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: