Hogan's Heroes – "Hogan's Heroes March" (1966)

We’ve got a slogan

From Colonel Hogan

And Colonel Hogan’s a her0, too!

As the great Nick Lowe once said,

And so it goes and so it goes

And so it goes and so it goes

But where it’s goin’ no one knows

Truer words were never written – 2 or 3 lines proves that over and over.

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So there I was, sitting at my computer and working on a 2 or 3 lines post, when the train jumped the tracks.  Before I knew what was happening, I had lost control of my wildly successful little blog and was up to my neck in weirdness and sleaze. 

To paraphrase the Bobby Fuller Four, I fought the blog but the blog won – resulting in the hot messes you’re about to read.  

Yes, I said “hot messes” – not “hot mess.”  As is my wont, I took what was originally going to be one post and pumped it so full of hot air that I could turn it into two posts.  (If you’ve ever wondered how I’ve been able to generate over 1500 posts since I started writing 2 or 3 lines in 2009, that’s how!)

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I could begin at the beginning . . . but everyone begins at the beginning.  So let’s begin at the end instead.

Here’s the tombstone that marks the burial place of actor Bob Crane, the star of Hogan’s Heroes – the truly appalling sixties sitcom that portrayed life in a Nazi prison camp as being more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

Call me old-fashioned, but I’m not a fan of tombstones with photographs:

And I’m even less of a fan of tombstones featuring bad (and badly proofread) poetry:

“Wild Wheat”

The Wind Blows O're [sic] The Plains

Through The Wild Wheat

Wild Wheat That's Never Reaped

Wild Wind. Wild Wind. Wild Wheat

And Then The Stillness Comes

And Heat of August Sun

The Earth Is Parched And Dry

All Living Now Must Die

Wild Wheat against The Sky

Once Young Now Brown And Dry

All Signs Of Life Are Gone

Yet In Still Earth The Roots Live On

It's [sic] Seeds Of Life Are Sewn

Wind Blown Far A Field

All Little Ones Must Fly

Wild Wheat Will Never Die 

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“Wild Wheat” is credited to “Patrica Crane, Humanist.”  Patricia Crane (née Patricia Olson) was Bob Crane’s widow, and she was buried next to him when she died in 2007.

So who was Sigrid Valdis, and why is her name on the tombstone next to Crane’s?  

Sigrid Valdis and Patricia Crane are one and the same, boys and girls.  Like her husband, Patricia was an actor – in fact, she and Bob met when they were both appearing in Hogan’s Heroes.  Sigrid Valdis was her stage name.

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Hogan’s Heroes ran for six seasons – from 1965 to 1971 – on CBS.  

In the show, Bob Crane played Colonel Robert Hogan, the ranking officer among the American, British, and French prisoners of war at a fictional German prison camp.  

His POW sidekicks included Richard Dawson (a Brit who later achieved fame and fortune as the smarmy host of Family Feud), and Robert Clary (a French Jew who was the only survivor among thirteen family members who were sent to concentration camps).

The three main Nazi characters in the shows were played by German or Austrian Jews who had emigrated to the United States after Hitler’s ascension to power.

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Sigrid Valdis had a guest role in one Hogan’s Heroes episode in its first season, and then took over the role of Hilda, the German POW camp commander’s secretary, for the rest of the series’s run.  

Hilda and Hogan did a lot of canoodling.  She betrayed her Nazi superiors by giving Hogan information that helped his espionage and sabotage missions to succeed.

Her first husband died in 1967.  Crane and his first wife were divorced in 1970, and he married Valdis later that same year.  (Is it possible he jumped the gun a little?  Just sayin’.)  

The two were wed on the set of Hogan’s Heroes:

Richard Dawson was Crane’s best man.

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Hogan’s Heroes was a top ten show in its first season, which gave someone the bright idea of having the cast members record an LP.

The Hogan's Heroes Sing The Best of World War II album, which was released in 1966, included not only a number of songs that were hits during World War II – including “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree,” “Lili Marleen,” and “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition” – but also a new version of the TV show’s theme song, the “Hogan’s Heroes March.”

The show’s opening credit sequence featured an instrumental theme by famed film composer Jerry Fielding.  Fielding wrote some very clever lyrics for his theme, and the new version of the “Hogan’s Heroes March” was released as the initial track of the Hogan's Heroes Sing The Best of World War II album.

