The Burt Bacharach Discussion Forum

It's the time of the year for magic ....

It's the holidays. For once a year, we hear wonderful songs written by the best of the songwriting tradition ... Melody, imagine that (!) .. on the radio, TV you name it.

Any station with pop or country formats starts playing historically great carols about out of guilt ... and these involve beautiful concepts, I'm not talking Isaac Watts, but mostly 20th century tunes with beautiful melodies, bridges (is this a lost art?), modulations (!)s, ....

For every "O Little Child of Bethlehem" ... there are some ...

1) Mel Torme sitting poolside at the Beverly Hills Hilton in the summer (I think ..) writing "Chestnuts roasting .."

2) OK here's a profound question for all of you songwriters ..The consensus on Web archive postings is that "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" ... is a very "sad" tune ... melodywise it seems a pretty verse .. the chorus isn't sad ... can anyone tell me why the simplicity of that melody, major chord changes ... apparently the verse/melody strikes everybody as the "most sad" Christmas carol ? (The melody writer, Blaine, as most/all of you know, was writer of the "Meet Me in St. Louis," book, Judy Garland, "Trolley Song" ... etc.

3) My favorite songwriter glad/sad "schism" is that the super-cheery "Santa Claus is Coming To Town" was written by Fred Coots, who wrote the music (along with Mr. Gillespie on lyrics) for .... "You Go To My Head ..." which is such a seriously profound, beautiful, melancholy tune covered by everyone from Bing Crosby in 1938 to Rod Stewart on his comeback/pop travesty (I never did like that guy after the stomach-pumping incident(s) ... I love the modulations of YGTMH's verse, such possibilities, an eternal tune, the striking melody against the first change ... (in C, the G/5th note suspended against the F minor chord, a springboard for everything ..

Dear God, even Vince Guaraldi's tunes off "Charlie Brown's Christmas" seem deep, and they kind-of are given what we've got today ... "Christmas Time is here ..." warms my heart (It has a BRIDGE! ..) ... Snoopy skating to these tunes is the new essence of the holidays, suddenly ..)

(PS I've missed the following BB songs, was going to buy the respective LPS off GEMM music .. do any of you have opinions on these mid-60s Dionne, deep Burt album cuts? Thanks and I'll stop drinking beer now and shut up ...:

Another Night
Don't Say I Didn't Tell You So
Forever My Love
Is There Another Way to Love You?
Let Me Go To Him
Loneliness Remembers
That's Not The Answer
The Beginning of Loneliness
Walk Little Dolly
Wine is Young

Thanks to all who've suffered thru this post, hope for your suggestions, corrections ...igtmfo

Don´t know:

The Beginning of Loneliness
Walk Little Dolly (this one has often been praised here)
Wine is Young


Wouldn't be too eager to listen to:

Another Night
Loneliness Remembers


Like:
Forever My Love
Is There Another Way to Love You?
That's Not The Answer

Like a lot:
Don't Say I Didn't Tell You So
Let Me Go To Him

All of these are on my "A List" except: "Another Night", "Forever My Love" and "That's Not The Answer"

In the spirit in which the original post was added...
I ripped and burned the Burt and Hal songs from Dionne`s albums and crammed them onto three cds to which I just listened in succession.
For what it`s worth, these are the tracks I re-played spontaneously:
Please Make Him Love Me
Don`t Say I Didn`t Tell You So
Who Is Gonna Love Me
Who Gets the Guy
Be Aware

Sorry to bump my own post ... but I didn't realize 2 forever-to-be heard awesome holiday tunes come from the same source, the Broadway/Hollywood composer Jules Styne:

1. Let it Snow

2. The Christmas Waltz ... if I might quote Sammy Cahn: "It's that time of year, when the world falls in love ... Ev'ry song you hear, seems to say ..."Merry Christmas, may your New Year dreams come true"
B-section:
"And this song of mine, in three-quarter time
Wishes you and yours the same thing, too .... ect.

Sorry, it's me again.

On NPR's "Fresh Air" Monday night, singer Becky Kilgore and her group performed what was described as an "obscure" Bacharach/David holiday song, "Winter Warm."

Very nice and memorable verse, the bridge is good too and has a somewhat unexpected melody/over/chord change to resolve, but not enough to throw you off your sleigh. Sorry if everybody already knows about this. If anyone wants to hear it, go to the Fresh Air Web site, just fast forward about 48 minutes into the show as defined by the Realaudio clock/ticker ... there it is.

Hey who knew? Thanks again Burt! OK no more posts from me. ...