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New Bacharach album is charged with politics

Tuesday, November 1, 2005

By GEOFF BOUCHER
LOS ANGELES TIMES


Composer and now lyricist Bacharach: "There are things I needed to say." (LA TIMES PHOTO)

A new album titled "At This Time" arrives in stores today with some intriguing attributes. Hip-hop beats crafted by Dr. Dre on three tracks. Politically charged lyrics, among them a bruising attack on the Bush administration. And the record label that's releasing the CD stepped in to ask the artist to tone down the raw language.

Most intriguing is that that artist is none other than 77-year-old Burt Bacharach, a songwriter best known for his polished love songs and elegant orchestrations. Some of his tennis partners are going to be a bit rattled by all of this.

"I know, I know, all of this is going to surprise some people," said Bacharach. "I wanted to take some chances. There are things I needed to say. ... I went where I wanted to go."

Where he wanted to go required some seven-minute mini-operas, a 35-piece orchestra, three hip-hop producers, Elvis Costello, Rufus Wainwright, jazzman Chris Botti and, for the first time in Bacharach's long and illustrious career of melody-making, lyrics he wrote himself.

Bacharach is one of the most famous composers in the world and in his sixth decade in the business. He has won six Grammys and three Oscars. He's collaborated on 48 Top 10 hits but along the way wrote the lyrics to exactly zero of them. Old partner Hal David was the word man on "Walk on By," "The Look of Love," "(They Long to Be) Close to You" and most of the other signature works in the Bacharach songbook.

"Through the years did I contribute a line here or there or a title to a song? Yes. But this is a whole new thing for me," he said.

There's a revelation in his writing, too: Who knew the cheerful-looking fellow behind the piano was so angry? Take the most indignant track, "Who Are These People?":


This stupid mess we're in just keeps getting worse

So many people dying needlessly

Looks like the liars may inherit the earth

Even pretending to pray and getting away with it.

Not exactly "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head." The songwriter says politics has never really been part of his personal composition.

"Vietnam, I'm sure terrible things happened, I know terrible things happened, but you know ... some years I didn't vote and politics, that just wasn't my thing," Bacharach said.

When he and David did look to geopolitical headlines for inspiration, the result wasn't exactly high-definition rhetoric. In the gorgeous 1967 hit "Say a Little Prayer," it turns out that it was a distant soldier boy whom Dionne Warwick was fretting about during her daily routine.

The singer said years later that "we were sending a message to our kids in Vietnam." Who knew? It's safe to say that for most pop fans, that message remained safely encrypted.

Not so with the new CD. Asked about the unveiled references, Bacharach's voice began to vibrate with emotion as he indexed his frustrations with the Bush administration.

"The world I see right now is so upsetting that I feel I have to say what I feel," he said. "At my age, and at this time, things are getting worse by the minute, worse by the day. And this album is that."

The album opens with "Please Explain," which is hung on the ominous chest-thump and orchestral weave of a Dre-fashioned drum-and-bass loop. The slow build leads to Bacharach's vocals, which have always been limited as an instrument and are often half-hidden behind orchestral corners. ("I'm very self-conscious about my vocals," a sheepish Bacharach conceded.)

Trumpet player and composer Botti said the famously mellow Bacharach is a "wonderful collaborator - you can't write all those lovely songs and not be a nice guy, right?"

Maybe so, but Bacharach nearly shed some of his warm and fuzzy persona. This album came mighty close to arriving in stores with a parental advisory sticker.

"Who Are These People?" features Costello, in his best pinched-rage voice, decrying liars and leaders who "can't admit when they're wrong." It ends with Costello singing: "See things really have to change/Before it's too late."

But in the studio the song had a different ending involving a certain F-word.

Bacharach was persuaded by label executives to put a less spiky ending on a lushly orchestrated track.

"But I loved the way it sounded."

The songwriter repeated the original line a few times, savoring the phonetic charge of the bomb he almost set off.

"We should have left it in," he said. "That line says it all."