The Great American Songbook: "I Say a Little Prayer"

Written by: Burt Bacharach and Hal David

First performed by: Dionne Warwick, 1967

I have this theory that music of the sixties spans all generations. Young and old, weddings or school dances--everyone grooves to Motown and soul... and those Bacharach rhythms. The year 1967 set off revolutions across America in the cinema we watched (Bonnie and Clyde and the censorship floodgates that reopened) and the protests we launched (the Central Park Be-In, race riots). Don't forget the sounds we heard: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band forever changed how we listened to recorded music.

For a country in flux, the Burt Bacharach-Dionne Warwick collaboration, begun in the early sixties, stayed its course with assurance. Here was black music that finally went mainstream and sold LPs. The girl groups and choral arrangements owe a small debt to the fluttering choruses enjoyed by Bing Crosby and bandleaders for decades. Yet this new sound was unmistakably its own beast.

Listen to Warwick's original rendition of "I Say a Little Prayer." The key lowers in the introduction just before the vocal enters; contemporary Top 40 hits can thank Bacharach for propelling the please-applaud-me key change. The rhythm section pushes urgently, helped by irregular meters: the chorus ("Forever and ever, you'll stay in my heart, and I will love you") is actually in 11/4. In units of three, not the standard four, and then with the last beat missing, the singer jumps right back into the vocal without a breath.

Warwick's hit #4 on the Billboard charts in 1967. The song's exuberance (remember, the singer can't breathe!) must have matched "The Summer of Love" well. Ubiquitous now, this music was not shocking then, but revitalizing.

Soon powerful R&B singers like Aretha Franklin entered the pop charts, and white bubblegum pop was a thing of the past generation (until the Christina Aguileras of the 1990s revived the genre). She released "I Say a Little Prayer" as a B-side at first, but listeners couldn't get enough. She takes a broader tempo and lets her backup singers cover the chorus while she tosses in her own licks. As written, the ending vamps for improvisation, and Aretha runs with that.

Where haven't you heard it since? A diner breaks into spontaneous song in My Best Friend's Wedding like some revivalist worship service. Diana King covered "Prayer" in 1997--right voice but tacky, over-synthed percussion, as if the rhythms needed help. Whitney Houston has performed it in concert; I wonder if her little prayers worked re: Bobby Brown. Forever and forever, he'll be coked up. Quinn and the cheerleaders auditioned on Glee with a Valley Girl rendition. Oh, white girls taking all the funk out; was this satire or just a poor song choice? And Kristin Chenoweth (a white girl with serious vocal chops) is currently singing it on Broadway in Promises, Promises, a Bacharach-scored musical that interpolated the song just for this revival. Why not? That soul music must stay in our hearts, forever and forever.