The look of love
Lyricist Hal David gets his due
HAL David would have been 96 this past May. If you wonder “Hal who?” blame the relative anonymity of one of the 20th century’s greatest lyricists. David, Burt Bacharach’s longtime songwriting partner, penned every word to “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” “This Guy’s in Love With You,” “Alfie,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” and many more. Nobody thinks of Lerner without Loewe. But Hal who?
The Brooklyn-born genius will have his due Monday at the 92nd Street Y. “Magic Moments: An Evening of Performance and Conversation Remembering Hal David” will star Dionne Warwick, who launched many of the Bacharach- David team’s most beloved tunes, as well as Liz Callaway, Karen Mason, Hal’s widow — philanthropist Eunice David — and host A.J. Hammer.
Eunice was married to Hal for almost 24 years and has written a sweet new book, “Hal David: His Magic Moments: There Is Always Something There To Remind Me,” available on Amazon.
A fierce advocate for his legacy, she recounts in the book how a reviewer for Variety, covering a 2004 event honoring Bacharach, asserted that the Burt-and-Hal masterpieces “all sprang from one mind” — and he didn’t mean Hal’s.
More recently, TCM host Ben Mankiewicz, introducing “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” mentioned only Bacharach regarding its theme song, “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head.”
“I got 10 calls from friends who said, ‘You’ve gotta tell that guy it was Burt and Hal who got the Oscar — not just Burt,’” Eunice tells me with a rueful laugh.
The two men first met in 1957 and reeled off a cavalcade of charttopping hits for 16 years. Effortlessly fused with Bacharach’s complex melodies, David’s lyrics mined the strata of human yearning, love and loss with deceptive ease. He said he based his style on “believability, simplicity and emotional impact” — qualities he first drew on as a New York Post ad copywriter in the early 1940s.
David, who was a friend to me and my wife for 25 years, shunned the spotlight that Bacharach craved. We once rescued him and Eunice from a Siberia-like table in a restau- rant that knew neither his name nor face, though the writing duo’s “Promises, Promises” had just been revived on Broadway.
Eunice herself once had no idea who Hal was. When they first met on an LA tennis court in 1987, “I asked him what he did for a living,” she writes. He modestly said he wrote songs and offered to send her a book with some lyrics. They wed a year later.
David and Bacharach’s partnership ended bitterly in 1973, but their relationship later mellowed. After David’s death in 2012, Bacharach, now 89, wrote a touching tribute and took the blame for their breakup. “I thought it was a wonderful piece,” Eunice says. “I was happy that Burt was able to say what he did. I just wished that Hal had been able to hear it.” I hope he’ll be listening on Monday night.
“Magic Moments . . . Hal David,” Monday at 8:30 p.m. 92nd Street Y, Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street; 92Y.org. Tickets, $32.