Burt Bacharach – Make It Easy On Yourself (1969)

To this day, Burt Bacharach remains the undisputed master of break up songs. Although this is the case, he has remained an extraordinary songwriter and composer for many groups and artists out there. Even The Beatles covered one of his songs Baby, It’s You on their first album Please Please Me. This is one of the better and more widely known albums (as rated by fans) by the legend Burt Bacharach. Let’s take a listen to the music on this album and hear how it sounds today.

Promises, Promises opens the album with some dramatic trumpets and gorgeous orchestral sounds that are divine. This is mainly instrumental, but a decent and wonderful instrumental at that. A really fine and glorious-sounding piece with beautiful instrumentation and lovely sounds, this is definitely a blast from the past. A lively, upbeat and melodic piece, this is akin to Jazz band music of sorts, but just sounds really great and amazing. Excellent music, and well worth hearing. A very good introduction to the album.

I’ll Never Fall In Love Again is a melodic piece with wind instruments and guitars, to begin with, followed by female vocals that are sublime. A really fantastic and listenable piece of music about heartbreak and missed opportunities in the world of love that sounds irresistibly good. Nonetheless, a great listening experience that is enjoyable and cool. The Jazz band instrumentation is lush, and despite the negativity of the song’s sentiment, this does sound excellent. A great Pop masterpiece, the vocals here are amazing as well. Nice and mellow, and a great listen from start to finish. It ends with muted horn, brilliant.

Knowing When To Leave says it all. It begins with a lush, muted horn that sounds very irresistible, followed by more horns and a strummed acoustic guitar. More horn sections follow, with some awesome Jazz band style playing that is really grand and excellent. This is original, exciting and different sounding compared to most music out there today, it just sounds really wonderful. In the middle are some string sections and piano to match. A really cool and top piece of music, although this is an instrumental. It just sounds great, nice effort by Burt Bacharach.

Any Day Now begins with clanging piano, piccolo style trumpet and organ as well. This was the late 1960s, of course. The organ in particular drives this piece along nicely. Some more female vocals enter, which are partial but pleasant. This is a great and excellent piece of music that just sounds rich and terrific. A lovely, lively and varied piece of orchestral beauty, this does sound superb. A really nice and excellent piece of music, this has aged well as the best fine wine out there. Really cool listening, Burt Bacharach defines schmaltzy goodness. Great to hear, and a wonderful album and song to listen to. The outro is cool, too.

Wanting Things is a piano-driven ballad that simply sounds really excellent. It just sounds tremendously good, and the female singing on this song perfectly matches the music and the mood of the song. It is a short and sweet piece of music that fits the album well, and the lyrics deal with heartbreak and despair, longing for company. A really excellent and fine piece of music with acoustic guitar parts and harp to drive this song along. Burt Bacharach is obviously a very good genius at what he does, a really fine and fantastic listen. Towards the end, there is a dramatic change with horns and lush instrumentation to finish off the song. Excellent.

Whoever You Are I Love You is a dramatic piece from the beginning. It sounds like a heartbreaking piece of music and has some female vocals that are either a duet or double-tracked in the recording. This is a sad sounding piece but sounds really awesome and terrific. Some pretty saxophone enters along with pristine instrumentation, and this is a fantastic musical piece. The song here is lively and uplifting, with many dramatic changes throughout. The combination of female vocals, orchestration and other additions make this a wonderful listen. In the second half, some interesting changes occur, including some rapid-fire brushed percussion and pretty piano to finish this off. Truly wonderful music, it ends with a nice fade out.

Make It Easy On Yourself is the title track, and it has pounding piano and Burt Bacharach singing away well. He sings and plays from a deeply emotional place, as though he is articulating the music from a personal experience. Eventually, drums enter and this piece gets going along smoothly with a string and varied orchestral section. This is a really lovely piece of music that, despite its melancholy, really shines. The music is uplifting and gorgeous and just sounds really excellent. A really finely crafted piece of artistry, just like a decent painting or sculpture, Burt Bacharach does brilliantly on this song. Nice effort.

Do You Know The Way To San Jose is a very famous song by Burt Bacharach. It begins with xylophone/marimba, clean electric guitars and an upbeat sounding piece that is pretty and lively. Once again, Sgt. Pepper has met his match on these songs. It is pretty, interesting and suspenseful, with an instrumental breakdown with only keyboard and drum sticks being hit, before launching into a really cool and wordless tune. Yes, there are other versions with lyrics elsewhere, but this does sound amazing. A very solid effort by the master of break up tunes. Good work.

Pacific Coast Highway is next and it sounds perfect for playing in the car on a long drive somewhere. A recorder is in this piece as well. Without a doubt, the music on this album is very underrated and great to listen to, it just sounds wonderful and pure. Once again, this is an instrumental, but what an instrumental this is! Really cool, there are some pretty female backing vocals in the background as well on this song. A very interesting instrumental, the combination of strings, horns, recorder, guitars and percussion makes songs like these a real winner to hear. An excellent tune, this sounds really fantastic. It ends with a long fade-out, a very pretty song.

She’s Gone Away is a slower piece with some reverberated style guitar, great trumpet playing and a nice orchestral ballad that sounds really different. There are shuffle style marching drums, before the piano and other instruments join in for this sonic excellence. A really sweet and listenable piece of music, this does sound awesome. Nice tune throughout, it sounds a little like Miles Davis’s Sketches Of Spain album in some of the trumpet playing on this song. Towards the end is a dramatic climax that sounds very delicious. A good song, all the same, it sounds wonderfully driven. Nice work guys.

This Guy’s In Love With You is the last song on this album. It begins with classical style piano in the right channel and a feeling that we have an excellent song at hand. Strummed acoustic guitars, horns and a string section then follow, making this piece beautiful and dramatic. It is a relaxing and gentle listen, and a musical sound and style often ignored. In the background are some male harmonies before the female singers enter, along with pounding drum rolls and a beautiful string section to match. The song goes back into the piano playing in the second half, before the rest of the song moves along nicely. This is a really cool song, although it is a little outside of most mainstream tastes. Still, undeniably, Burt Bacharach is a great musician and composer. The piano section plays before the last of the song fades out with trumpets.

This is without a doubt a great album. The combination of songwriting, singing, horns, strings, piano and guitar make this a clearly essential listen for those who love schmaltz in musical style. This is highly underrated in general, so one must explore this beautiful and very concise album. Burt Bacharach is a serious name in the musical industry, and this is a good place for his music to start listening to him here.

Purely excellent.

9/10