Two Bacharach/Anka Songs

[blueonblue]

'After All' and 'Rainbow' from the mid-nineties...




'blue'

[pljms]

I like to kid myself that I probably would have identified those two songs as Bacharach compositions if I'd heard them in the mid-90s because they contain just about enough of his melodic and harmonic traits to be recognisable, although perhaps not as obviously as two other songs of his of a similar vintage, 'Captives Of The Heart' and 'With A Smile'. However, 'Let Me Be The One' written with Denise Rich and Taja Sevelle and recorded by Marilyn Scott in 1995 doesn't seem to contain much to my ears that is obviously Bacharachian, not after a couple of listens anyway.

[Blair N. Cummings]

Maybe this could be the start of a new thread: Bacharach Songs That Sound Next To Nothing Like Bacharach.
It would include anomalies like "Lisa" as well as utter astonishments like "Love Power." There are probably quite a number, especially from the "Carole Era" (whether written with her or not).
(I`m just being facetious - we really don`t need another list thread).

[blueonblue]

Two more relatively obscure tracks from i991 that Burt and Carole wrote for The Stylistics with additional lyrics on "Teardrops" by Gerry Goffin....




'blue'

[pljms]

The inevitability in the 80s and 90s of those digital keyboard intros and calling a song 'I Just Don't Know What To Do' was almost begging for unfavourable comparisons to be made, wasn't it? However, as these were virtually the last songs she wrote with Bacharach I should imagine that Carole Bayer Sager was long past the stage of caring about such things.

Here's another mid-90s song written by Bacharach with the pair Denise Rich & Taja Sevelle, but this time recorded by Nana Mouskouri. The song's verses have some really nice chord changes but the chorus is perhaps too meandering to be truly memorable, something that the hackneyed key change towards the end does little to help.

[geoff85]

'After All' and 'Rainbow' from the mid-nineties...




'blue'

These could have easily been on the Lost Horizon soundtrack 25 years earlier. These have to be the most early 70's sounding on all Burt's soungs that were made outside of that era.

[geoff85]

Maybe this could be the start of a new thread: Bacharach Songs That Sound Next To Nothing Like Bacharach.
It would include anomalies like "Lisa" as well as utter astonishments like "Love Power." There are probably quite a number, especially from the "Carole Era" (whether written with her or not).
(I`m just being facetious - we really don`t need another list thread).

The Anka songs sounds like Bacharach songs tho. Lisa sounds like Bacharach at the earlier parts of his career. It only sounds unlike the songs he would have been making in 1968 but many of the late 50s Bacharach songs have similar elements.It doesn't help he became more idiosyncratic as time went on probably peaking in the early 70s.

[carmel62]

The best ballads Bacharach wrote with Anka were "I don't need you you anymore", "Find love" and "I've got my mind made up", included in the soundtrack "Together?". The movie bombed, comdenning Bacharach's sumptuous score, which comprises instrumental compositions arranged in the modernized late '70s Bacharach fashion, to obscurity. It'a shame because it's one Burt's best works.

[blueonblue]

The best ballads Bacharach wrote with Anka were "I don't need you you anymore", "Find love" and "I've got my mind made up", included in the soundtrack "Together?". The movie bombed, comdenning Bacharach's sumptuous score, which comprises instrumental compositions arranged in the modernized late '70s Bacharach fashion, to obscurity. It'a shame because it's one Burt's best works.

One of Bacharach's instrumentals from that superb album.


'blue'

[pljms]

Blue, 'On The Beach' has a spring in its step that I find very appealing.

I don't think I was even aware of the 'Together?' movie and its soundtrack until the 1990s and although Jackie DeShannon's recording of 'I Don't Need You Anymore' was released as a single in 1980 I can't recall ever hearing it on the radio here in the UK. Here she is with Bacharach promoting the single on television in the US where it managed to creep into the lower reaches of Billboard's Hot 100, Burt's first chart entry with a new song for seven years.

[blueonblue]

Another seldom heard track from 'Together ?'.....


'blue'

[pljms]

I wonder if anyone was tempted to take Burt to one side during the recording of 'If We Ever Get Out Of Here' from the 'Together?' album to politely enquire whether he was familiar with McCartney's 'Band On The Run'? I also wonder if McCartney is aware of the Bacharach track?

[blueonblue]

Paul, that was very astute of you, the similarity between those two tracks is truly uncanny !

'blue'

[carmel62]

Everybody steals, so they say. But the original is much better.

[pljms]

In case there's any confusion, the Paul McCartney song 'Band On The Run' (including the 'If I Ever Get Out Of Here' section) predates Bacharach's 'If We Ever Get Out Of Here' by some five or six years.