Three years ago today, on February 18, 2023, I launched the Classic Song of the Day blog. I started with a long post about the composer Burt Bacharach, who had recently passed away. The same day I posted my very first classic song of the day, a song written by Mr. Bacharach and his partner Hal David, “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” which was a huge hit for singer Dionne Warwick.
On this third anniversary of the blog, it’s only fitting that today’s classic song of the day is another Bacharach-David tune recorded by Dionne Warwick. The song is “Promises, Promises” and, like “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” it was a big part of the musical Promises, Promises, which featured music by the Bacharach-David team.
Promises, Promises, the musical, was a musical adaptation of director Billy Wilder’s 1960 film, The Apartment. The musical, with a book by famed playwright Neil Simon and choreography by the equally famed Michael Bennett, follows a junior executive at an insurance company who lends his apartment out to upper managers, who use it for their afternoon and evening trysts. The original Broadway cast featured Jerry Orbach as the junior exec, Edward Winter as his lascivious boss, and Jill O’Hara as their mutual love interest. The play, which opened on December 1, 1968, ran for 1,281 performances and was nominated for seven Tony Awards, winning two—Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical (for Jerry Orbach) and Best Performance by a Featured Actress in Musical (for Marian Mercer). It also spawned a raft of memorable musical numbers, including “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” “Knowing When to Leave,” “Turkey Lurkey Time,” and the title song.
“Promises, Promises,” the song, is one helluva ride. Burt Bacharach expertly matches his music to Hal David’s words, weaving in and out of different time signatures and harmonic structures. The rhythmic complexity is something to behold; the song starts with three measures of 3/4, followed by two measures of 4/4, followed by an extended 3/4 section, wrapped up by a measure of 5/4 before circling back to that 3/4 beginning. It is deliciously twisty but sounds deceptively simple, because Burt’s music follows the natural pacing of Hal’s lyrics.
Harmonically, the tune is equally all over the place. It’s allegedly in the key of G but the tonal center shifts here and there as required. Take a look at the chord changes, all rather fast and furious:
G – A/G | F#m7 | C – D/C | Bm7 | Bm7 | Am7 | Am7 | D11 | GMaj7 | GMaj7 | CMaj7 | FMaj7 | CMaj7 | FMaj7 | BbMaj7 | BbMaj7 | Bb11+ | Bb11+ | Am7 | Am7 | D9 | GMaj9 | GMaj9 |
Wow. And the melody is equally twisty and turny, often landing on the fourth or the sixth of the underlying chord. For example, on the word “how,” the melody note is a D against an Am7 chord; similarly, on the last syllable of the word “remember,” it’s another D, this time against an FMaj7 chord.
In the play, “Promises, Promises” was sung by the lead character, Chuck Baxter, after he’d gotten up the nerve to tell off his boss and make his affection known to Miss Kubelik. It’s a declaration of independence and the start of his new life.
On the radio, “Promises, Promises” was sung by Dionne Warwick, who released the song as a single in November of 1968. The song peaked at #19 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #7 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart.
When I was back in high school in the mid-70s, our concert band did a medley of tunes from Promises, Promises, including the tune “Promises, Promises.” I remember navigating the tune’s convoluted time shifts, somewhat expertly if I do say so myself, and that’s stuck with me all these years. Burt Bacharach knew how to write a terrific tune, even if it meant throwing out all the rules concerning phrasing and harmonic structure.
Over the past three years I’ve written about more than 1100 songs. A lot of them were written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, and that’s only fitting; they were one of the premier songwriting teams of the 20th century, right up there with the Gershwins, Lennon and McCartney, Goffin and King, and Mann and Weil. I’ve enjoyed my three years writing about songs like these and look forward to writing about three more. I think I can come up with at least another thousand or so songs worth writing about, don’t you?
To further celebrate this blog’s anniversary, here’s today’s daily bonus video of the day, the divine Ms. Dionne Warwick singing “Promises, Promises” live on the October 6, 1968, episode of The Ed Sullivan Show. She makes it look easy—which it most definitely isn’t! (And kudos to Ed’s orchestra, who expertly navigate a very, very difficult chart.)
