"I Say a Little Prayer for You" -- A Bacharach Smackdown

When Burt Bacharach died in February, I started making a playlist -- as one does -- and found myself having to make a lot of choices. I mean, I couldn't have the Dionne Warwick version of every song. In some cases, it was a coin flip -- go with Dusty Springfield here, opt for Jackie DeShannon there, a little Sandie Shaw here, a little Karen Carpenter there. Throw in some Isaac Hayes and a touch of Herb Alpert, and you start to realize just what genius songwriting Burt Bacharach and Hal David were guilty of.

Now don't get me wrong: In the world of Bacharach, Dionne Warwick more than earned her stripes. She not only had the voice he needed -- the range, the clarity, the pitch, the emotional texture -- she also had the musical intelligence for a composer who liked changing keys and time signature so much, damn all the pop music conventions. A child of a gospel choir family, she'd also gone to a music conservatory; she knew her stuff. Bacharach himself called her his muse, and I'll fight you to the death for her versions of "Don't Make Me Over," "Do You Know the Way to San Jose," and "I'll Never Fall in Love Again." 

But then I ran smack into this conundrum. 

I grew upon Dionne's million-selling 1966 single "I Say a Little Prayer for You." It's a masterpiece, no doubt about it. It's got that brisk scat-like rhythm, the crisp muted horns, and an indefinable undertow of something I can only call Santa Monica surf. And there's Dionne's vocal, delicate and yet razor sharp, recounting all the ways in which she thinks of her man throughout her day. Hal David's lyrics deftly walk us through her day -- waking up, applying her make-up, riding the bus to work, taking a coffee break -- she's a career girl, she has it together, and she's happily in love. David apparently intended the song to be about a woman whose lover/husband is serving in Vietnam (1966, mind you), but there's nothing anxious about this track. She shouts her love to the rooftops (the chorus exults, "Forever, forever, we never will part, oh how I love you") and she's down on her knees thanking God for blessing her with such a love. It's sunny and delicious. As a pre-teen, this told me everything I wanted to believe about how wonderful it would be as a grown-up -- a competent modern female -- to love and be loved.

But now that I am a grown-up, why does Aretha Franklin's version pack such a punch? The edgy growl in Aretha's voice clues us in from the get-go: She's worried about this guy, and for good reason. With that gritty soul arrangement and the gospel choir of girlfriends doing the call and response, she's testifying to her anxieties. Whereas Dionne I imagine springing out of bed, Aretha seems to be hauling herself groggily out from under the covers; Dionne is patting her coiffure into place while Aretha yanks a comb through her hair, attacking those overnight tangles. She doesn't have a lot of down time, and when she does -- the bus ride, the coffee break -- it just opens the door for worrying. Whether he's in Nam and just a no-good lowlife, she's praying for him, asking for protection. Gratitude? Forget about it. She doesn't trust him, she's waiting for bad news. And all those details about her daily life read as the strength of a woman who keeps putting one foot in front of the other, getting up, going to her job, because she's learned she can't depend on anyone else -- and surely not on that man. Even the chorus reads differently: I zero in instead on the feisty lines "Together, forever, that's how it must be / To live without you / Would only mean heartbreak for me..." She can already taste the heartbreak, because she's tasted it before. This is a whole 'nother song.

Well, I put both in my playlist. How could I not? But I'd love to hear which one speaks most to you...

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Okay, so it's late AGAIN. But give me a break -- I was out listening to rock and roll all evening. Hey, I have my priorities straight!

1. "Cruel To Be Kind" / Marshall Crenshaw
From Labour of Love: The Music of Nick Lowe (2001)
Too perfect -- because it was Marshall Crenshaw I went out to see tonight, at a Gulf Coast benefit tribute concert to Alex Chilton (how's that for mashing together causes?). I'll say this right now: I prefer Marshall's version of Nick's big hit record to Nick's own -- MC just nails the plaintive, wounded, clueless quality of Nick's persona here. He just sounds like a guy who'd let this chick walk all over him, and then buy her excuses.

2. "I Take It On Home" / Charlie Rich
From Behind Closed Doors (1973)
Another country artist I just don't know enough about. I grew up knowing his two big hits, the coy "Behind Closed Doors" and the smarmy "Most Beautiful Girl in the World," so I never gave him a chance. I recently started to trawl through his back catalog, however, and -- HELLO! This song is even on the same album as those two; it was written by Kenny O'Dell, who also penned "Behind Closed Doors." Go figure. It's a honey.

3. "Summer Song" / Chad and Jeremy
From Yesterday's Gone (1964)
Mushy sentimental pop-folk -- but it was British mushy pop-folk, which made it all okay to my little pre-teen heart in 1964. These guys were so darn cute . . .

4. "Wonderful Feeling" / Lulu and Alan Price
From Shout!: The Decca Years (compilation)
Now here's some sassy British pop, circa 1964, with the gritty edge of Lulu's powerful girl voice matched by Alan Price's own Geordie gruffness. Alan had quit the Animals by then and was forging a more mainstream pop course with the Alan Price Set; how perfect to match him up with Lulu, who was treading her own fine line between pop and R&B. Alan wrote this song; produced the track, too. It's completely infectious pop, swinging horn section and all.

5. "Jenny Wren" / Paul McCartney
From Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (2005)
Paul trying to find his inner folkie. I've got to love it, because it's Paul (who by the way tonight received the Gershwin Award for Contemporary Music at the White House -- toss it in the drawer with all the other citations and medals, Pauly!). If I didn't harbor a sneaking suspicion he was just trying to re-do "Mother Nature's Son" . . .

6. "Moving the Goalposts" / Billy Bragg
From Don't Try This At Home (1991)
I feel a Billy Bragg post coming on. Bragg's deft political satire (which comes off extra-spiky in those Cockney vowels) sometimes overshadows his brilliant relationship songs. Here we've got both in one song, as he name-checks Gennady Gerasimov (former Soviet ambassador to Afghanistan), then side shifts into a tender, and incredibly sexy, depiction of him and his girl, occupying new territory in their own love affair. He draws this little vignette with so few details; we have to connect the dots . . . but it's all there. Stunning, really.

7. "It's Not Hard" / Alan Price
From Based on a True Story (2002)
And now here's Alan Price much later in his career -- on this obscure self-released album that contains some of his finest stuff in years. Who knew?

8. "Now's the Time" / Brinsley Schwarz
From The New Favourites of Brinsley Schwarz (1974)
Because there always must be something by Nick Lowe, even if it's a completely callow throwaway track -- not even a Nick composition, but an old Hollies song, written by' Graham Nash and Gene Clarke, issued as the B-side to their 1963 hit "Stay." Nick's not even singing the lead (is that Ian Gomm instead? or Brinsley?). And yet it's on my iTunes, and it's adorable.

9. "Holly Would" / Jackie DeShannon
From Laurel Canyon (1969)
Did I download this track because it has my name in it? Oh, probably. A little character study of a sort of free spirit, very post-Summer of Love Southern California.

10. "A Slow Song" / Joe Jackson
From Night and Day (1982)
There are only a few albums that I have loaded in their entirety onto my iTunes. (Make that only a few non-Nick Lowe albums.) Night and Day is one of them. I just love how desperately Joe throws his earnest, cracking voice into this plaintive waltz. This entire album seems to me to dance on the knife edge of a love affair that could go down the tubes at any minute. So why not dance real close while you still can?

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Sweltering hot here in New York City the past few days -- how has it been where you are? Too hot to do anything else but switch on my shuffle!

1. "Hey Scenesters!" / The Cribs
From The New Fellas (2005)
Snappy guitar riffs, crisp drums, and the Jarman brothers shouting "Hey scenesters! Hey, hey scenesters!" over and over. It's like a BritPop version of the Tremeloes' goofy, genial "Even the Bad Times Are Good," right down to the lo-fi production qualities -- except for a certain tunelessness (think the Strokes on a lager high) that betrays it as a 21st century track. Infectious energy -- you've just got to giggle.

2. "Back on the Corner" / John Hiatt
From Master of Disaster (2005)
Hard to believe this was released the same year as The Cribs' -- it's a little vintage soft shoe, sung in John's creaky old-guy voice, with banjo and slide guitar to give it that O Brother Where Art Thou? style. It almost sounds like a throwaway track, but hell, nothing Hiatt writes is ever a throwaway -- listen carefully and you'll pick up nuggets of survivor wisdom.

3. "If You've Got to Make A Fool of Somebody" / Jackie DeShannon
From For You (1967)
Ah, mid-60s pop. Strings, back-up choirs, even a bloopy trombone here and there -- pour on the lush studio effects! Still, you have to hand it to Jackie -- who else was going to move the girl group sound into the hippie era?

4. "I Want to Say a Prayer" / Colin Blunstone
From Echo Bridge (1995)
I don't care who knows it -- I have a fangirl crush on Colin Blunstone, or at least on his dreamy, creamy voice. His soft-rock solo albums are nothing compared to his work with the Zombies, but sometimes this romantic mush is just what I need. (Picture big-haired Colin with his jacket slung over his shoulder and shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest.) Anyway, it's appropriate to hear this today, as today -- July 7 -- is the birthday of the wonderful Jim Rodford, who's played with Argent, the Kinks, the Animals, and nowadays with Colin in the modern-day Zombies. (Also Ringo Starr's 70th birthday, but who's counting?)

5. "She's Got You" / Loretta Lynn
From I Remember Patsy (1977)
Very few singers can cover a Patsy Cline song and hold their own -- but there's a reason why Loretta is the queen of country music. Her take on this Hank Cochran number is just a shade lighter and more kittenish than Patsy's, and in a way it works even better -- while Patsy's original was underlaid with steel, Loretta actually sounds just like a moony high-school girl, carrying a torch for her ex-steady guy.

6. "Garden Party" / Rick Nelson
From Garden Party (1972)
Oh, man, Ricky Nelson goes country. I remember being amazed by this amiable, lilting late hit -- like "American Pie," which had come out a year earlier, it's a riddling string of coded references to other musicians. But it's also Ricky's declaration of independence, casting aside the teen idol and coming into his own as country-rocker Rick. "You can't please everyone, so you got to please yourself," he tells us with a wink and nod. Life lesson.

7. "Funny Face" / The Kinks
From Something Else (1967)
A Dave song! I love Dave's voice, and this is a charming, quirky little love song, with a bit of music hall bounce. But when you're always being compared against a talent like his brother Ray . . . .

8. "How Kind of You" / Paul McCartney
From Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (2005)
And now here's Ringo's ex-bandmate. No surprise -- I've got A LOT of this guy's stuff on my iPod, and (ahem) not all of it good. I do wish Paul McCartney would pay somebody -- somebody like me, perhaps -- to warn him off of gooping up simple little songs. That muddy harmonium, or whatever, tries to build this into an anthem, a status this slight song can't carry. I'd have rewritten a lyric here or there, kept the track acoustic, and cut the whole thing off at three minutes. Then we'd have had a beauty!

9. "Seesaw" / Don Covay
From Seesaw (1966)
Classic R & B, with a sassy horn section, handclap rhythms, and an innuendo streak a mile wide. "Your love is like a seesaw / Up, down, and all around..." I wonder who that is doing the crazy talking alongside Covay's honey-sweet vocals. Covay's one of those guys whose fingerprints are all over 1960s R&B; he started out in The Rainbows with young Marvin Gaye, but he's best known as a songwriter ("Chain of Fools," "Mercy Mercy," and many others). He wrote this one with resident Stax genius Steve Cropper, which may account for the perky Booker-T-style beat. Deee-lish.

10. "Oklahoma USA" / The Kinks
From Muswell Hillbillies (1971)
Now this is how it's done. That harmonium is so light, just a sigh here and there, against a tinkling upright piano; and Ray's breathy, yearning vocals. I think of this as an early version of "Come Dancing," soaked with nostalgia for the American culture that fed North London teens in those lean postwar years. It makes me cry every time. "All life we work, but work is a bore / If life's for living, what's living for?" Words to live by.

