Who’s Got the Action
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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
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(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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Songbook 