Hal David

American film and musical-theater composer/lyricist

• Born: May 25, 1921
• Birthplace: New York, New York
• Died: September 1, 2012

Best known for his collaboration with composer Burt Bacharach, with whom he wrote dozens of top hits of the 1960’s and 1970’s, David also wrote lyrics for songs in the big band and country-music genres.

The Life

Hal David was the youngest of three sons born to Gedalier David, owner and operator of a delicatessen on Pennsylvania Avenue in Brooklyn, and his wife Lina Goldberg. Though his parents wanted him to be a musician, and his older brother Mack was already writing songs for Tin Pan Alley by the time David was a teenager, David decided to study journalism at New York University. A summer internship in his sophomore year led to a job offer at the New York Post. However, when the United States entered World War II, David was drafted, and he was assigned to an entertainment section of Special Services in Hawaii, where he wrote comedy sketches and song lyrics for shows with fellow soldier Carl Reiner, who became a television comedy writer.

After the war, David went to Broadway, but he did not find success until bandleader Sammy Kaye bought “Isn’t This Better than Working in the Rain” in 1947 and hired David for his radio show. That Christmas Eve David married schoolteacher Anne Rauchmann. His first hit came in 1949 with “The Four Winds and the Seven Seas,” a folksy ballad cowritten with bandleader Guy Lombardo’s vocalist Don Rodney. After a string of minor successes, David met composer Burt Bacharach in 1957, and a classic partnership began.

The Music

While his hit-making is popularly linked with Bacharach, David wrote successful lyrics before and after his Bacharach partnership. His first hit with Bacharach was not on the Top 40 pop charts but rather on the country-western charts. “The Story of My Life” hit big for Marty Robbins in 1957. After his success with Bacharach, David would return to country music, and in 1984 he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. The Bacharach-David team scored again with “Magic Moments” for Perry Como in February of 1958. However, it was their collaboration with singer Dionne Warwick that brought Bacharach and David their biggest success.

“What the World Needs Now Is Love.” This 1965 hit is David’s favorite example of “slow growth” in the creative process and making the lyric fit the mood. The main idea and phrase, “What the world needs now is love,” came immediately to him, and then he built the first stanza around it. Then he wanted to contrast the idea with a list of what the world does not need. At first, David listed airplanes and other technological boons, but none of those fit the mood. He put away the lyric for several years, until Jackie DeShannon was looking for an inspirational song. David pulled out the song, intuitively realizing that the contrary elements should be from the natural world. DeShannon recorded the hit version in 1965, but David’s personal favorite was Warwick’s 1971 recording. It has been covered by several pop and country stars, including Barry Manilow, Wynona Judd, Ed Ames, and the Supremes. Warwick remarked that this song should be a second national anthem.

“Make It Easy on Yourself.” David had an astonishing twenty-one Top 40 hits recorded by Warwick throughout the 1960’s. David and Bacharach had written “Make It Easy on Yourself” for Warwick, but the more established vocalist Jerry Butler heard her demo, liked it, and recorded his own version first, which went to number twenty. Angry at what she saw as betrayal by the songwriters, Warwick told them, “Don’t make me over, man!” David had never heard the idiom, which means “don’t try to cheat me,” and he turned it into a song for Warwick, which made peace between them—especially when it became a Top 40 hit, peaking at number twenty-five on the Billboard Hot 100 and going all the way to number five on the rhythm-and-blues charts. There were multiple Bacharach-David hits for Warwick in the 1960’s, and ironically the string ended in 1970 with “Make It Easy on Yourself”—the song that should have been Warwick’s first hit. It did not climb as high as the Butler version on the Billboard Hot 100, but it reached number two on the rhythm-and-blues charts.

Country-Western. After the Bacharach-David partnership broke up over the failure, artistically and financially, of a film they had scored (Lost Horizon in 1972), David wrote a number of country-western hits with various composers. His 1977 “Almost Like a Song” (with music by Archie Jordan) rose to the top spot on the country charts for Ronnie Milsap, and it became a crossover hit in the adult contemporary category, where it hit number seven. Another crossover hit was recorded by the unconventional duo of operatic tenor Julio Iglesias and country superstar Willie Nelson. Written by David with Albert Hammond, “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before” reached the top of the country charts in May, 1984, and peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100.

Musical Legacy

One measure of David’s influence on the recording industry is his leadership in its professional organizations. From 1980 to 1986, he served as president of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), and in 2008 he served on its board of directors. In 1998 he became chairman of the board of the National Academy of Popular Music, which oversees the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and he continued in the chair for more than a decade. In 1969 David and Bacharach won an Academy Award for Best Song for “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). Three David songs—“Don’t Make Me Over,” “(They Want to Be) Close to You,” and “Walk on By”—are in the Grammy Hall of Fame (a designation for songs at least twenty-five years old with “qualitative or historical significance”).

Principal Works

musical theater (lyrics): Promises, Promises, 1968 (libretto by Neil Simon; music by Burt Bacharach); The Look of Love, 2003 (libretto by David Thompson; music by Bacharach).

songs (written with Burt Bacharach): “The Story of My Life,” 1957 (recorded by Marty Robbins); “Magic Moments,” 1958 (recorded by Perry Como); “The Night That Heaven Fell,” 1958 (recorded by Tony Bennett); “Loving Is a Way of Living,” 1959 (recorded by Steve Lawrence); “I Could Make You Mine,” 1960 (recorded by the Wanderers); “Gotta Get a Girl,” 1961 (recorded by Frankie Avalon); “Don’t Make Me Over,” 1963 (recorded by Dionne Warwick); “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” 1964 (recorded by Warwick); “Send Me No Flowers,” 1964 (Doris Day); “(There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me,” 1964 (recorded by Lou Johnson); “Walk on By,” 1964 (recorded by Warwick); “I Say a Little Prayer” 1965 (recorded by Jackie DeShannon); “Make It Easy on Yourself,” 1965 (recorded by Warwick); “What the World Needs Now Is Love,” 1965 (recorded by DeShannon); “What’s New Pussycat?” 1965 (recorded by Tom Jones); “Alfie,” 1966 (recorded by Warwick); “Promise Her Anything,” 1966 (recorded by Jones); “The Look of Love,” 1967 (recorded by Dusty Springfield); "Do You Know the Way to San Jose,” 1968 (recorded by Warwick); “Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart,” 1968 (recorded by Johnny Mathis); “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” 1968 (recorded by Warwick); “This Guy’s in Love with You,” 1968 (recorded by Herb Alpert); “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” 1969 (recorded by B. J. Thomas); “One Less Bell to Answer,” 1970 (recorded by the Fifth Dimension); “(They Long to Be) Close to You,” 1970 (recorded by the Carpenters).

songs: “The Four Winds and the Seven Seas,” 1949 (with Don Rodney; recorded by Vic Damone); “The Good Times Are Comin’,” 1970 (with John Barry; recorded by Mama Cass Elliot); “Ninety-Nine Miles from L.A.,” 1975 (with Albert Hammond; recorded by Art Garfunkel); “Almost Like a Song,” 1977 (with Archie Jordan; recorded by Ronnie Milsap); “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before,” 1984 (with Hammond; recorded by Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias).

Bibliography

David, Hal. What the World Needs Now and Other Love Lyrics. New York: Trident Press, 1968. David gives the lyrics to sixty-two of his hit songs, and they are liberally annotated with background stories.

Friedlander, Paul. Rock and Roll: A Social History. 2d ed. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2006. While this general history specifically focuses on the rock idiom, which was not the category in which David placed his lyrics, it is a good introduction to the musical milieu in which David created his most enduring work.

Platts, Robin. Burt Bacharach and Hal David: What the World Needs Now. New York: Collector’s Guide, 2003. Although this is primarily a discography and a guide for collectors of David-Bacharach material, this book also includes a substantial biography of both David and Bacharach.

Pollock, Bruce. In Their Own Words. New York: Collier Books, 1975. This series of interviews with rock songwriters of the 1960’s is prefaced by an interview with David, billed as a transitional figure from the big band era to the 1960’s.

Toop, David. Exotica. New York: Serpent’s Tale, 1999. While this book canvasses exotic music, avoiding the Top 40 material that made David’s career, Toop includes a revealing interview with Bacharach discussing his work with David.