Don’t sleep on Jerry Fielding, whose scores for the movies Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, and The Outlaw Josey Wales were nominated for Oscars.

And don’t sleep on Bob Crane, who played the drums on the “Hogan’s Heroes March.”  Crane, who was no slouch when it came to drumming, appeared on a number of TV variety shows in the sixties.  Click here to see his 1967 appearance on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. 

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Things get very dark in the next 2 or 3 lines, which will tell you all about the sordid stuff that Bob Crane got into after Hogan’s Heroes went off the air.

It’s a creepy story, and I’ve chosen a creepy song to feature in that post – a song that has a connection to Crane and his sleazy goings-on.

In the meantime, click here and enjoy the “Hogan’s Heroes March.”

 

Marvelettes – "Don't Mess With Bill" (1966)

I’ll say it one more time

Don’t mess with Bill!

The singer of today’s featured song makes one thing perfectly clear.

There’s Johnny, there’s Joe, and there’s Frank and Jim . . . just to name a few.  Feel free to mess with any (or all) of them to your heart’s content.  Just don’t mess with Bill.

I hope you’re paying attention, because I can tell from the singer’s tone of voice that she isn’t kidding around.

All y’all are on notice.  If you mess with Bill, you’re asking for trouble.

Do yourself a favor and just DON’T . . . MESS . . . WITH . . . BILL!  (Just don’t.)

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In 1961, the Marvelettes got an audition with Motown Records after finishing fourth in a Detroit talent show.  (I wonder if any of the top three finishers in that contest had professional success.)

Four of the Marvelettes were still in high school when they recorded their first single, “Please Mr. Postman,” which became the very first Motown record to make it to #1 on the Billboard “Hot 100.”

The next year, the group had two top-20 singles.  But none of their next dozen or so releases achieved more than middling success.

After that long drought, the Marvelettes hit pay dirt in 1966 with today’s featured song, which went gold and made it all the way to #7 on the “Hot 100.”

“Don’t Mess With Bill” was written and produced by Smokey Robinson, and featured most of the group of Detroit studio musicians who regularly performed on Motown records, and who later became known as the “Funk Brothers.”  

Click here to listen to “Don’t Mess With Bill.”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Alice Cooper – "Elected" (1972)

I never lied to you

I’ve always been cool

I wanna be elected!

From the November 4 issue of the Washington Post:

David Andahl died of covid-19 in early October, just as the coronavirus was pummeling his home state of North Dakota.  But that did not keep the 55-year-old rancher from winning his race for the state House of Representatives on Tuesday. . . .

Posthumous victories like Andahl’s are rare in the United States, though not entirely unprecedented.  Since 2000, at least six dead candidates have won elections at nearly every level of government, from mayoral races in small-town Tennessee to a U.S. Senate seat.

Most recently, Dennis Hof, a brothel owner and reality TV star, won a seat in the Nevada state legislature in 2018.  About three weeks before his victory, Hof was found dead at his Love Ranch brothel outside Las Vegas.

(At least Dennis Hof – like Nelson Rockefeller – died happy.)

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This year, voting began at least 30 days before election day in Alabama, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, and Wyoming.

So if David Andahl had been running for office in any of those states instead North Dakota, a number of voters – perhaps a significant number – might have cast their ballots for him before he died.

Since early voting didn’t begin in North Dakota until October 19 – some time after Andahl’s death – we can assume that everyone who voted for him on November 3 either (1) was not aware that he had died a month earlier, or (2) decided it was better to vote for a dead Andahl than one of his live opponents.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve voted in a number of elections where a dead candidate would have been preferable to the live doofuses who were listed on the ballot.

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Imagine if the Baseball Writers Association of America allowed early voting for the annual Most Valuable Player awards.  In other words, imagine that MVP voters were allowed to make their picks over Labor Day weekend rather than waiting until all the games had been played and the season was over.

That’s a pretty stupid idea, right?  After all, what happens in the last few weeks of a season is likely to be very significant when it comes to choosing an MVP.  It only makes sense for all the voters to cast their ballots after the season is over, when they have access to the full-season statistics that are relevant to a decision.

But we do things differently in presidential elections – which are certainly more important than Most Valuable Player votes.  

