Bacharach and David Medley by Bacharach

Dear James,

I've been spending the morning trying to come up with fresh ideas for the Songs of Bacharach and David film, starring Duels. So far I have half a page of A4 of fairly stale ideas and the newly-gained knowledge that the actress who played Maxine in Being John Malkovich played Jerry Seinfeld's artistic girlfriend in the episode The Letter. I like to believe that this is how writers work.

But my morning hasn't been a complete waste of time as I stumbled across this nice TV appearance of Burt Bacharach with Herb Alpert. Good to see that, like all great songwriters, Bacharach can't quite hit all the notes on the songs he wrote himself.

Just when it looks like Burt's not quite going to hit that note in The Look of Love, his buddies show up to help him out! That's What Friends Are For indeed, although that song wasn't written until 1985 and was a collaboration with Carole Bayer Sager of Monty Python's The Meaning of Life fame, not Hal David. I just spent half an hour looking for the clip but I couldn't find it. This is how writers work.

Then along comes Liza Minelli! I think this is the first time I've found her attractive, not that Liza cares. I just spent thirty seconds looking for clips of Liza Minelli in Arrested Development. As a writer, I feel I've learnt not to waste too much time looking for clips that don't exist. I wonder how Liza felt about sharing a stage with a novelty marimba band. Notice how happy she is that she gets to stand next to Wes Montgomery instead of the funny men with moustaches. I wish I had a marimba. This xylophone I bought is rubbish.

I've just found out from the A House is Not a Homepage website that Burt is playing four dates in Brazil in April. That is very tempting.

Shangri-la

Dear James,

We haven't had any Kinks on this blog yet, and we still haven't as technically this is just one of them with a whole load of other people, including lots of middle-aged choirboys. This is another one of those songs where I can't work out whether it's a fine performance true to the majesty of the original or just some old people rehashing great songs they're no longer capable of writing. I'll leave our readers to work out that one, just as soon as we get some readers.

I have before me an album titled "Golden Hour Kinks Lola, Percy & The Apeman come Face to Face with the Village Green Preservation Society... Something Else". I thought Shangri-la might be on it, but it isn't. I really should fix my record player. And here's a list of chords for all the Kinks' songs ever. This is another one of those songs it took me for ever to get into. I think I first heard it through you and ignored it. Then I heard it in the bar la Cigale and asked the barman who it was. "The Kinks", he said. Damn, I thought. I'm Enlgish, I should be telling them about The Kinks. And it turns out their best album ever is Arthur, not Village Green. And I don't even own that! This is all wrong, James.

The phrase Shangri-La originated in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by James Hilton, which in turn was made into a film by Frank Capra, then remade in the Bacharch musical Lost Horizon, which was kind of where this blog started.

There used to be a beach resort near Montevideo, Uruguay, called Shangrilá, named after the place in the novel. True story.

Dear Daniel,

I rather like it, but then I think it's a great song. Two things about this version get my back up, however. Firstly, why anybody in music who ages enough to be re-visited in BBCtv retrospectives like the Electric Proms, or to appear on Jools Holland's show simultaneously peddling their ropey new albums and trading on former glories decides to use that horrible mushy "electronic" acoustic guitar sound.

Secondly, "professional" musicians often ruin music. See how the a member of the choir-for-hire beams radiantly through the line about a "mortgage hanging over his head", because she's on the telly. Suddenly, the song ceases to be a singular heartfelt take on 60s British suburbia and splits and withers, becoming a bunch of words and notes played and sung by idiots.

I think that's why Jean Luc Picard joins in (at 4'28"), trying to save them from themselves.

Up, up and away

Dear James,

It turns out there's a new film about the Wrecking Crew which has been doing the rounds of festivals but hasn't been released yet. (For readers who've just joined us, the Wrecking Crew were a shifting group of session musicians who contributed to several major records of the 60's and 70s, see River Deep... post below). Whilst enjoying this clip I heard a snippet of this song and did a search for it and it turns out it's by The Fifth Dimension, which is odd as I was about to post their Age of Aquarius yesterday and thought better of it.

How weird were The Fifth Dimension? Look at the bloke with the beard on the left. Surely he's in the wrong business? This single, written by Jimmy Webb of "Wichita Lineman" fame, won four Grammys. Clearly, the Grammy Awards have always been a joke, it's not just a recent phenomenon.

Then I looked at their Wikipedia page and it turns out they also recorded California Soul, a song I know from Marlene Shaw's version, and which was written by songwriting team Ashford $ Simpson, who went on to have that fine 80s hit, Solid. Beardy man looks even weirder in this video:


5th Dimension also had more success with Laura Nyro songs than Laura Nyro herself. Here's them doing Nyro's Stoned Soul Picnic. There's more. 5th Dimension started out as the Hi-Fis, who split up with half of them forming Friends of Distinction, who recorded the wonderful Jenny Wants to Know.

My other previous knowledge of The 5th Dimension was from reading that Nick Drake wanted Bryter Layter to sound like Pet Sounds, Tim Buckley's Hello and Goodbye and the 5th's The Magic Garden. I don't think I was impressed with either of the latter two. I'm still trying to work out if I like the 5th in a Bacharach kind of way, or whether they're just pure cheese.

Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingest

Dear James,

So, I was reading this article about the loudest band in the world and was going to post this video by experimental metal band Sunn 0))). However, they are very dull. And they're not even the loudest band in the world, the Jesus and Mary chain are. Kaiser Chiefs come seventh in the list, just behind, er, MC Hammer.

But then seeing that the Sunn 0))) video was from Germany I remembered this song by Marlene Dietrich which I'd forgotten to post. This came to me via a search for more Bacharach stuff, he conducted some Dietrich recordings in the early 60s, though not the one in this video. The song in English is "Falling in Love Again" and, it turns out, has been covered by everyone from Bryan Ferry to Cristina Aguilera. That is literally everyone.

Written by Friedrich Hollaender, the English lyrics were written by Sammy Lerner, who went on to write Betty Boop's "Don't Take My Boop Oop-a-Doop Away" and Popeye's "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man". Seriously.

Dear Daniel,

Your last sentence tests the theory that ignorance is bliss. Shall I find out whether you are being entirely truthful? I could risk finding out it's not entirely true. No, I'm happier believing something which sounds like claptrap is the unequivocal truth...

I'm going to lose my hearing. I've spent too long going to very loud gigs, playing directly in front of a stupidlly loud amp and now I spend the whole day with headphones on, listening to the sound of my own voice way too loudly. Imagine being a drummer. No, just imagine it. Awful isn't it? AND you just have to listen to the horrible smacking of drums and cymbals all the time.

Dear James,

And you'd only get to bathe once a week. Anyway, it's true about Popeye, I read it on Wikipedia, so it must be.

Song of the Year (Daniel)

Dear James,

Well, what with you in Dorset this weekend and me off to You're A Guy on Wednesday, it's that time to put on your nostalgic thinking cap and decide what was your song of the year. It doesn't have to be a song released this year (God knows, I haven't been aware of a song released in the same year since 1991), just the song that means the most to you now at this juncture in the light of the events of the past twelve months.

First of all, special mentions for also-rans Don't Stop Me Now, Potential Futures, The Power of Love and Everybody needs Somebody, special last-minute guests at your wedding; to Cold War Kids' We Used to Vacation, still top of my i-tunes pops but strictly speaking, last year's song; and especially to Andrew Bird's Heretics, a song that was with me for much of the duration and which i-tunes says is my most heard song of this year.

But in 3rd place, and also a contender for best cover that was better than the original, Love's My Little Red Book. The perfect break-up song, and the (hopefully) first song in the film, Songs of Bacharach and David. Here's the Manfred Mann version. Love supposedly worked it out after seeing the film just twice. And Burt Bacharach hated them for it, partly because they turned it into a minor key. Doesn't the original sound kind of minor? And if not, is this the first picardy third over a whole song and its cover version?

In 2nd place, While You Were Sleeping by Elvis Perkins. The night Josefina came round for the second time, she was late as usual and I was killing time scouring youtube for new things to listen to. I came across a Cold War Kids interview where they recommended two acts: Dr Dog, the band through which I got into Cold War Kids, and Elvis Perkins. I'd just started listening to this video when the doorbell buzzed, and there was Josefina. James, I lay with her that night, for the first time. We didn't sleep together, I had to go and catch a flight to Rio at 4am, but there was definitely a fair bit of sex there. And not for the last time.

And in 1st place, and here we get soppy, Postcards from Italy by Beirut. Josefina and I sang this together lots on the ukulele. In a parallel universe, there´s a video on youtube of us singing this at my birthday party, because in this universe the batteries ran out in my camera at that precise moment. If and when we get married, this will be our song.