Serene's assessment of Who Is Gonna Love Me

[steveo_1965]

Hi,
Just thoght I'd chime in on Serene Dominic's book Song By Song.
He does a marvelous job at critiquing most of Burt's songs, using his biting wit, which I enjoy very much.
I do have to disagree with him on his assessment of the tune "Who Is Gonna Love Me" tho....
A very underated song, IMHO, with fantastic orchestration..
I dig the heavenly chior and strings, and feel that the recording
of Dionne's as arranged by Burt and produced by Burt and Hal is a masterpiece....it may be that this song and arrangement are married together to produce the genius recording....but i just feel Serene passed over it too blatantly!
That is all...over and out!
Steveo

[blueonblue]

Hi Steveo,
Yes, you are absolutely right.....a "lost treasure" !!!


"blue"

[nowmedical]

I think we could do a whole forum on this book. I bought it 2 months ago and am still in the mid 1970s! Fr'instance, someone please tell me Burt didn't really write a song called "Peggy's In the Pantry"!

And how about Serene on The Look of Love: "it proved to be one of the elite group of Bacharach-David songs that artists could only ruin by making a concentrated effort. All the elements are there, and all an artist needed to do was to color inside the black lines." Spot on.

Has anyone else got any favourite comments from this unmissable book?

[Rio]

Who Is Gonna Love Me? is one of my favorite songs. As someone once said about it: achingly beautiful. That's how I felt about it long before I could understand English.

It seems so damned perfect that I'm not surprised it was not a hit. If it was any better I wouldn't care for it myself...

[Steve Schenck]

Steve, I agree with you absolutely. Who Is Gonna Love Me has long been one of my favorite BB/HD songs. You are right, those background chorus parts are heavenly; and the use of the brass is just perfect. I, too, enjoy Serene Dominic's book, but like you, I thought his assessment of the song was underrated. He tossed it off as "OK;" in truth, I think it's so much more. Steve

[scotsgreg]

I certainly concur that Who Is Gonna Love Me? is an overlooked gem, but can also appreciate that, particularly given the adventurous musical landscape of 1968, a loping waltz might have been perceived as slightly pedestrian in some quarters, while the celestial chorale treatment might very well have given Bacharach's otherwise stylishly spare arrangement too much of a 'Ray Conniff-styled polish' in others, a harbinger of the increasingly less R&B-flavored (although arguably market-broadening) direction Bacharach, David and Warwick subsequently pursued together. I personally think a more soulful or subdued backing vocal arrangement might have benefited the track's reception with pop audiences at the time. Regardless, it was most decidedly a hit, if not among Warwick's biggest, climbing all the way to #4 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary (then Easy Listening) chart, #33 on the Pop chart and #43 on the R&B chart. Crossover success of that range was a phenomenal and fairly unusual accomplishment in that still somewhat genre-pure era. It could also be argued that the songcraft and many of the lush components of Bacharach's arrangement in this composition in particular helped lay a pop foundation for Thom Bell's crossover success in his work with the Stylistics in the early-1970s.

[vincent.cole]

Well let me express my thoughts about this great song, "Who Is Gonna Love Me!"

I had mentioned this song on the forum before. About 11 years ago in 1997 I dedicated this song to my wife Cheryl after 25 years of marriage!

When I saw Dionne Warwick in Morristown New Jersey in 2005 (I believe), I told her this should song should have been a smash hit! Dionne agreed with me!

It's funny how some of Burt Bacharach's & Hal David's songs that were not major hits, are so incredible beautiful!

[whyobay]

This might be sacrilege -- but I must say that the book often drove me into fits of frustration. While it is absolutely essential as a guide to collecting Burt's work, to the evolution of his songwriting, truly a treasure trove of information, I find I am also shanghied in the wake of his personal opinions, many of which I found insulting to my own sensibilities. One often wishes that an author, in compiling such a book, would try to maintain a somewhat more neutral stance, but of course, it's his party, and he's doing the work, so what can you say? His opinion of himself as an authority on music is often insufferable. There, I've said it.

[An Enormous BB Fan]

"Who Is Gonna Love Me?" is one of the most special songs of all time, as far as I'm concerned. Only Burt could have written that music and I particularly love how the chords move in that song. And I just love that intro. Of course, Dionne's voice made it extra special. Any songwriter in the world would consider himself blessed if he could compose such a song.

[steveo_1965]

Here I am posting again on the subject of this song...
There is a lot of prespective in the different posts
of this thread.
I agree that Serene's work is a great reference book, with a lot of humor(kudos) but also filled
with his own musical accesments...some of which are not "right on". I also got t'eed off(annoyed would be a better word) with another
book : Sinatra! The Song is You, where the writer also injects his opinions about various songs, arrangements, and arrangers for Frank....this is one of the problems with books like this....and a lot of the posters on the Sinatra forum use this book as a bible to ape opinions about this or that...it urks me..
But.. as my pizza man tells me - "Steve...what you gonna do...eh?" lol
as he throws his hand up in air when we discuss various subjects..
I also amazed that Burt released this haunting beautiful song in 1968,
going against the tide of the love generation or drug era, with such groups riding the airwaves as country Joe and the Fish, Moby Grape,etc. But then again, Burt just kind of did his thing, which made him "Burt" and not an imitation of a hundred others. One thing I really liked about the 60's tho, was the diversity in music...
This started drying up as the era wound down.
Who Is Gonna Love me is a great song, but is super enhanced with Burt's wonderful arranging talents.

Steveo

[rasputin]

I absolutely adore this piece. Everything about it is right... just right on the money. It's perfect Burt and Hal at their best. The studio recording values of the record are first rate as well.

It's fairly sophisticated rhythmically... and a good bit daring harmonically/melodically; maybe it's a little over the head of the pop listening populace?

[An Enormous BB Fan]

When I was starting to learn to play the piano, it was in the sheet music to "Who Is Gonna Love Me" that I first came across a double-dotted eighth note. Not that anyone cares! LOL... but it's just something that I have never forgotten.

[steveo_1965]

I remember that "double dotted" eighth note on the printed sheet music...
very cool, as he strings out that note there...love it!

Steveo