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Early voting bothers me.  

Not because it makes it a easier to engage in voter fraud – which it does, of course (at least on a small scale) – but because I feel like it just makes sense for everyone to be voting at the same time . . . like baseball MVP voters.

If you vote two weeks, or four weeks, or even longer before the election, what if some crazy sh*t happens between the day you cast your ballot and election day?  For example, let’s say – I’m speaking hypothetically, of course! – that one of the candidates comes down with a life-threatening medical condition on, say, October 2.

What if you had voted on October 1, or even earlier?  Maybe you’d be happy with your vote regardless because you would have voted for your candidate even if Jesus Christ himself was running against him.

But maybe you would have voted differently if you had waited until later.  

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What if your candidate ended up kicking the bucket before election day – like the unfortunate David Andahl?   

It’s likely that the dead candidate’s party would replace him or her with its vice-presidential nominee.  But the party could decide to name someone else – someone who wasn’t on the ballot at all.

If you had voted early for the dead candidate, maybe you’d be happy with the vice-presidential nominee (or a different replacement) taking the dead candidate’s place. But maybe you wouldn’t – maybe you would have voted for the other party’s nominee  instead.  

I have a feeling that if John McCain had died before the 2008 election and been replaced by Sarah Palin, the Democrats would have gotten a lot more votes.

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I admit that the odds of a presidential candidate dying a few weeks before an election are pretty slim.

But it wouldn’t be at all surprising if something happened after early voting had started that caused a large number of early voters to wish they had waited.  

Maybe a candidate says or does something really stupid a week or two before the election.  (That would be a real shocker . . . NOT!)

Or maybe a drug company announces that its brand-new covid-19 vaccine was 90% effective a week before the 2020 election instead of a week after that election?  

Given that tens of millions of Americans voted early – and given that most of those early voters would have voted for a convicted serial murderer over Trump – it’s possible that an earlier announcement of the news about the vaccine wouldn’t have mattered.

But if everyone had had to wait until November 3 to vote, it’s certainly possible that a pre-election day  announcement that an effective vaccine was just around the corner would have altered the outcome of the presidential vote.  

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There are plenty of examples of presidential elections being won or lost thanks to events that occurred shortly before election day.

For example, only eleven days before the 2016 election, FBI Director James Comes infamously sent a letter to Congress announcing that he was reopening an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e-mails.  (Comey later said that he expected Clinton to win the election, and thought that if he held back on his announcement until after the election, people would accuse him of covering up on her behalf – which would have delegitimized her election from the very beginning.)

What if early voting had been as widespread in 2016 as it was in 2020?  Would that have significantly mitigated the impact of Comey’s action?  I think it almost certainly would have – perhaps Mrs. Clinton would have won despite Comey’s announcement.

(Speaking of e-mails and elections, wasn’t there some kerfuffle about somebody’s e-mails that came out a few days before Election Day 2020 – which was after millions of Americans had already voted?)

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The problems caused by early voting would be mitigated if early voters could change their minds after casting a ballot.  

As I understand it, it is possible to change an early vote in some states, but the process is somewhat complicated, which would discourage at least some people who would like to change their votes from actually accomplishing that.

But most states don’t allow you to change an early vote.  If you vote on October 1 and your candidate comes down with covid-19 – or some shady e-mails are found on his son’s computer – on October 2, you’re stuck.  (No mulligans allowed!)

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I’m not arguing that no one should ever be allowed to vote before election day.

After all, we’ve always allowed absentee ballots to be cast early by voters who were going to be out of town on Election Day, or who had to be at their jobs the entire time that the polls were open.

It seems reasonable to me to have a voting period of four consecutive days – Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday – which would avoid conflicts with religious beliefs and make voting a lot more convenient for working folks.  (There would still be some people who had a legitimate need to vote absentee, of course, but many fewer would be voting early than did so in 2020.)

Of course, that approach wouldn’t have really addressed concerns about covid-19.  Polling places wouldn’t be as crowded if you spread voting out over four days, but it might not have been possible to maintain perfect social distancing at all polling places throughout the four-day period.  Mailing ballots to voters and allowing them to be deposited in outdoor ballot boxes presumably minimized the possibility of any significant covid-19 spread as a result of voting.

