Burt Bacharach wrote so many great songs over the course of his career. He also wrote this one – the first pop song I ever heard.

It’s hard to choose an appropriate song by Burt Bacharach to mark his death at the ripe old age of 94. So many of them are standards, classics that have stood the test of time. 

But, as Prince Harry has reminded us, you always remember your first. And this was the first song I ever heard. So it has to be this – even though I had no idea it was written by Burt until now.

Growing up in Germany, the only pop music I ever heard was on a Sunday lunchtime when Ed ‘Stewpot’ Stewart’s weekly show Family Favourites was broadcast on BFBS – British Forces Broadcasting Service.

The only songs I remember him playing are this one and another comedy song called Seven Little Girls Sitting In The Back Seat, a hit by The Avons from 1959 (and I had to look that up).

Bizarrely, both had lyrics written by the same guy, Bob Hilliard.

Burt was only involved in Three Wheels On My Wagon, which I now learn was originally a hit for Dick Van Dyke in 1961. This version came out in 1966, which would make me eight when I first heard it.

I definitely remember being in Germany that year because I recall watching some football match the locals got very excited about… until the end.

I’m proud to say I did actually meet Burt once, at Madame Jojos of all places. It was some time in the mid-Nineties and I remember he looked fantastically youthful, slender and dapper for his age, dressed in jeans, an Oxford shirt, a tweed sports jacket and – somewhat ruining the stylishness – white trainers.

I remember him sitting at a piano and croaking out a few tunes but sadly, I can’t remember what they were or even why he was there.

Anyway, I’m sure every obituary and social media post about Burt today will mention the myriad classics he wrote, so I don’t need to echo them here. FWIW, I’d put I Just Don’t Know What To Do at the top.

But this is the song for which I will forever remember Burt, sung by a band of whom I have never knowingly heard anything else, whose singer on this – I think – is one-hit wonder Barry ‘Eve Of Destruction’ McGuire.

Stranger still, band members in 1966 included Gene Clark (just prior to forming The Byrds) and Kenny Rogers (just prior to forming The First Edition) and Kim Carnes (quite a long time prior to Bette Davis Eyes).

RIP Burt Bacharach