In less than three minutes, Bacharach takes you on what seems like a compressed tour of the whole territory of heartbreak, courtesy of his amazing mastery of the pop orchestra. He composes, he orchestrates, he conducts, and he creates a sound that is uniquely his, one I would come to know as the quintessential sound of 60s pop.
But by the same token when you hear expressions of longing like I Get A Kick Out of You and All Through the Night, you cannot be blind to the fact that the lyricist knew a thing or two about the emotional side of love as well. He knew about being in love when the object of your affections doesn’t reciprocate.
Figuring out girls with a little help from Judy Garland and Marlene Dietrich …
Standing on that field under a darkening, cold sky, with the indomitable sound of those drums and tympani shaking the earth, mischance is being defied. For a moment at least, Michigan, and I as one of its fans, are transcendent. The universe is ours. Go Blue!
I very specifically recall the thrill of reading Tolkien sitting there. And while I was reading it, I often had playing softly, so as not to wake my parents, one particular record from The Treasury of the World’s Great Music. This LP combined on one side the symphonic version of Borodin’s Polovetsian Dances and Dukas’ The Sorceror’s Apprentice. Now with all respect to Howard Shore’s estimable soundtrack for the Peter Jackson’s near-definitive movies, once you’ve listened to these pieces, you will never think of Shore as being in the same class in capturing the thrill of those books.
Have I been defending my youthful tastes a little by portraying myself as a sophisticate-in-training with a yen for the challenging hidden within the mundane like a diamond in the rough? Probably. But with this next item, Lawrence Welk’s version of Calcutta, there is absolutely no making that argument. However intelligently constructed, it is musical kitsch, and one has to start with that.
Rolling arpeggios, a haunting theme, spectacular effects, Detroit at its swankiest, and my dad …