But covid-19 won’t be a concern in 2024, right?  And the odds of us having another pandemic that year are probably no greater than the odds of a candidate being struck by lightning.

I guarantee you that we’re not going back to the old ways of doing elections.  It’s not obvious why early voting would generally favor one party over the other, but in practice it turned out to advantage one party greatly in 2020.  That’s going to make both sides fight like cats and dogs when bills that concern early voting are introduced in state legislatures in the future.

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2 or 3 lines previously featured Alice Cooper’s “Elected” on November 6, 2012 – which just happened to be the day Americans went to their local polling places to elect a President.

I noted in that post that Democrat Barack Obama’s campaign raised a whopping 60% more than the campaign of his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton and her supporters upped the ante considerably, raising almost twice money as much as billionaire (?) Donald Trump.

Trump and Clinton debating in 2016

The final numbers for 2020 aren’t in yet, but it’s clear that the Democrats had a huge fundraising advantage over their poor Republican cousins.  Going into the final week of the campaign, Joe Biden and Democratic Senate and House candidates had spent $6.9 billion, while Trump and the Republican congressional candidates had spent just over half that amount.

2 or 3 lines is so old that I remember when the fat cats in this country were Republicans, and the GOP was easily able to outspend the Democrats in the elections. 

But those days are l-o-n-g gone.  In 2020, Biden raised over four times as much do-re-mi from Wall Street guys as Trump did.

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Click here to watch the original music video for “Elected,” which is silly-bazilly (especially the part where the chimpanzee lights everyone’s cigarettes). 

And click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Original Broadway Cast of "Hair" – "Don't Put It Down" (1968)

’Cause I look different

You think I’m subversive

Crazy for the blue, white, and red!

2 or 3 lines is as patriotic as all get-out.  Stick 2 or 3 lines with a knife, and I bleed blue, white, and red!

2 or 3 lines is also strictly nonpartisan.  While the offices of 2 or 3 lines are located in Maryland – a deeply blue state – 2 or 3 lines is not deep blue.  Neither is it deep red.  

2 or 3 lines is, and always will be deep white!

(Hmmmm . . . that doesn’t sound quite right.)

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While 2 or 3 lines is nonpartisan, it does address political issues on occasion – always giving due respect to those who may have a differing point of view . . . regardless of how idiotic that point of view may be:

Today, we’re going to touch on a very controversial political topic – voter fraud.

Republicans have alleged that voter fraud in the recent election was widespread, and enabled the Democrats to unfairly steal that election.  

Democrats deny that charge, and assert that they stole the election fair and square.  

Far be it for little ol’ 2 or 3 lines to opine on which side is right and which side is wrong – I’ll gladly leave that determination to the courts (whose decisions are never influenced by politics).

But 2 or 3 lines did have some first-hand experience with voter fraud last month, and perhaps that experience will help illuminate the larger controversy.

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Sometime in September, the great state of Maryland – whose official state motto is Fatti maschii, parole femine (“Manly deeds, womanly words”) – mailed three 2020 election ballots to my home.

One of those ballots was addressed to me, one to my wife, and one to our youngest child.

That child moved out of our house and into an apartment in a different state almost two years ago, so my understanding is that it would have been voter fraud for him to vote in the Maryland election.  

I could have filled in his ballot myself, signed his name to it, and deposited it in one of the ballot boxes that were located on just about every street corner in my county.  

But I chose instead to prevent any possible voter fraud with regard to that ballot by simply tearing it up and throwing it away.    

As for the ballot addressed to my wife, I likewise could have filled it in myself, forged her signature, and dropped it into a ballot box.  (Given that she usually votes the wrong way, such an action on my part would have been in the public interest.)  

But I am NOT that kind of person, and I didn’t give in to temptation and vote my wife’s ballot for her.

Instead, I tore it up and threw it in the trash along with my child’s ballot, thereby preventing any possible voter fraud.  

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Do you ever wonder why it always has to be “the red, white, and blue”?

Why can’t it be “the red, blue, and white”?  

Or “the white, red, and blue”? 

Or “the blue, red, and white”?

Gerome Ragni and James Rado included all those alternative orderings of the color of the American flag in their lyrics for “Don’t Put It Down,” a song from act one of the 1968 Broadway musical, Hair.

But none of them ever caught on – “the red, white, and blue” is how tout le monde refers to our flag. 

