Burt Bacharach: selected songs, 1962-1965, excluding hits

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1962

Waiting For Charlie (to Come Home) (Burt Bacharach & Bob Hilliard)
Little Betty Falling Star (Burt Bacharach & Bob Hilliard)
Mexican Divorce (Burt Bacharach & Bob Hilliard)

1963

This Empty Place (Burt Bacharach & Hal David) — separate page
A Lifetime of Loneliness (Burt Bacharach & Hal David)
I Cry Alone (Burt Bacharach & Hal David)

1964

To Wait for Love (Burt Bacharach & Hal David)

1965

Who’s Got The Action (Burt Bacharach & Bob Hilliard) — probably written in 1962

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1962

Waiting For Charlie (to Come Home) (m. Burt Bacharach, w. Bob Hilliard)

Etta James — recorded on 14 July 1961; arranged and conducted by Riley Hampton; issued in January 1962 as the B-side of the single “Something’s Got a Hold on Me,” Argo 5409

Marlena Shaw – issued in August 1967 on Cadet 5571, as the B-side of “Brother Where Are You” (Oscar Brown, Jr.)

Burt Bacharach and Trijntje Oosterhuis – 11 July 2009 at the North Sea Jazz Festival

Little Betty Falling Star (m. Burt Bacharach, w. Bob Hilliard)

The Cascades – 1964 (RCA-Victor 47-8321) — Gene Pitney introduced the song on the 1962 Musicor LP Only Love Can Break A Heart (also released on The Many Sides Of Gene Pitney, 1962), but I prefer this 1964 version by the Cascades.

Mexican Divorce (m. Burt Bacharach, w. Bob Hilliard) — first recorded in 1961 by The Drifters

The Drifters — issued in February 1962 in the US on Atlantic 45-2134, as the B-side of “When My Little Girl is Smiling” (Goffin & King); issued in the UK in March 1962, with the sides reversed, on London (UK) HLK 9522

Jay and the Americans — unreleased, 1962

Prince Buster…Busted
Songwriting credit is incorrectly given solely to “C. Campbell” on the label of this 1967 disc credited to reggae band “Teddy King & Busters All Stars” (the latter is more accurately Prince Buster’s All Stars). C. Campbell is Cecil Bustamante Campbell, better known as Prince Buster. Discogs lists also the following aliases: Jamaica Greatest, Judge Dread “used in the late 1960[s] when recording anti-rudeboy songs,” and Muhammed Yusef Ali.

Trying to steal a song from Burt Bacharach, eh Prince? I call it Madness.

Teddy King & Buster’s All Stars — 1967, FAB 27A [UK]

Ry Cooder — from his 1974 album Paradise and Lunch, Reprise Records MS 2179

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1963

This Empty Place (Bacharach & David)

See our separate feature page: This Empty Place

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A Lifetime of Loneliness (Burt Bacharach & Hal David)

Steve Alaimo — released on the 1963 single Checker 1042; arranged and conducted by Burt Bacharach

Jackie DeShannon

issued on 5 September 1965 on the single Imperial 66132, b/w “Don’t Turn Your Back On Me” (DeShannon); peak chart position: #66, Hot 100

Shindig!, Season 2, Episode 8; originally broadcast on 9 October 1965

Hullabaloo, Season 2, Episode 11 (Show #29); originally broadcast on 29 November 1965

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I Cry Alone (Burt Bacharach & Hal David) — I don’t know who recorded the song first, possibly Dionne Warwick. She cut a version for her debut LP Presenting Dionne Warwick (LP Scepter 508, released February 1963.

Maxine Brown — produced by Burt Bachararach & Hal David, arranged by Burt Bacharach, Wand 158

Ruby & the Romantics – flip side to When You’re Young And In Love, September 1964, Kapp 615

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1964

To Wait for Love (Burt Bacharach & Hal David)

First recorded by Jay and the Americans, in 1963. Covers include: Paul Anka (64), Tony Orlando (64), Tom Jones (65), Jackie DeShannon (66), Herb Alpert & the TJ Brass (69), Martin Eaton (2008)

Jay and The Americans — issued in February 1964 on the single United Artists UA 693, b/w “Friday”

Paul Anka — issued on 15 January 1965, under the title “To Wait for Love (Is to Waste Your Life Away),” on the single RCA Victor ‎RCA 1434, b/w “Behind My Smile” (Andrews, Black)

Tom Jones — issued on 22 January 1965 on the single (UK) Decca F 12062, as the B-side of “It’s Not Unusual,” which became a #1 hit in the UK and reached #10 in the US

Jackie DeShannon — from her 1966 album Are You Ready for This?

Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass — from the 1969 LP Warm

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Who’s Got The Action (Burt Bacharach, Bob Hilliard)

Phil Colbert — issued in August 1965 on Philips 40313, b/w “The Long Long Tunnel” (Freddie Scott, Helen Miller); both sides arranged by Horace Ott and produced by Hal Mooney

The copyright registration number and date as given at copyrightencyclopedia.com is EP0000209430 / 1965-11-05, though the song was probably written in 1962. As Serene Dominic suggests in his book Burt Bacharach, Song by Song (2003), “Who’s Got the Action” may have been submitted for consideration, or written under contract, and rejected for a Dean Martin film of the same name released in 1962. Martin recorded a different song, a bit of fluff, with the same title for the film. However, there is at least one known instance of Bacharach co-writing a song using a film’s title and story after viewing the completed film. He and Hal David did so with “The Hangman” in 1959. As far as I know, Bacharach didn’t write with Hilliard after 1962. This is the only recording of the song that I’m aware of. — comments by doc

(below) The following video contains a version of the recording that is noticeably faster than that in the video above. It is consequently about 20 seconds shorter. I suspect that it’s been speeded up, since the length of the recording in the video above is very close to the length given on the Philips 40313 label (2:50).

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Who’s Got the Action (m. Burt Bacharach, w. Bob Hilliard)

Searching and longing
For something special
Something to go with the mood I’m in
Lose or win
Where are the thrills that I’m dreaming about constantly

Tell me who’s got the action
Who’s got the action for me

Watching and waiting
For some excitement
Something to go with the things I feel
Something real
I want the wind to blow all of the leaves off my tree

Tell me who’s got the action
Who’s got the action for me

I’ll take chances
I’ll put my life on the line
Anything to fill these empty arms of mine
That’s why I’m…

Restless, and reaching
For something extra
Something to go with the mood I’m in
Lose or win
Love of my life, tell me where is the world end to be

Tell me who’s got the action
Who’s got the action
Who’s got the action for me

A note from doc:

On 24 February 2012, I looked for the lyric to “Who’s Got the Action” without success. The title is missing from a couple of major Bacharach lyric collections (See the links at the bottom of my Burt Bacharach Index). Several general Google searches using key phrases turned up only a couple of lines of the lyric in the online Santa Cruz (CA) Public Libraries sheet music catalog. So I transcribed the words that day. Colbert enunciates very clearly.

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