the story of my life

Remembering Burt Bacharach

/ UK #1s blog / 10 Comments

Legendary songwriter Burt Bacharach sadly died a couple of days ago, and to mark his passing I thought I’d run through the UK number ones that he (and his partner Hal David) were responsible for. There are seven in total, by acts ranging from Perry Como, to Cilla Black, to Bobbie Gentry, among his fifty-two Top 40 hits.

And, because the charts never play fair, we can only give such timeless classics as (deep breath)… ‘Walk on By’, ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head’, ‘(They Long to Be) Close to You’, ‘The Look of Love’, ‘I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself’, ‘Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa’, ‘What the World Needs Now Is Love’ and ‘I Say a Little Prayer’… a shout-out now, because they never made the top spot. Still, we have a fair few good ones to be working with, and there’s a link to my original posts in the song titles.

‘The Story of My Life’ – #1 in 1958 for Michael Holliday

Bacharach’s first big hit, originally written for Marty Robbins. Quite jaunty, very whistle-heavy, and not too much of an indication of what was to come… No matter, for a monster hit was just around the corner.

‘Magic Moments’ – #1 in 1958 for Perry Como

Very few songwriters manage to replace themselves at number one, but Bacharach and David managed it with their first two hits. Crooner Perry Como knocked Holliday off the top, and stayed there for eight weeks. More whistling, but still it’s a song that has seeped into our collective conscience. Anyway, these were just the warm-up for a run of all-time classics in the 1960s.

‘Tower of Strength’ – #1 in 1961 for Frankie Vaughan

I’d put ‘Tower of Strength’ in my Top 5 songs I’ve discovered since starting this blog. It’s a real barnstormer, in which Frankie Vaughan spends two minutes just letting rip. He’s the star here, but he needed good source material. In the US it was hit for Gene McDaniels, in a much more laidback version.

‘Anyone Who Had a Heart’ – #1 in 1964 for Cilla Black

Cilla’s version of Dionne Warwick’s original gave her the biggest female hit of the entire decade in the UK. I’m not one to indulge in idle gossip, but… Apparently Warwick hated the fact that Cilla Black got the bigger hit out of this song, claiming that had she so much as coughed on the original then Cilla would have done the same on her cover version. Bacharach was a big fan, however, personally arguing for Cilla to record it ahead of Shirley Bassey.

‘(There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me‘ – #1 in 1964 for Sandie Shaw

Another song originally recorded by Dionne Warwick – Bacharach and David’s muse throughout their long careers – though her version wasn’t released until 1968. Instead it was a bare-footed seventeen-year-old who took it to #1 in late-1964, launching the career of one of the biggest British singers of the decade. It wasn’t a hit in the US until Naked Eyes’ new-wave version in 1983.

‘Make It Easy on Yourself’ – #1 in 1965 for The Walker Brothers

The classiest #1 single ever? Never has Bacharach and David’s effortlessly slick songwriting had a cooler delivery. This was another one first recorded by Dionne Warwick, before being shelved. Along came The Walker Brothers a few years later, to give the songwriting duo their 6th UK chart-topper.

‘I’ll Never Fall in Love Again’ – #1 in 1969 for Bobbie Gentry

The last #1 hit for Bacharach and David (in the UK, at least) was also one of the 1960’s final chart-toppers. After the first two, fluffier songs on this list, the duo settled into a run of songs detailing exquisite heartbreak. Towers of strength, things being there to remind you, people not having hearts… And then this, a classic anti-love song dressed up in trademark B&D gloss. Plus, one of the best ryhming couplets in pop music history…

Burt Bacharach, May 28th 1928 – February 8th 2023

68. ‘The Story of My Life’, by Michael Holliday

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

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The Story of My Life, by Michael Holliday (his 1st of two #1s)

2 weeks, from 14th – 28th February 1958

For the first time in a while, we pull up alongside a song I hadn’t ever heard before… Not since Lonnie Donegan’s ‘Gamblin’ Man / Puttin’ on the Style’ have I been able to approach a record with my ears fresh and untainted like this. What, then, do we have here…?

First things first – this is a big step back from the frenzied piano, and then snarling guitar, of the previous two #1s. It’s got the lilting acoustic guitar that sounds soooo 1957 (see ‘Just Walkin’ in the Rain’, ‘Singing the Blues’ and ‘Young Love’ for reference). It is a rock ‘n’ roll record; but super gentle rock ‘n’ roll – diluted and a little wishy-washy.

There are also some super cheesy touches – irritating whistles at the end of lines, some toodle-oohs and bum-bum-bums from the backing singers – which almost tip it over into pastiche territory. It’s very interesting, the fact that we have seen rock ‘n’ roll fragmenting before our very ears over the past few entries: Jerry-Lee Lewis and Lonnie Donegan have given us balls-out – dare I say real – RAWK. Elvis has given us superstar, super-polished rock. Paul Anka, and now Michael Holliday, are giving us what I’d call 2nd generation rock ‘n’ roll – pop music with rock touches, designed to appeal to the kids and their parents.

To the lyrics: Michael wants to write the story of his life: I’ll tell about, The night we met, And how my heart can’t forget, The way you smiled at me… Awwww. Basically his love is his life. But wait… They broke up! No wait… They made up! Safe, safe.

The story of his life isn’t quite over, though. It won’t be until – you guessed it – they get hitched. There’s one thing left to do, Before my story’s through, I’ve got to take you for my wife, So the story of my life can start… and end… with you… It’s nice. This is a perfectly nice, perfectly sweet and utterly forgettable record. I was actually shocked to discover, as I embarked on a little Wikipedia-ing, that ‘The Story of My Life’ was written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, the first of this legendary duo’s songs to top the UK charts. A shock because, compared to the classics they wrote later in their careers, this is very, very meh. A big contender for the ‘Meh Award’ in my next recap, I’d say.

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I’d hoped to pad this post out by delving a little into just who Michael Holliday was – as he’s someone I’d never heard – but I’ve just realised that we’ll meet him again, briefly, in a couple of years. Best hold something back for then. Suffice to say, he made the most of a short career – scoring two number ones out of only ten charting singles – before dying at the shockingly young age of thirty-eight. He has a nice, if unremarkable, voice on this nice, if unremarkable, record. Wiki sums it up best in their succinct entry on Holliday: ‘a British crooner popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s.’

Fin.