Wednesday Shuffle

I did get a new iPod Shuffle this week -- an absurdly tiny device, in neon green metal, that only holds about 500 songs. Half of the thing consists of a steel clip (engraved with my name!) on the back, a definite clue that it was developed mainly to carry gym music. So yeah, I loaded all my uptempo tracks on there -- but don't worry, today I'm spinning tunes from the full library, just like always...

1. "I've Got to See You Again" / Norah Jones
From Come Away With Me (2002)
Steamy slow samba about an affair, probably illicit, and definitely with an older man. (Older than Norah, that is.) The main thing is the refrain, "I can't help myself / I've got to see you again." I love how she groans, just a little, on that line -- it's simply dripping with desire.

2. "Laurel Canyon" / Jackie DeShannon
From Laurel Canyon (1968)
Was Jackie DeShannon America's answer to Dusty Springfield? No way, but I do enjoy her California soul take on the late 60s, with hippieism just beginning to creep in. ("I'm sewing flowers on my blouse...") The laidback boogie of this ode to her hip L.A. neighborhood paints a pretty inviting portrait -- almost enough to make me want to move there. Almost.

3. "Grass" / XTC
From Skylarking (1986)
Ah, the sublime Andy Partridge. I sure do dig this slidey melody (and how the guitars and synths slide around too). Even though he sings, "Over and over let us flatten the clover," I suspect I know which kind of grass this song is about. Bird effects at the end, too -- how springlike!

4. "White Blank Page" / Mumford & Sons
From Sigh No More (2010)
Though these guys are from London, they sure remind me of the Wood Brothers or Fleet Foxes or the Avett Brothers -- must be the banjo, the fiddles, and the saturated harmonies. Their homespun folky sound sure works for me, though this album is kinda heavy on downer songs. There' s plenty of passion to rescue this tune about an affair gone sour -- it simply aches with love denied.

5. "Oh Me Oh My (I'm Fool For You Baby)" / Lulu
From New Routes (1969)
This was probably the only other Lulu song we ever heard in States, after "To Sir With Love," and its R&B sound was so authentic, I always thought it was a cover. (Maybe because Aretha sang it a couple years later.) Turns out it was written for Lulu by a songwriter from her native Glasgow -- go figure. At least they recorded it at Muscle Shoals. "I'll stage a ballet on a tabletop" is a great line, but even better is the next verse, "We'll blow a genie from a cigarette / And then we'll take a magic carpet ride." Why, Lulu!

6. "Love Song" / Brinsley Schwarz
From Despite It All (1970)
Vintage Brinsley tune, a quite serviceable imitation of forgettable country-rock (Brewer & Shipley, anyone?). But hey, it's written by Nick Lowe, so you know it's loveable. "This here is a love song / I got to get back to my baby's heart again / This here is a love song / I got to sing it till I get back home." By the last verse, we find out she's broken up with him, but this does not seem to dim his conviction one bit. Hang in there, Nick!

7. "Back to the War" / John Hiatt
From Two-Bit Monsters (1980)
We just had early Nick Lowe, now we've got early John Hiatt -- from the days when he was being promoted as "the American Elvis Costello." Trying to live up to that comparison, John let no metaphor go unexplored, and all relationships were by definition nasty and contentious. "I've got this dynamite / I know you're sitting tight / Waiting for news / Well, I'm lighting the fuse." I didn't discover Hiatt until much later, when he'd settled into his own groove, but as a sophomore effort this still ain't bad.

8. "Keep It Simple" / Keb' Mo'
From Keep It Simple (2004)
"Two cars, three kids, six loans / A whole lot of confusion in my home / Six hundred channels on my TV screen / Six hundred versions of the same damn thing." Oh, sure, Keb's music sounds like the most ancient dirt-caked Delta blues -- but do not be misled. It's sly, funny, and totally perceptive social commentary, just topped off with a little pedal steel. "Decaff latte cappucino, said the cashier / Gimme a small cup of coffee, I said, and get me outta here!"

9. "Everything But a Heartbeat" / The Searchers
From Play For Today (1980)
Though it's late Searchers, the sound is solid British Invasion gold, in the jangly-guitar vein of their classic "Needles and Pins," thanks to songwriter Will Birch (of Kursaal Flyers and the Records), who also penned "Hearts In Her Eyes" for them. It's a skewering Bad Girlfriend song, from a guy who's fully prepared to twist the knife (a Will Birch specialty). She's got a great smile, a great way of walking, all the pop cliches -- "But I want to tell you what she's all about / She'll wind you up and then she'll spit you out." Ouch.