Click here to listen to the original Broadway cast recording of “Don’t Put It Down.”

And click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Mary May – "Anyone Who Had a Heart" (1964)

Anyone who ever loved could look at me

And know that I love you

Anyone who ever dreamed could look at me

And know I dream of you

The last installment of 2 or 3 lines featured Cilla Black’s recording of the Burt Bacharach-Hal David song, “Anyone Who Had a Heart.”

Today I’m featuring a much less well-known cover of “Anyone Who Had a Heart.”  

Why post about two different recordings of the same song?  Because it’s such a damn good song. 

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“Anyone Who Had a Heart” was the first of the many Bacharach-David songs that were hits for Dionne Warwick. 

Burt Bacharach and Hal David

When Burt Bacharach pitched the song to Warwick in 1963, lyricist Hal David was still struggling with the words of the first verse, which is quoted above.  

David was happy with the second line, with its emphasis on “love” – “And know that I l-o-v-e you.”  But he wasn’t happy with the last line, where the emphasis fell on “of” instead of “dream.”  After trying everything he could think of to fix the line, he finally gave up and left it as it was.

To me, that last line sounds just fine with the stress on “of.”  David’s placement of that word creates an internal rhyme – technically speaking, a near rhyme – with “love” in the second line.  

I hesitate to question Hal David’s judgment.  But I think the elongation of “love” and “of” – which places emphasis on the internal rhyme created by the placement of those two words (each of which is followed by “you”) – greatly enhances the effect of that verse.

Or maybe I feel that way because I’m just used to it.

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In 2018, a writer and musician named Sean Nelson wrote an article for a Seattle alternative newspaper that discussed no fewer than twenty different recordings of “Anyone Who Had a Heart.”  (I have some surprising information about Sean Nelson that I’ll share with you in the next 2 or 3 lines.)

I vaguely remember hearing Dionne Warwick’s original recording of “Anyone Who Had a Heart” on the radio back in the day, but before I started to research this post I wasn’t familiar with any of the covers of that song that Nelson mentioned in his piece, although some of them were by very well-known recording artists (including Dusty Springfield, Linda Ronstadt, Olivia Newton-John, and Elvis Costello).

Dusty Springfield

Nelson’s article was titled Who Sang It Best? The “Anyone Who Had a Heart” Olympics.  His favorite was Dusty Springfield’s version:

To my ears, [Springfield’s cover is] the definitive reading of the song, a bar no one has ever cleared, though many have tried.  Everything about this performance, produced by Johnny Franz as an album track for Springfield's debut LP, A Girl Called Dusty . . . is redolent not only of heartbreak, but of the depravity a broken heart is capable of inspiring. It’s full of the kind of naked vulnerability that would be embarrassing if it weren’t communicated with such mastery.  Shattered and shattering.  And she was just 25 years old.

It’s curious that Springfield’s recording of the song was never released as a single.  Dionne Warwick’s original recording of the song was on the American charts when Dusty recorded her cover in January 1964, but hadn’t been released in the UK yet.

George Martin hustled Cilla Black into the Abbey Road Studios to record her cover of “Anyone Who Had a Heart” just before Warwick’s version was released internationally, and that record eventually went to #1 in the UK.  It appears that Springfield’s version was actually recorded a week or two before Black’s, but her record company was asleep at the switch and let Black get the jump on Dusty. 

Here’s an odd little fact: the Breakaways (a girl-group trio who never had a hit of their own but sang on Petula Clark’s “Downtown,” Jimi Hendrix’s “Hey Joe,” and many other hits) were the backup singers on both Springfield’s and Black’s recordings.

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Nelson likes Warwick’s original version better than Cilla Black’s – and he likes live recordings of the song that Warwick made in 1996 and 2002 even more.

He also gives high marks to Linda Ronstadt’s 1993 recording of “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” which he describes as being “like the world's saddest bell ringing with perfect clarity through the world's coldest night.”

I think “Anyone Who Had a Heart” is a woman’s song – it just doesn’t sound right when it’s sung by a man.  Maybe that’s why the covers by Frankie Valli, Luther Vandross, Ronald Isley, and Elvis Costello just don’t cut it.  (Nelson thinks Costello nailed the song, but I don’t get it.)

