair or at least at the likelihood of the affair ending, but at times of real emotional despair isn't that just the way people can feel, however fleetingly? And it's not just women in Hal David's lyrics who plumb the emotional depths, remember Herb Alpert in 'This Guy's in Love with You'' and the line ".....if not I'll just die"?

I know you have little time for Women's Lib, Sara, and I fully agree with your comments re PC. I'm sure Hal David would have been bemused to have his lyrics to songs like 'Wives and Lovers' and 'Wishin' and Hopin' suddenly ridiculed forty + years after writing them.

[Blair N. Cummings]

I don`t think I "ridiculed" the lyrics to those songs. They were as common as those for contemporaneous hits like "Girl Talk".
Martin, you pointed out that they were "non-PC" and I concurred.
The so-called culture wars were a farce and a distraction for reasons inappropriate to glut space here for discussion.

[Martin Johnson]

I didn't mean you, Blair, I meant that generally certain lyrics of Hal David's, particularly those to 'Wives and Lovers' and 'Wishin' and Hopin', were suddenly being publicly ridiculed for their perceived sexist attitudes after 40+ years of no one batting an eyelid. I certainly don't remember anyone complaining about those songs up until about 10 or 12 years ago.

[Blair N. Cummings]

In that case you`re much younger than I. Song lyrics such as these - and much else - have been on the feminist radar for at least forty-five years and not without cause.
However it would be beyond silly to blame Hal (or any other individual) for the perpetuation of condescending attitudes toward women.
The truly awful thing, in my view, is that the "success" of feminism made it acceptable for women to rival men in their slavish, cut-throat conformism to corporate culture.

[Sara D]

Here in the UK there had been 'rumblings' from various feminist types before re one or two of Hal David's song lyrics but it was when the BBC Radio 2 DJ Sarah Kennedy received a lot of publicity for denouncing the lyrics to Wives and Lovers live on air after playing the Jack Jones recording in the early 2000s that the sea-change seemed to occur. I remember that if the song was played at all on the BBC in the following years it was only so it could be held up as an example of a 'terribly outdated sexist attitude'. I think that maybe in more recent years attitudes have eased a little towards Wives and Lovers and it was very noticeable that BB virtually sang the complete lyric to the song at Glastonbury, whereas before it was always performed mainly as an instrumental.

[geoff85]

Lol this is ridiculous and sublime at the same time. Burt Bacharach's sense of melody can make the most childish vocal arrangement sound catchy. There is so much double entendre in this song its not funny especially the last line about Christmas lol. Thats why i love forums like this because i dont think i would have ever found that song.