When I was about four years old I had a Bontempi piano. It was a four year old's size, of course, keys that covered about an octave and a half, very plastic, and to my very slight annoyance had no stool on which to sit to play it. It was under the window in my bedroom, a house built in 1900 and named as all the semis in our road were (still are), after a Crimean war battle or regiment. I can still see how the Summer light came through that window ; the red patterned carpet ; those dandelion flowers that we used to call fairies floating around my room.
But I digress.
The only - and I mean, the only - tune I could play on my beloved Bontempi was The Carpenters' Close To You.
In the 70s there was a fair amount of so-called Middle of the Road music , easy listening. Deeply un-cool (before people started saying Cool).
By 1979 I had discovered The Boomtown Rats, Squeeze, The Police, Blondie. I heard 'Making Plans For Nigel' and music changed for me. 'Easy Listening' was now complete anathema to me - given I had 'discovered' what I then called 'alternative' music (don't know if anyone else called it that ...)
Anyway, fast forward and many years later Hubby and I, having weathered a difficult year or two together, and somehow both being as lame as each other in the nicest possible sense, I noticed that Burt Bacharach was touring the UK in the Summer. Couldn't afford the premium tickets but booked two up in the Gods anyway.
Hubby has long been a fan of what is known as library music. If you ever saw the Test Card as a kid back in the day, that's what you heard accompanying it. And Burt was sort of part of the deal. So when I realised we could go and see him, well, I couldn't help but book it for us.
Anyway, the day finally came; a steaming hot day on the South Bank; people running in and out of the fountains; cockroach seen at Giraffe (ick) ; and then up several flights of stairs into the Royal Festival Hall.
"There's no interval," said the girl on our way in, so we bought water and I said to Hubby, "That means we'll get an hour. 70 minutes tops."
How wrong I was.
He's not as young as he was (who is) and on he eventually came, in a suit, and trainers, and backed by a full orchestra, and guest vocalists.
Now given everything that's happening in the news lately - when the strings struck up What the World Needs Now - Is Love, Sweet Love ... I realised that tears were streaming down my face.
And I don't think they stopped streaming for the next more than two hours.
I have realised since that what I didn't understand in my formative years when I dismissed the so-called middle of the road stuff like his, was that the music, the lyrics , were so bloody good.
The sweeping strings and the amazing vocalists nearly broke me:
Anyone who had a heart would take me in his arms and always love me ; why can't you ?
God give me strength.
Do you know the way to San Jose?
If you see me walking down the street, and I start to cry each time we meet ; walk on by.
And all the stars that ever were, are parking cars and pumping gas.
What do you get when you fall in love? A guy with a pin, to burst your bubble. That's what you get for all your trouble. I'll never fall in love again.
Even tracks I didn't think I particularly cared for lifted me; the exuberant What's New Pussycat (sing along people - woah awoah woaooh- or something like that !). And I never knew he had written Arthur's Theme.
Even 24 Hours from Tulsa took on a new meaning for me. I always assumed it was about a guy getting back to his beloved. Nope. Listen again, to how he cheats on her a mere day before they are reunited.
At this point or thereabouts I said to Hubby : I used to play Close To You on my toy piano. And I sobbed a bit more.
Then there was Alfie.
This is a track people know because of the Cilla Black version, or Michael Caine's film, or even Jude Law's.
(Now I'm not a Cilla fan in particular, although I will most certainly watch the bio-pic on ITV - but only because I adore Sheridan Smith.)
One does not simply just become Burt Bacharach.
He wrote endlessly when he started out, alongside the likes of Lieber & Stoller, and Goffin & King. And nearly everything he wrote for 18 months was unsuccessful. And then when he was accepted it was for long forgotten stuff like 'Underneath the Overpass'. Most of his contemporaries couldn't handle the endless rejection and gave up. They couldn't afford to carry on; it wore them down.
But he didn't give up.
So, back to Alfie.
He sat down at his piano, in the extreme heat, and played it, and sang it all by himself.
Then he lost his voice a short while in, started to cough. And he said, no, this is too good a song to ruin so he began again. 'From the top'.
And 'What's it all about, Alfie' became amazingly poignant.
The other defining moment of the evening was of all things - and this was a surprise to me - Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head.
Now I have traditionally thought this was a horribly cheesy song.
But not that night.
Give it an amazing vocalist and strings ,indeed a full orchestra, and , well, Burt Blinking Bacharach and yes, you have an event on your hands, and ears, and emotions.
After a long long time of feeling lower than low I heard these lyrics & watched Burt absolutely loving the encore:
So - I just did me some talking to the sun - and I said, I didn't like the way it got things done - sleeping on the job!
There's some things I know. The blues they said to greet me won't defeat me.
But - I'm never going to stop the rain by complaining...
And then it was over. Wonderfully over.
It's hard to explain how much this Summer has meant to me. The realisation that my early attempt at playing Close to You on a play piano was actually, strangely, close to connecting with my future husband and what he was listening to as well.
So this concert (or do I call it a 'gig' now ? I don't know) meant such a lot. It was part of my freedom to enjoy life again. It was the knowledge that from that first time Hubby & I went to that Laurel & Hardy screening at King's Cross and laughed so much by the time he walked home he was pretty much Gene Kelly in the rain and I was Debbie Reynolds, we were still as lame as each other.
Love. Sweet love, eh ?
PS. On the way home I Googled how old Burt Bacharach was because we really weren't sure.
He is 86.
A fabulous night and I wish I could re-live it.
