"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...

Superstar / The Carpenters

"Long ago / And oh so far away / I fell in love with you / Before the second show"...

Tonight, I should be on my way to North Carolina to see Nick Lowe, Robyn Hitchcock, Dave Alvin, and a host of other YepRoc superstars play at the YepRoc 15th anniversary hoedown. But no, I'm not going, because I've had to put the fangirl on hold and act like a normal rational adult person. (Note the "act like.")  For a while. . . .

But oh, I really get where Karen Carpenter is coming from in this song.

 

It almost makes you overlook the fact that the song's protagonist is a stalker who's fantasized a brief boff into a real relationship. And all those Carpenters trademarks -- the swelling production values, the hard edge to Karen's voice, her cheesy dipthongized vowels -- things that normally really put me off, somehow work in this case, because they perfectly underscore the singer's borderline craziness. Or maybe, in hindsight, Karen's borderline craziness . . . six of one, half a dozen of the other, I guess. . .

 

I have to say, I didn't read it this way in 1971 when this track was all over the airwaves. I was sure that the girl singing had really had a meaningful affair with the rock star, and that it would be only a matter of time before he came back to town to resume their relationship. Well, that tells you a lot, doesn't it?

In fact, when this song was written by Bonnie Bramlett (of Delaney and Bonnie and Friends) and Leon Russell, the title was a lot more obvious: "Groupie (Superstar)." Not many people know their version, or even the Joe Cocker cover from Mad Dogs and Englishmen, sung by a young Rita Coolidge, But once Karen and Richard got their hands on it. . . .

What the hit version lost in irony and satire, it gained in soul-shivering sumptuousness. That throw-caution-to-the-winds passion in Karen Carpenter's voice is truly a thing of beauty and a joy forever. Bring on the harp glissandos, the lush strings, the Bacharach-ish horn section, the breathy backing chorus.

"Your guitar," she wails, plangently in the second verse, "It sounds so sweet and clear." We're right there with her, grooving on that riff -- only to learn that "But you're not really here / It's just the radio." The line between fantasy and reality is blurry, and getting blurrier all the time.

"Don't you remember you told me you loved me baby?" she pleads in the jangly chorus. "Said you'd be coming back this way again, maybe." Note that "maybe" -- it's way more than just a convenient rhyme for "baby." It's his standard line, what he says to all the girls. But she can't see that; she can only repeat, almost feverishly, "Baby, baby, baby baby, oh baby." And then, abruptly, the wall of sound telescopes into a rare acoustic simplicity for the last line: "I love you, / I really do." There's such a world of difference between his careless "I love you" and hers.

Why laugh at this girl, when she still believes with all her wretched heart that the rock star will come back? Isn't her intense belief in him grander than irony or satire? And the palpable pain of her loneliness and neediness -- well, trust Karen Carpenter to go for it without judgement or reservation. "Loneliness is such a sad affair" - that's the heart of this song.

Sure, rock music is full of groupie songs. There's the Kinks' "Starstruck," the Rolling Stones' "Starfucker." More important for me, from the ladies' perspective, we've got Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly" and Norah Jones' "I've Got to See You Again." Let's face it -- if it wasn't for us chicks lusting after those guys with the guitars, there would be no rock and roll. Why else do men pick up guitars if not to score with the ladies? So it's about time that we stage-door adorers get our fair share of credit.

In 1971, I was just enough of a budding hipster to distance myself from the Carpenters -- so plastic! so shallow! so mass market! -- yet I was not above singing along to this song alone in my car, belting it at the top of my lungs, letting the tears trickle down my cheeks because Paul McCartney still didn't know that I, his true soulmate, even existed.

(For the record, Paul still doesn't know that. Amazing, hunh? After all these years . . . )

Things haven't changed that much, not really. I was driving in my car today, listening to Sirius/XM satellite radio, and this song came on. With no one else in my car but the dog in the back seat, I could sing my heart out, and after running through about 20 Dusty Springfield hits (courtesy of my iPod), here came Karen Carpenter, another contralto, going for broke on this song. Totally in my range . . . and totally in my frame of reference. Whopping me upside the head.

God bless you, Karen Carpenter.