Raindrops keep fallin’… the song writer has died

[doversoul1]

Hal David who wrote the song has died at age of 91

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/02/entertainment-us-haldavid-idUSBRE8800AM20120902

It seems rather unfair that all the credit went to the composer, but I hope Mr Hal didn’t mind. R.I.P.

[Northender]

'Broadcasting House' (Radio 4) will shortly feature a 'music-free' item on Hal David which will concentrate on his lyrics.

[cloughie]

What a great lyricist - who would have thought of rhyming 'phone ya' with 'pneumonia'. He and Burt were a great team.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

What a great lyricist - who would have thought of rhyming 'phone ya' with 'pneumonia'. He and Burt were a great team.

[BBMmk2]

That's what generally happens though with singer/songwriter titles etc)

Hal David RIP

[Pabmusic]

...It seems rather unfair that all the credit went to the composer, but I hope Mr Hal didn’t mind. R.I.P.

R.I.P. too. But I don't think that all the credit did go to Burt Bacharach. "Bacharach & David" were a well known team in the 60s and 70s:

Alfie
Always something there to remind me
Anyone who had a heart
Do you know the way to San Jose?
A house is not a home
I just don't know what to do with myself
I say a little prayer
I'll never fall in love again
The look of love
Magic moments
Make it easy on yourself
Message to Martha
No other love
Raindrops keep falling on my head
The story of my life
This guy's in love with you
Trains and boats and planes
24 hours from Tulsa
Walk on by
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
What's new, pussycat?
You'll never get to heaven if you break my heart

Quite impressive. When Hal David wasn't working with him, Burt Bacharach came up with things like 'Three wheels on my wagon'!

[amateur51]

R.I.P. too. But I don't think that all the credit did go to Burt Bacharach. "Bacharach & David" were a well known team in the 60s and 70s:

Alfie
Always something there to remind me
Anyone who had a heart
Do you know the way to San Jose?
A house is not a home
I just don't know what to do with myself
I say a little prayer
I'll never fall in love again
The look of love
Magic moments
Make it easy on yourself
Message to Martha
No other love
Raindrops keep falling on my head
The story of my life
This guy's in love with you
Trains and boats and planes
24 hours from Tulsa
Walk on by
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
What's new, pussycat?
You'll never get to heaven if you break my heart

Quite impressive. When Hal David wasn't working with him, Burt Bacharach came up with things like 'Three wheels on my wagon'!

An impressive list indeed, full of nostalgia for my childhood & teenage years.

Thanks Hal!

[teamsaint]

Just sheer class, the pair of them.
Their work is pretty much the first place to look if you want to know how to write great songs, IMO.

RIP.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

... and

[Serial_Apologist]

I well remember - raindrops kept falling on everyone's heads the year that song came out. It was a diabolical summer. A chanteuse used to sing that song at least 3 times a night, out of tune, at the restaurant In Piccadilly where I worked as a waiter.

But, that song apart, they were a great team; Bacharach's harmonies stretched the usual pop song envelope more than most.

[Lateralthinking1]

What a great lyricist - who would have thought of rhyming 'phone ya' with 'pneumonia'. He and Burt were a great team.

Yes quite. Bacharach and David were an absolutely outstanding team. Arguably, the latter was the sixties Cole Porter. Certainly their songs will be played for a very long time. I love most of them and, like others who have written, have happy associations.

There are so many soundtracks to the sixties. Few were as classically rooted as theirs in standard song structures, even if the new songs arrived with an unprecedented sophistication. They encapsulate a time when it seemed there were similar occurrences on every street. Just as everywhere, in our bigger family events, the musical divisions were clear. All of us kids would play in the basement with anything from the Jackson 5 to Hawkwind on the transistor radio. Upstairs the adults chatted while their middle-of-the-road records were on the stereogram. The two worlds could only collide if someone had the wrong idea of being cool.

Nevertheless, there were many of us who had the minds of Q magazine before that publication was ever imagined. Not long into the 1970s, it wasn't rocket science to see that there was middle-of-the-road and middle-of-the-road. To speak of the strengths both of "Make It Easy on Yourself" by the Walker Brothers and "Tommy Gun" by The Clash was not a good policy in 1979 for getting the biggest number of votes. By the 1990s, Noel Gallagher of Oasis was declaring that he was a fan. No one questioned it.



Hal David - 1921-2012

The list of the most well-known performers of Bacharach and David songs is a curious one. If few would argue that Aretha Franklin wasn't classy, it is to the writers credit that they also managed somehow to accommodate Cilla Black. I was very pleased to see Calum's link to the Carpenters. Their wholesome image alienated many for all time but Karen was one of the best singers pop music ever produced and "Close To You" was an exceptional song. Streisand also features. A "love her or loathe her" singer if ever there was one. I would certainly praise her earlier output, not least with reference to her work with Laura Nyro. But her version of "A House Is Not a Home/One Less Bell To Answer" would be my pick of the bunch as it is connected with a big memory in our family.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99cCk3KtBNU

When I looked at Pabmusic's excellent list, I had to ask if there were any glaring gaps. I don't think there are really except perhaps for Louis Armstrong's "We Have All The Time in the World". Hal David wrote that with John Barry. It might also be worth mentioning the fine radio presenter Ricky Ross. Before the Gallagher brothers were known, his group took a "Four Bacharach & David Songs EP" high into the charts. "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" received the most airplay. It was a good enough rendition but, frankly, not a patch on the original by Bobbie Gentry. Gentry? Now there's another back catalogue definitely worth exploring.

Finally, to "Lost Horizon" in 1973. I was taken to the cinema to see it and enjoyed it. By common consent, it is also one of the worst 50 films ever made. As it happens, Bacharach and David wrote the songs but large parts of the score were deleted after the film's road show release. The master negatives were lost too. So fraught was the project that their long partnership hit rocky ground within months. In October 2011, Columbia Classics released a fully restored version of the film on DVD which reinstated all of the elements cut after the roadshow release. The DVD also contains promos featuring the original song demos played and sung by Bacharach. Some of these demos contain different Hal David lyrics than the final versions. It may well be worth locating.