Perhaps the worst of the covers that Nelson panned was Tim Curry’s, who sounds exactly like he did when he sang on The Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack.  (I love me some Dr. Frank N. Furter, but he has no business singing “Anyone Who Had a Heart.”)

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Mary May’s 1964 recording of “Anyone Who Had a Heart” isn’t one of the covers that Sean Nelson included in his 2018 article.

I’m not sure if that’s because he simply overlooked it, or because he didn’t think it was worthy of mention.  (It may not be the best of the “Anyone Who Had a Heart” covers, but I don’t think it’s worst one either.)

There are two different YouTube videos that feature the Mary May version of the song.  

The first one has attracted fewer than 1000 views since it was uploaded in 2012.  The first of the nine comments on that video was posted in 2015 by a woman named Helen Holt, who noted that Mary May was “[m]y stepdad’s aunty!!!”  A year later, Antony Towers wrote this: “Sadly my Aunt Lily (Mary May) passed away today. Not only a beautiful singer, but also a beautiful person.”

The second video has been viewed just over 3000 times since it was uploaded in 2013.  No one commented on it until 2019, when someone named Thomas Sanderson wrote that “Mary May was Lily Sanderson, my husband’s mother.”  It turned out that this comment was actually written by Thomas Sanderson’s mother, who later added this note: “Sorry.  I meant that Lily Sanderson was Thomas Sanderson's grandmother.  This comment was written by Thomas's mum!!”

According to a 2000 article in the Lancashire Telegraph, Mary May’s real name was Lily Sanderson (née Lily Towers), who sang with a popular British big band in the 1940s.  Her husband, Tommy Sanderson, was the band’s pianist.

Lily made the big time when she was recruited by legendary bandleader Henry Hall to move to London and perform with the BBC Dance Orchestra, whose daily BBC Radio broadcasts were hugely popular all over the UK.

But Lily had to leave London shortly after moving there, moving back to her hometown of Blackburn, Lancashire to help take care of her seriously ill mother.  

(Does “Blackburn, Lancashire” ring any bells?  It certainly should.)

The Lancashire Telegraph article doesn’t explain what Lily did between the time she left her gig with the BBC Dance Orchestra and 1964, when she recorded “Anyone Who had a Heart” with the Johnny Dankworth Orchestra.  (You can click here to read that article.)

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Cilla Black’s cover of “Anyone Who Had a Heart” first charted in the UK the week of February 12, 1964, and eventually made it all the way to #1 (where it stayed for three weeks).

Dionne Warwick’s original recording of the song – which had been a top ten hit in the U.S. – made its debut on the UK charts a week later.  It peaked at #42.

Mary May’s cover – or Lily Sanderson’s, if you prefer – became the third version of the song to chart two weeks after that, when it debuted in the #49 spot.

Both the Warwick and May recordings fell off the pop charts a week later, but Cilla Black’s version hung around until early June. 

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Click here to listen to Mary May’s cover of “Anyone Who Had a Heart.”

Cilla Black – "Anyone Who Had a Heart" (1964)

Anyone who had a heart

Would simply take me

In his arms and

Always love me

Why won’t you?

Today is the ELEVENTH anniversary of the birth of my wildly successful little blog.  (Joyeux anniversaire à 2 or 3 lines!)  

I’m observing this very special occasion by featuring Cilla Black’s cover of the Burt Bacharach-Hal David song, “Anyone Who Had a Heart” – which I had never heard until a few days ago.

Please click here and listen to her recording before you read any further.

Cilla Black in 1966

If you’re like me, listening to it once won’t be enough.  You’ll replay it once, twice, three times – maybe more.

If this record doesn’t move you, you should check your pulse because YOU MIGHT BE DEAD!

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One of the reasons that I continue to write 2 or 3 lines is that I am still discovering records that excite me or move me, and that I want to share with other music fans.

Those records come in all shapes and sizes.  When I try to articulate what it is about them that appeals to me, I find that it’s usually one of three things.

Sometimes, it’s the record’s attitude.  (Give me a loud, energetic, out-of-control record that gives a musical middle finger to conventional wisdom and the powers that be, and the odds are that I will love it.)

Sometimes, it’s the record’s craftsmanship.  (I had enough musical training when I was a student that I appreciate well-written songs, skillful vocal or instrumental performances, and complex and innovative  arrangements.)

