1 min readSep 24, 2020
I didn't know the Isaac Hayes version. (Serves me right for being a snob in my youth.) Wonderful instrumentation, and his throw-away vocal is startlingly good.
Some of the arrangers of 50's instrumental music turned their talents to the mod sounds of the 60's in an attempt to appeal to the youth market.
Billy May, who orchestrated some of Sinatra's brassiest albums, transformed the melancholy of Bacharach / David's tune into a defiant F-U against unrequited love:
On the other hand, Marty Gold (sadly neglected today) bathed in the tune's fatalism--a warm bubble bath suitable for wrist-slashing. In its own way (with its lonely harmonica, despairing saxophones, and bitter string section), as bleak as the darkest death metal.
