Stuff, from New Zealand -- Review

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http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,348 ... 00,00.html

Stuff, from New Zealand

What the world needs now

SUNDAY , 20 NOVEMBER 2005


He may be famous for his love songs, but politics are now breaking Burt Bacharach's heart, writes Grant Smithies.

John Lennon is dead, and Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Rogers and Hammerstein and the Gershwins aren't looking too lively either. Paul McCartney is a shadow of his former self.

Brian Wilson is as mad as a jellyfish. Bob Dylan hasn't written a "pop" song in decades. Which by my reckoning makes this man, chewing his way through toast and eggs in a New York hotel lobby, the world's greatest living pop songwriter.

"Well, I mostly wrote the music. Other people wrote the words," says Burt Bacharach. "But, yes, I'm proud of what I've done."

Why is he eating his breakfast at three in the afternoon? Because this 77-year- old is a star, and he can do whatever the hell he likes. "The songs I wrote with Hal David have touched people. I only really see that when I'm doing concerts, and you can see it in the faces of people in the front rows. They're genuinely moved." What do you think moves them so much? Chew, chew. Pause. Swallow. "Well, I've always written romantic songs. And romantic songs move people. It's very simple."

By this he means it's as simple as quantum physics, as neurosurgery, as microbiology. Because all over the world, every day, great ruminating herds of songwriters attempt to write songs that will move people as profoundly as Bacharach's best songs have done. All but a few fail. This man has had 48 top 10 hits in America alone and published more than 500 compositions, the best of which have burned deeply into our collective subconscious. Even so, some plonkers persist in calling Bacharach's work "easy listening" music. "I know! It's bizarre. Can you tell me 'Anyone Who Had a Heart' is easy listening?"

Bacharach sails across the entertainment waters, serene as Buddha, his too-tanned face and suspiciously too-smooth skin framed by a halo of white hair, the faintest of smiles twitching at the corners of his lips, safe in the knowledge that he has composed at least 50 of the best songs ever written.

So what if cheesy Hammond organ versions of "Walk on By" plague you in department store elevators? Who cares if NZ Idol contestants routinely slaughter "I Say a Little Prayer for You"? No point blaming Burt. He just wrote the buggers, and for that I am eternally grateful. Every tender trumpet parp and head- over-heels harp, every bookish oboe and randy flugelhorn, every avalanche of strings and detonation of drums feels utterly perfect. You want drama? Dusty Springfield's devastating version of "Anyone Who Had a Heart". You want disappointment, masquerading as joy? Listen closely to "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?"

At a time when most pop songs were just three chords and a back-beat, Bacharach took the lush romanticism of French impressionist composers such as Debussy and Ravel, blended in Brazilian bossa nova rhythms, added complex counter- melodies, sprinkled in some traditional pop and soul references and hey presto - pop noir.

Bacharach's miniature symphonies perfectly underscored the knowing wordplay of lyricist Hal David, who writes lyrics so spare and memorable, so generous in their disappointment and rapier-sharp in their wit as to be utterly unimproveable. Superficially very sunkissed, breezy and Californian, their best work is in fact heartbreakingly sad; the songs arrive at your table marinated in tears. Many of their protagonists are unspeakably lonely and broken, or so deeply in love they're paralysed by fear of change.

"I've always been fascinated by love, for some reason," says Bacharach. "It's a complex emotion, isn't it? That's partly why I thought it deserved more complex music."

BORN IN 1928, Bacharach was raised in New York City. His father was a journalist, and his mother Irma an aspiring singer who forced young Burt to study piano, drums and cello as a child. He hated it. He remembers pounding out chords, lonely as hell, while his classmates were roller- skating in the sun.

Already hooked on classical music, Bacharach discovered jazz in the late 40s, sneaking into clubs on 52nd St with a fake ID to watch Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk. He led his own jazz bands while studying musical composition in college, then worked as a pianist for a variety of singers.

Between stints in the army and travelling the world as musical director for Marlene Dietrich, he started writing unusually sophisticated pop songs with Hal David.

From 1958 to 1975 they racked up 52 top 40 hits - many of them sung by Dionne Warwick, a gifted young singer Bacharach discovered singing back-up for The Drifters.

"Those early songs moved so many people," he says. "And I hope my new album, At This Time, will move people as much as those early songs did."

Parts of it certainly moved me. It's a broken-hearted album, as always, but this time it's Bacharach's own heart that's been broken, and it's not a girl that's responsible. It's the American government.

"I've always been an apolitical person, but this administration has changed me. For the first time in my life all the good people are now outside the government."

And then this softly spoken composer of love songs says something unexpectedly forthright: "Those that are left inside are a pack of yes men and f–king liars! I never paid much attention to Vietnam. It was terrible, but it was so far away, so I just stayed in my own narcissistic world, writing love songs. When the Cuban missile crisis was happening in 1963, I was too busy finishing 'Anyone Who Had a Heart'. The Nixon years, well, I didn't like him, but I didn't bother going to march in Washington. In fact, I didn't even bother to vote! I kept writing love songs. But eventually a time comes when that is not enough."

"George W Bush is the worst president of my lifetime, a dangerous, dishonest man behind an illegal and immoral war that threatens my family."

Elsewhere on the album Elvis Costello and Rufus Wainwright guest. There's a typically tearstained bossa nova, no shortage of oboes and pianos, and some truly thrilling arrangements. But the most surprising thing is the presence of Eminem producer and ex-NWA kingpin, Dr Dre. Who'd have ever thought we'd see these two sides of Los Angeles collide? Dr Dre, one time crack-selling, gang-banging Nigga With Attitude from South Central LA, and Burt Bacharach, one-time king of Hollywood's swinging 60s bachelors.

"Dre is a genius for condensing emotion into the most minimalist beats," Bacharach says. "I'd listen and I'd think - OK, the orchestra needs to explode right here, strings fall downwards here, some woodwinds there. It all started to unfold in my head. I could hear it all! And then - what's this? I was hearing words as well!"

And so this whispering old gentleman, who lives quietly in the Pacific Palisades near LA, writing music and breeding horses, wrote his own lyrics for the first time in his life. "Why? Because I badly needed to say some things. The times we live in are horrendous. Nobody's safe these days. If I was a journalist, I'd write about it all, but I'm a songwriter, so I'm writing songs instead. They're angry songs, but it's all still under an umbrella of love."


At This Time is out now on Sony/BMG.