When considering a list of Burt Bacharach’s best songs — as we do whenever there’s a death like this — the temptation is to say, well, everything.
The enormity of Bacharach’s talent and contributions cannot be overstated. Born in Kansas City, Mo, and educated at music at conservatories in Montreal, New York and California, he was a master composer and arranger, not to mention a pretty fair pianist. He could lay out a melody like other people turn on a sink. And when paired with great lyricists — especially Hal David and, later, Carole Bayer Sager and Elvis Costello — Bacharach created timeless works that were strong enough to sustain multiple “definitive” versions.
His body of work could be considered the Great American Songbook 2.0, and those tunes were sung by some of the best: Dionne Warwick, Jackie DeShannon, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones, Aretha Franklin, even Herb Alpert in a rare vocal performance. The Recording Academy dubbed him “music’s greatest living composer” in 2008, and four years later, he and David were the first songwriting duo to receive a Gershwin Prize for popular song from the Library of Congress. Bacharach’s many other accolades include six Grammy Awards (plus Lifetime Achievement and trustees awards), three Academy Awards, a Songwriters Hall of Fame induction and a Polar Music Prize in Sweden. People magazine even dubbed him one of the Sexiest Men Alive in 1999.
Bacharach never lost his formidable touch; check out Blue Umbrella, his 2020 EP with Nashville songwriter-producer Daniel Tashian, to show how vital he remained.
As for the best? There’s a lot of it. But here’s our 10, which we recommended being merely a gateway to his legendary catalog.
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"What's New Pussycat?" (1965)
Kitschy? Absolutely. Over the top in the hands of original singer Tom Jones (for the Woody Allen movie of the same name)? Of course it is. And that’s what makes this 2:08 minutes of whimsy so wonderful. Put it on and you’re in a guaranteed sports stadium-sized sing-along. Or at least a Steve-Martin-in-an-attic sing-along. And there’s nothing wrong with that kind of good time. Listen here.
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"Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" (1969)
Among Bacharach and David’s trademarks was applying uplifting melody to heart-rending lyrics, which they did in fine style on this Hot 100 No. 1 song for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. But there are glimmers of hope, too, as the singer (B. J. Thomas originally) expresses determination that “it won’t be long till happiness steps up to greet me.” The joy in hearing the song is immediate, however — and was for Academy Award voters, too, who gave it an Oscar for best original song. Listen here.
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"The Look of Love" (1967)
There are a couple of ways to take this one — as a sincere paean or as a poker-faced send-up given its inclusion in the James Bond parody Casino Royale (which also features Woody Allen). Either way it’s a great listen, sophisticated in its jazzy bossa nova veneer (it was originally written by Bacharach as an instrumental) and showcasing one of Dusty Springfield’s most nuanced vocal performances. A sound to love, for sure. Listen here.
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"One Less Bell to Answer" (1967)
The 5th Dimension’s 1970 version topped Billboard’s Easy Listening chart (now Adult Contemporary) back in 1970, but there’s nothing simple in the emotions of this song as the singer tries to convince him or herself about the positives in the wake of a breakup. It was originally done by Keely Smith, but it was Marilyn McCoo who ultimately sold it best, with her groupmates’ answer vocals giving the song its heart and heft. Listen here.
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"This Guy's In Love With You" (1968)
Bacharach had penned an instrumental for Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass (“Casino Royale”), but with David he crafted this lushly melodic romantic ode that gave the troupe its first No. 1 hit on the Hot 100, for four weeks in 1968. Though first recorded (as “That Guy’s in Love”) by British singer Danny Williams, Alpert’s version boasts a start-and-stop dynamic for a gentle drama that serves the tune well. Who wouldn’t want to be serenaded like this? Listen here.
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"Toledo" (1998)
You could take most any track from Bacharach’s Painted From Memory collaboration with Elvis Costello, but this one stands out as a sublime contemporization of classic Bacharach templates. Breezy and jazzy, with perfectly deployed backing vocals and brass accents, it has all the trappings of a Bacharach-David classic and probably would have been a smash back in the mid-’60s. Listen here.
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"(They Long to Be) Close to You" (1963)
We all know — or should know — Carpenters’ definitive, Hot 100-topping rendition from 1970, recorded with the Wrecking Crew in Los Angeles. Before that, however, its merits were evident on recordings by Richard Chamberlain, Dionne Warwick and Dusty Springfield. Interestingly, it was a song Bacharach and David pitched to Herb Alpert as a follow-up to “This Guy’s In Love With You,” but Alpert didn’t think it was right for him, but gave it the newly-signed Carpenters. Hopefully they sent a fruit basket of thanks. Listen here.
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"Walk On By" (1964)
Subtlety is the key here, even amidst the strings and horns in Dionne Warwick’s original (and definitive) recording. But nothing is oversold — not the arrangement, not the instrumentation and not the palpable heartbreak Warwick’s vocal conveys. Her voice and Paul Griffin’s pianos are the stars; rather than, well, walk on by, this stops you in your tracks every time it comes on — and probably makes the listener break down and cry, too. Listen here.
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"(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me" (1964)
The heartbreak and longing that Bacharach and David did so well is neatly encapsulated in most versions of this song – whether listening to Lou Johnson’s original or subsequent hit versions by Sandie Shaw and Naked Eyes. There’s a deceptive buoyancy in the arrangement, especially in the swell of the chorus that serves as a cheerleading exercise for the singer but never lets go of the melancholy that got us there in the first place. A song that will truly always be there to remind us of the genius that created it. Listen here.
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"I Say a Little Prayer" (1967)
A song so good it hit the Hot 100’s top 10 twice in less than a year — first with Warwick’s original take and then in 1968 when Aretha Franklin put her pipes behind it for her Aretha Now album. David penned the lyrics to express a woman’s concern for her husband/boyfriend serving in Vietnam, although that’s not explicitly stated in the song, and it was a famously difficult one to get right in the studio; Bacharach, in fact, professed to being unhappy with the released Warwick track. Well, a genius can’t be right all of the time. Listen here.