The Burt Bacharach Discussion Forum

Wow! Thank you so much for posting that. I just listened to the segment and it's wonderful. I actually have tears in my eyes hearing Burt and Hal together. What the two of them have done for me and my life with their songs is hard to express. I never heard Hal say it, but I knew it! I knew that he just loved working on a Broadway show. And I just knew in my heart that he wishes that he had done more of them. And it was great to hear Burt say that, after the Lost Horizon debacle, he shouldn't have gone into hiding but that he should have just continued writing songs with Hal. Hal, of course, agreed with that. Hal wasn't about to quit writing due to the bad reviews of Lost Horizon. And interesting, too, to hear them say that Aretha's version of "I Say A Little Prayer For You" beat their own version with Dionne. I also couldn't help notice that Burt admitted that his version of "Promises, Promises" with Dionne was played at a slower tempo. I noticed that myself years ago when it came out.

I hate when interviewers home in on Burt's time changes and talk and talk about that. I really don't see the great importance of that and I find it a big waste of time. Why don't they talk about Burt's genius as an arranger or about how he goes about starting a song? It was like this interviewer was crazily hung up on time changes. Get over it already! I wish I could have been the interviewer.

Anyway, I just loved hearing them together. Thanks again for posting it. I hope everyone here can listen to it.

I personally didn't have a problem with Bacharach and the interviewer, who obviously knew what she was talking about, chatting at length about his uncommon approach to time, after all it's one of the aspects of his music that makes it so wonderfully unique.

It was fascinating hearing Bacharach and David interviewed together for a change with Bacharach, perhaps surprisingly, by far the more verbose. Even after 40 years you can still hear his frustration at the long and tortuous process of putting on a big Broadway musical. What was also evident was his feelings of remorse at the fallout from the 'Lost Horizon' debacle. Overall I had a great sense of 'what might have been' while listening to the interview because although the pair have worked together sporadically since it's obvious that the extra magic ingredient that lifted their songs way above the norm somehow got lost after the critical pasting of 'Lost Horizon' and in the flurry of lawsuits that followed the split with Dionne Warwick.