Song of the Day: A Pop Masterpiece

"Anyone Who Had a Heart" by the fabled team of Bacharach-David, in versions by Dionne Warwick, Dusty Springfield, Linda Ronstadt and, yes, Bjork.

Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books and now writer/director of award-winning films. He was also a longtime editor of the legendary Crawdaddy.

Update: In a sad, wild coincidence, the great Burt Bacharach has died at age 94. I posted this earlier this morning…..

Keeping it simple today after a number of more complex offerings, going back to one song only, though in different versions. This is inspired by our viewing of the fine new doc on Dionne Warwick, now streaming on HBO Max. Of course, virtually all of her hits were penned by Burt Bacharach (music) and Hal David (lyrics) at their peak of pop perfection. I’ve always loved particularly “Anyone Who Had a Heart” but, in truth, nearly everyone does it the same way so I am limiting the covers to four, although they feature three of our finest singers plus a curveball from Bjork.

Bacharach titled his 2013 memoir Anyone Who Had a Heart, in which he admitted his shortcomings as a “selfish” husband and father. He even invited his ex-wives — including Angie Dickinson — to contribute.

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Dionne had the hit in USA, recorded at the end of 1963 in same session that yielded “Walk on By.” But Cilla Black, a Beatles pal, took it to top of charts in the UK, produced by George Martin.

Dusty Springfield, then little known, actually recorded her version in UK before Cilla Black’s. Petula Clark also took a crack at it.

Much later, Linda Ronstadt’s fine, if reverent, version.

Finally, Bjork, with fun animation and the Brodsky Quartet.

Cartoon of the Day

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Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, including the bestseller The Tunnels (on escapes under the Berlin Wall), the current The Beginning or the End (on MGM’s atomic bomb movie twisted by the White House and Pentagon), and The Campaign of the Century (on Upton Sinclair’s left-wing race for governor of California), which was recently picked by the Wall St. Journal as one of five greatest books ever about an election. His 2021 film, Atomic Cover-up, drew extraordinary acclaim, and his current one, The First Attack Ads, aired over hundreds of PBS stations this past fall. For nearly all of the 1970s he was the #2 editor at the legendary Crawdaddy. Later he served as longtime editor of Editor & Publisher magazine. He recently co-produced a film about Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.