10. "Ashes to Ashes" / Steve Earle
From Jerusalem (2002)
No, not the Bowie hit -- a pity, because that's the one I really like. Instead, this is a twangy sort of talking blues, as Steve Earle slouches towards Bethlehem, spewing political aspersions and dark apocalyptic visions. I know Steve Earle is supposed to be a great songwriter. Hell, he probably is, I just haven't heard the right tracks. Why is this one even on my iTunes?

Pity it had to end on that note -- the next track would have been Wanda Jackson's "I Forgot to Remember to Forget Him", a much more appropriate sign-off for this chick-lit cluster of songs. Oh, well, the Shuffle genie apparently had other plans...

"Put A Little Love In Your Heart" / Jackie DeShannon

This just didn't fit in my recent Month of Love Songs -- those were all about romantic love, while Jackie DeShannon's singing about brotherhood and fellowship and harmony and all those other hippie-dippy ideals. But it sure fit into the soundtrack of 1969, with lines like "Think of your fellow man / Lend him a helping hand"; "We won't let hatred grow"; "Kindness will be your guide"; and "And the world will be a better place" (why does this line make me want to buy the world a Coke?). I listen to this and suddenly I want to rummage around in my closet for that embroidered bleached linen tunic I threw away 25 years ago. Peace out, man!

Jackie DeShannon intrigues me. This is a woman who dated Elvis Presley, was Jimmy Page's main squeeze, wrote songs with Randy Newman, had Ry Cooder as her guitarist and Barry White as a back-up singer (not at the same time, but still). Among the hits that other artists had with her songs were "When You Walk In the Room" (the Searchers), "Come and Stay With Me" (Marianne Faithfull), and "Bette Davis Eyes" (Kim Carnes). Yet the industry folks envisioned her as a girl singer, the American equivalent of Dusty Springfield, or at least of Petula Clark or Sandie Shaw; her first two hit singles, "Needles and Pins"(1963) and "What the World Needs Now Is Love" (1965), were both by other songwriters. I have this one 1967 album by her on which she even sings standards like "Night and Day" and "When I Fall In Love," as if no one knew what to do with her. Here was this wide-eyed blond with perfect features and a sylph-like figure -- no wonder they kept trying to force her into a pop mold.

"Put A Little Love In Your Heart" was the song where it all came together for her, a hit record that she wrote herself, and one of the indelible tunes of that eventful year of 1969. Though Jackie was thought of as a white soul singer, she was really more of a white girl singing soul songs for crossover appeal. "Put A Little Love In Your Heart" certainly has a Stax-like rhythm line, but her vocals sound more country than soul to me, with all the twang of her native Kentucky. On that upward swoop of "love" and "world," I swear there's a little yodel in her voice, and the guitarwork is distinctly twangy. A touch of goopy strings and horn accents doom this forever to a Top 40 pop sound. The gospel choir call-and-response on "And the world (and the world) / Will be a better place" hits the spot, though, especially on the suspenseful repeated notes of "for you (for you) and me (and me) You just wait (you wait)," erupting at last into the joyous "And see!" You can't help getting caught up in it.

Like so many other 1969 songs, this one carries shadows of social unrest ("You see it's getting late / Oh please don't hesitate"; "Another day goes by / And still the children cry"). Although DeShannon's voice is more bell-like than throaty, she still manages to inject this with urgency. But it's so much more upbeat and positive than other anthems of this era -- think of "For What It's Worth" and "Spinning Wheel." And given the temper of the time, maybe that wasn't a plus.

I keep hoping for Jackie DeShannon to be a better songwriter than she is; the lyrics on this are predictable, the melody limited to a few repeated musical phrases. I guess it was no surprise that she'd soon be swept aside by rawer girl singers like Grace Slick, Janis Joplin, and Cass Elliott. But I can't help liking her, and liking this song.

Put A Little Love In Your Heart sample