And sometimes, it’s all about 2 or 3 lines – a record elicits a strong emotional response from me perhaps by triggering remembrances of things past. 

What sets today’s featured recording apart is primarily its craftsmanship, which is admirable.  But it elicited an emotional response from me that had nothing to do with my intellectual appreciation of the record’s craftsmanship.

Almost every aspect of this record is remarkable, but what is most remarkable about it is the song itself.  

Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote many, many great songs – they clearly belong on the Mount Rushmore of pop songwriting duos – but none of them are better than “Anyone Who Had a Heart.”  

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“The Look of Love” – which is a happy song –was probably my favorite Bacharach-David song before this week.    

“Anyone Who Had a Heart” is most definitely not a happy song.  The woman who sings it is desperate, and she doesn’t care that her lover knows it.  She begs him to hold her, but he apparently can’t be bothered.  In essence, she opens up a vein and bleeds all over the place, and all he does is watch.

Is the song melodramatic?  You bet your ass it is.

Is it a little “over the top”?  Yes, it is – that’s exactly what makes it so great!

I like Cilla Black’s cover of the song because it’s not a bit subtle.  She doesn’t hold back – when she gets to the chorus, she lets it all hang out.

Maybe that’s because Cilla Black was a 20-year-old working-class girl from Liverpool, not some spoiled rich kid from a a posh London neighborhood like Knightsbridge or St. John’s Wood.  She sings the song like she knows what it feels like to be rejected.

(Bonus question: which Rolling Stones song refers to both Knightsbridge and St. John’s Wood?)

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Priscilla Maria Veronica White was a working-class girl who was born in Liverpool the same year as George Harrison.

Her first job was as a coat-check girl at the legendary Cavern Club, and she became friendly with the Beatles when they returned to Liverpool from Hamburg in 1961.  The Fab Four talked their manager, Brian Epstein, into giving her an audition, and even volunteered to accompany her when she sang for him. 

Ringo, John, Cilla Black, and Paul

The audition was a disaster because the Beatles played the song she sang in their vocal key rather than hers, but Epstein agreed to manage her after hearing her perform at a local jazz club.  He introduced her to George Martin, who signed her to a record deal and produced her first single – a Lennon-McCartney song titled “Love of the Loved.”

“Anyone Who Had a Heart” was her second single, and it quickly went to the #1 spot on the British pop charts.  Burt Bacharach and Hal David had written the song from Dionne Warwick, who recorded it weeks before Black covered it.  Warwick’s recording was a top ten hit in the U.S., but Black stole her thunder in the UK – her cover was the best-selling UK pop single by a female artist in the entire decade.

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Until I came across her recording of “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” I was unfamiliar with Cilla Black’s recorded oeuvre.  That’s not surprising given that she had only one top 40 hit in the U.S. 

If I had grown up in the UK instead of the U.S., I would no doubt be very familiar with Cilla Black.  She was the most successful female recording artist in the UK in the sixties, with eleven top ten singles and three best-selling albums.  

She recorded songs by some of the very best songwriters of the era.  Her recording of the Bacharach-David song, “Alfie,” was almost as big a hit as “Anyone Who Had a Heart.”  Lennon and McCartney wrote several songs for her, and she also released records with songs by Phil Spector, Tim Hardin, and Randy Newman (who said that her version of his song “I’ve Been Wrong Before” was probably the best cover of one his songs that was ever recorded).

Black later became a very popular television host.  She was given her own BBC variety show in 1968 – Cilla ran for eight seasons – and later hosted several other highly-rated entertainment programs.  She was the highest-paid female performer on British television in the eighties and nineties.

Cilla Black in 1990

Cilla Black died in 2015 after falling at home and suffering a brain hemorrhage.  She was 72.  

“The Long and Winding Road” – Paul McCartney called her 1973 cover the definitive recording of that song – was played as her coffin was carried from the church.

Her The Very Best of Cilla Black – which was originally released in 1983 – reached number one on the British album charts shortly after her death.

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Click here to listen to Cilla Black’s cover of “Anyone Who Had a Heart.”

Click here to watch a video of a very young Cilla Black performing the song live.  (Cilla was no beauty, which I think makes her performance even more powerful.)

And click on the link below to order the song from Amazon: