Songwriter Hal David passes on

Hal David has died aged 91. He probably had no equal as a pop lyricist over the last 60 years or so. Best known as the songwriting partner of Burt Bacharach (left of photo) his name turns up on literally hundreds of records by Dionne Warwick, Gene Pitney and many others.
Among many others, he co-wrote 24 Hours From Tulsa, A House Is Not A Home, Alfie, Anyone Who Had A heart, Blue On Blue, Do You Know The Way To San Jose, Don't Make me Over, I Say A Little Prayer, Johnny Get Angry, Magic Moments, Make It Easy On Yourself, Message To Michael, Raindrops Keep Falling On Your Head, The Look Of Love, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, There's Always Something There To Remind Me, This Guy's In Love With You, Trains And Boats And Planes, Walk On By, What's New Pussycat, Wishin' And Hopin', You'll Never Get To Heaven, Sea Of Heartbreak, This Empty Place, What The World Needs Now - the list goes on and one.
Some of his lyrics were sheer genius How about "What do you get when you kiss a girl, You get enough germs to catch pneumonia, After you do, she'll never phone you, I'll never fall in love again."? Brilliant.
A final word too for Max Bygraves, whose dreadful singalong records are such a regular feature of every car boot sale I go to. But he had quite a few hit records back in the 50s and early 60s (eg Fings Ain't What They used To be) and had his comedy moments too, mostly on radio back in those far off days with Archie Andrews for example. I wanna to tell you a story...