Jack Jones – "Wives and Lovers" (1964)

Day after day

There are girls at the office

And men will always be men

Don't send him off

With your hair still in curlers

You may not see him again

If you were assigned to choose one piece of pop culture ephemera that demonstrates just how much things have changed in the past 50 years, you could do a lot worse than this Burt Bacharach-Hal David song.

Last year, a fellow blogger said “Wives and Lovers” was the most sexist song of the 1960s:

This has everything a person could hope for in a sexist ‘60s song.  Ordering women around?  Check.  Emphasizing that a woman’s place is in the home?  Check.  Reiterating that it’s only natural for men to sleep around?  Check.  Offering demeaning advice to do everything you can to please your man and warning that he’ll leave you if you don’t?  Check.  Veiled threats of violence?  Checkmate.  It’s like Burt Bacharach and Hal Davis (who wrote the song and should get their fair share of the credit) distilled sexism in its purest form and smeared it all over Jack Jones’s smiling, white teeth.  And speaking of Jack Jones — his condescending, smarmy, yet totally earnest and chipper delivery is half of what makes “Wives and Lovers” stand above all the other sexist songs.

(“Veiled threats of violence”?  My fellow blogger is imagining things, I fear.)

I won't dispute that “Wives and Lovers” is a sexist song, but it belittles males much more than it does females.  (The same is true of “Stand By Your Man,” of course.)

Everyone from Andy Williams to Wayne Newton to Steve Lawrence to Dionne Warwick to Ella Fitzgerald to Lena Horne has recorded “Wives and Lovers.”  

The Frank Sinatra-Count Basie version of the song – which was produced by Quincy Jones – is in 4/4 time rather than 3/4 time.  According to Burt Bacharach, Jones told him that was because “[t]he Basie band can’t play in 3/4.”

Here’s the 1963 recording of “Wives and Lovers” by Jack Jones, which won the Grammy for best male vocal performance:

In 1979, Jones released a disco version of the song.  The less said about it, the better:



Click below to buy the non-disco version of the song from Amazon:

Jack Jones -- "I've Got Your Number" (2013)

We'll break the rules a lot

We'll be damn fools a lot

But then why should we not?

American Hustle was my pick for the Academy Award for Best Picture this year.  It had everything, including two fabulous babes -- Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence (both of whom were Oscar nominees) -- in the primary female roles.

Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams

Am I a bad person because I really had no interest in seeing 12 Years a Slave?  (When she co-hosted the Golden Globes award show, Amy Poehler said, "I loved 12 Years A Slave, and I can honestly say that after seeing that film, I will never look at slavery the same way again."  I'm pretty sure that was a joke.)

I'm sorry, but I don't need to go to a movie to know that life as a slave in the antebellum South was often horrific.  I also don't need to see a movie about pedophiles or people who get their kicks from torturing animals.  Life presents you with plenty of really unpleasant experiences, so I don't go out looking for more.

American Hustle also has a dy-no-mite soundtrack.  2 or 3 lines has already featured two songs from that soundtrack -- the Electric Light Orchestra's "Long Black Road" and the Duke Ellington Orchestra's "Jeep's Blues."  Other songs you'll hear when you see the movie include the Tom Jones hit, "Delilah," an Arabic cover of "White Rabbit," and today's featured song.

"I've Got Your Number" is probably the best-known number from the 1962 Broadway musical, Little Me.  The music for that musical was composed by Cy Coleman, and the lyrics were written by Carolyn Leigh.  

Coleman and Leigh had previously collaborated on Wildcat, which starred Lucille Ball and which featured the very popular "Hey, Look Me Over."  (It seemed like "Hey, Look Me Over" was played during the halftime of every single college football game I watched on TV in the sixties.)  

Coleman later paired up with Dorothy Fields to write the music for Sweet Charity, including "Hey, Big Spender."

You might assume that the version of "I've Got Your Number" featured on the American Hustle soundtrack was done by Jack Jones many years ago, but that's not the case.

In fact, the 75-year-old Jones recorded the song especially for the soundtrack, and actually flew to Boston to appear in the movie singing the song.  (Click here to read the whole story.)

Jack Jones

Jones had three singles that reached #1 on the Billboard "Adult Contemporary" chart in the sixties.  The most famous of his hits was "The Impossible Dream" from the Broadway musical, Man of La Mancha.

Jones was a really good-looking guy, and he hung out with some major babes.  For example, he was married briefly to Jill St. John, and was also romantically linked to Susan George, who was quite a little minx in the seventies.  

Who can ever forget the toothsome Ms. George in Straw Dogs and Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry?

(Speaking of the Academy Awards, how could they have overlooked that fine film back in 1974?)

Here's "I've Got Your Number":

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: