Fire and Water Records: The Songs of Burt Bacharach

What's new, Pussycat?!! This latest episode of Fire and Water Records pays tribute to the countless, popular hits of the late, great music composer and producer Burt Bacharach. Join Ryan Daly and special guest host Shawn Myers from Batman Family Reunion as they share their favorite Bacharach-composed songs from the scores of successful collaborations with legendary singers such as Dionne Warwick, Dusty Springfield, Elvis Costello, and more!

Track list

  1. "Close to You" performed by The Carpenters
  2. "The Look of Love" performed by Dusty Springfield
  3. "Twenty-Four Hours from Tulsa" performed by Gene Pitney
  4. "Always Something There to Remind Me" performed by Naked Eyes
  5. "There's Always Something There to Remind Me" performed by Sandie Shaw
  6. "A House is Not a Home" performed by Dame Shirley Bassey
  7. "Don't Make Me Over" performed by Dionne Warwick
  8. "Are You There (With Another Girl)?" performed by Deacon Blue
  9. "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" performed by Christopher Cross
  10. "I Say a Little Prayer (Love to Infinity Radio Mix)" performed by Diana King
  11. "God Give Me Strength" performed by Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach
  12. "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" performed by Dionne Warwick
  13. "I Say a Little Prayer" performed by Dionne Warwick

Check out Dionne Warwick performing "I Say a Little Prayer" with Boy George right here.

Let us know what you think! Leave a comment or send an email to: RDalyPodcast@gmail.com.

Like the FIRE AND WATER RECORDS Facebook page at:

This podcast is a proud member of the FIRE AND WATER PODCAST NETWORK.

Subscribe to FIRE AND WATER RECORDS on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fire-and-water-records/id1458818655

Or subscribe via iTunes as part of the FIRE AND WATER PODCAST: http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/the-fire-and-water-podcast/id463855630

Support FIRE AND WATER RECORDS and the FIRE AND WATER PODCAST NETWORK on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/fwpodcasts

Thanks for listening!

10 responses to “Fire and Water Records: The Songs of Burt Bacharach

  1. Hi, Ryan and Shawn –
    Always a joy when a new episode of Fire & Water Records appears in my feed. It’s particularly welcome tonight, as I was feeling a bit down and it perked me right up, so thanks for that.
    My favourite use of Close to You is in Parenthood, when Rick Moranis’s character is trying to win back Marcia Strassman and bursts into her classroom half singing and half reciting it to show he’s changed and beg for another chance.
    I also know Always Something There to Remind Me from Naked Eyes, so I had no idea Burt composed it. Learn something new every day.
    I’d clean forgotten about that cover of Say A Little Prayer and what a banger it is, so hearing it again was nice. I still have Dionne’s version stuck in my head, though.
    I looove covers, particularly versions that sound nothing like the original (Ex: Aztec Camera’s cover of Jump) or people don’t know are covers in the first place (Ex: TMBG’s version of Istanbul, Not Constantinople) Can’t wait for that episode, hope I catch the call for suggestions on the Discord so I can contribute.
    Thanks again for another fab episode, so glad you’ve started doing them again. See you next time!

    1
  2. I had NO IDEA that Bacharach and David wrote “Always Something There to Remind Me.” I’ve always loved the pop version, still do. Amazing!

    I will admit, I always thought Burt Bachrach was schmaltzy stuff, but then a few years I went to see (for the first time) BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE (on the big screen), which uses “What The World Needs Now” over the final scene. In that context, I found the song genuinely moving, and came away with a greater appreciation for his work.

    Great show guys!

    1
  3. I once wrote lyrics for a song where the tune was “Alife” We only rehersed once and when they played they butchered it! When you play something that Musically complex you better f@cking practice!

    1
  4. also re a house is not a home. The first version I HEARD was brooKe Benton so it feels very VERY male to me. If Inded a song can be gendered. Which I would find questionable but Dean Martin sang Patsy Cline at least once. Which is Galaxy sized wrong

    1
  5. In my mind . There always something there to remind I think of the music video and a jewelry ad that uses that song but changed the lyrics to there is always something there to excite her.
    And promises promises, the pro wrestler the big cat Erine Ladd because his ring jacket said promises promises on it

    1
  6. that’s it! that’s what bugs me about “God give me strenth the LOUD part sound like they were written for Elvis costello but the soft parts sound like they were written for diyone Warwick

    1
  7. Great episode! I will tell you the one Bacharach song that’s in my rotation (and which I’ve used to soundtrack certain improvs) is from the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid soundtrack – no, not Raindrops keep Falling on My Head, but rather: South American Getaway!

    1
  8. 1) I can never take “Close to You” seriously. I suppose like Ryan that I first encountered it in 1987’s Roxanne, which I saw theatrically, but made far, far less of an impression on me. Like the old saw about Woody, when it comes to Steve Martin, I prefer the early, funny stuff. I don’t actually remember the song from that Martin movie, but rather a later one, 1989’s Parenthood, though I think I caught it a year or two later at home. I liked and remember it less than Roxanne, but the scene where Rick Moranis serenaded Harley Kozak in a classroom stuck with me, for the wrong reasons. It was so achingly, cloyingly corny, and I’m sorry, but that pairing stretched credulity to, again, a Woody Allen degree. Unlike my father, the saccharine sounds of The Carpenters mostly make my teach ache, and that tune felt more Perry Como’s speed. I hear it more as a parody of a treacly Bacharach number than an actual one.

    2) Like another tune referenced in this episode, “The Look of Love” was introduced to me via a prominent ad campaign in the ’80s, possibly for home baked pizza like DiGiorno, or maybe pantyhose? Whatever, I associate it with cheese. I guess it’s in my Dusty Springfield top 5, but I only ranked it 31st among all Bond songs, alongside other rejected/unofficial entries. The vocals are fine, but the jazz sounds like it came out of a can. It comes across like exceptional karaoke.

    3) I’ve never been big on Gene Pitney outside “Town Without Pity”. I guess he did sing “(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance,” which I wrongly associate with the cowboy balladeer Marty Robbins, and that’s arguably one of John Wayne’s best movies. Not sure if I ever heard “Twenty-Four Hours from Tulsa” before.

    4) Not sure if I caught “Always Something There to Remind Me” by Naked Eyes in first run, or after I started getting into pop music in the late ’80s. This type of new wave didn’t get as much crossover, so it probably waited on me. Definitely my jam, from an era and genre that hits close to home. There’s something a bit flat and off about Sandie Shaw’s and Dionne Warwick’s delivery of the chorus. It just doesn’t land with their approach. There was a queer ear at play in a lot of those ’80s covers that figured out the flaws in ’60s near misses, then turned them solid gold.

    5) “A House is Not a Home” is another unfamiliar one to me. The version on the three-disc Look of Love collection is by Brook Benton, which is markedly different from Shirley Bassey, and the song missed Rhino’s The Very Best of Burt Bacharach entirely.

    6) “Don’t Make Me Over” is one of the best songs by Bacharach’s greatest muse, Dionne Warwick. I don’t recall Warwick getting a lot of play on the local Houston oldies stations, and she became an object of ridicule in the Psychic Friends Network days. so I’m not sure exactly when or how often I heard the song before picking up 1999’s Dionne Warwick – The Definitive Collection.

    7) Again, the version of “Are You There (With Another Girl)?” on The Look of Love- The Burt Bacharach Collection was by a different artist, Dionne Warwick, whose version wasn’t strong enough to make it on her own Definitive Collection. Deacon Blue’s take is a bit soft compared to Warwick’s, and highly indebted, so the vibe is overall kinda b-side.

    8) I’ve never seen Arthur, though I knew Dudley Moore from Foul Play, 10, and “thanks” to Eddie Murphy, Best Defense. Sadly, I believe a theatrical screening of Like Father Like Son was in there, as well. My family just weren’t Dudley people, and even though I think we had a Christopher Cross album left over from my step-father’s previous wife, that didn’t get much play as well. “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do)” is from that limbo period where it’s kind of a ’70s holdover and more jazz/adult contemporary than in my ’80s pocket. Like “Africa,” I didn’t really embrace it until middle age. I think it’s a really good song, but not quite an essential favorite.

    9) “I Say A Little Prayer” is another Warwick home run, its simplicity being a key enjoyment, so I’m not the intended audience for a ’90s extended dance remix from a Julia Roberts romcom.

    10) I thought I had a library rip of Elvis Costello’s Bacharach collaboration, but it might have been lost/misplaced in a drive crash during the Obama Administration that remains unrecovered. Anyway, I like “God Give Me Strength”.

    0) When you guys started listing all of the honorable mentions, I got a little smile on my face when I realized that you must be saving both Bacharach and Warwick very best song for last, “Anyone Who Had a Heart “. My mother was a fan of the 1988 bomb The In Crowd, starring Donovan Leitch and Jennifer Runyon, which had the misfortune of bridging Dirty Dancing and John Waters’ Hairspray (a movie that came out a fortnight later) without a single drop of their success (box office measured in the thousands.) We saw all three theatrically, and despite having seen him in many other movies spanning years, Joe Pantoliano’s turn as the Dick Clarke-type Perry Parker was the first of his roles that really stuck with me. My mom had it recorded on VHS, and it got a lot of plays, so I know it well by osmosis. While it had a 60s soundtrack that probably cost more to license than the movie ever made, the most resonate cuts were “Heart,” “Moon River,” and the closer, “Like a Rolling Stone”. Clearly “Heart” was my favorite, overall.

    12) So you did not, in fact, have a heart. “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?” is better than my tendency to think of it as elevator music or confuse it with “The Girl from Ipanema”, but it’s nowhere near as golden as the number I was expecting.

    1

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *