Better than “I Say…” because its swagger is sexier, frankly.The Dells: I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself From: The Dells Sing Dionne Warwick’s Greatest Hits, Cadet, 1971 Elvis Costello covered this on 1977’s Stiff tour, but the Dells go for funky shuffle rather than sneery-punk. The arrangement nods toward the Temptations’ “Psychedelic Shack” and is one of the few Burt covers sufficiently confident to offset his melody against a refreshingly dirty groove. The longer it goes on, the gruffer things get: by the end, a tune which traditionally is viewed as a call for help has become an exhortation, a plea for a second chance, a triumph for hope over mope.The Whitlams: I’ll Never Fall In Love Again From: To Hal And Bacharach, Various Artists, Warner Australia 1998 There are individual Burt tribute albums featuring little-known groups from Australia, Japan and America. The Whitlams – satire must be big in Oz: imagine a UK group called the Blairs – couple a jaunty verse with a chorus treatment that sounds like two blokes tussling in a shed over the ownership of a fuzz guitar while warbling “fall in love/ you get pneumonia”. Yet, thankfully, the essential Burtness of the tune remains intact.Lou Rawls: They Don’t Give Medals To Yesterday’s Heroes From: Blue Bacharach, Various Artists, Blue Note 1997As close to a political statement as Hal David ever got, Lou Rawls sashays through the lyric.

The arrangement is big band, Rawls sounding more jazzy than on “Love Is A Hurtin’ Thing”, his signature tune. Comes complete with a tip-of-the-hat, cheeky twinkle, snap of the fingers and scotch on the rocks.Elvis Costello: In The Darkest Place From: Painted By Memory, Elvis Costello with Burt Bacharach, Mercury 1998 A working title for this Costello/ Bacharach collaborative album was “Because It’s A Lonely World”, which hints at the overriding tone of this melancholic, themed 12-track work. This was a true partnership: Burt simplified his arrangements, Costello put his prolixity on hold and a triumph resulted. Juxtaposing Costello’s acute phrasing against Bacharach’s subtleties works on a slew of post-midnight ballads, of which this lingers longest.Carnation: Are You There With Another Girl From: Tribute To Burt Bacharach, Various Artists, Triad Japan 1994 Proof, if any were needed, of the immutability of Burt-tunes, because, despite numerous editorial glitches, this enthusiastic version bubbles with a naïve charm.

Seemingly sung phonetically, vocalist Masataro Naoe mispronounces “faith” as “face”, leading to the immortal rewrite “love requires face/ I’ve got a lot of face”. Fair enough, all things considered.Dusty Springfield: The Look Of Love From: Casino Royale soundtrack, Various Artists, Varese Sarabande 1990 This track clocks in at four minutes, but Dusty checks out halfway to make room for a sax solo Yet she is all you remember. Her vocal is utterly feline, purring and surefooted right from a perfectly paced opening line. Presented with the opportunity for a big finish, she plumps instead for a shy smile A masterpiece of understatement, then. And, in pop, understatement is rarely this compelling.Donna McKechnie, Margo Sappington, Baayork Lee: Turkey Lurkey Time From: Promises, Promises, Various Artists, Ryko 1999So catchy you could probably be inoculated against it, this highlights Bacharach/ David’s fascination with show-tunes and soundtracks. Their 1968 musical Promises, Promises also includes the title track and I’ll Never Fall In Love Again, so this flimsy slug of filler is acceptable. After wishing you “a turkey lurkey Christmas”, a succession of killer brass riffs rescues the song from banality.

Almost.Dionne Warwick: Check-Out Time From: The Look Of Love: The Burt Bacharach Collection, Rhino, 1998 An adult symphony in four minutes. She’s in a motel room, 200 miles from home, and check-out time is 3pm. It’s over: she wants a “taste of all the things I’ve missed/ for example, love” because “to be his wife/ well, that would be just giving up on life”. The words are bitter, the vocal world-weary but positive and the tune utterly luxuriant. This is signature Burt – a simple piano riff, a complex arrangement and a double helping of yearning – and all perfectly sung by his most consistent interpreter – who, in real life, reckons that she doesn’t much care for the song You would never guess..

If you’ve read any one of the numerous dance-music histories published over recent years, you’d be forgiven for thinking that, until the US gave us house music, the only dance we created was of the morris variety. Apparently, funk, disco and rare groove were genres that we consumed rather than produced. Even Northern Soul seemed to slip past the experts who were busy worshipping at the altars of Chicago and Detroit – the so-called birthplaces of house and techno respectively. According to these commentators, everything started with ecstasy, and year zero coincided with the opening of London’s legendary acid- house club Shooom ie 1987.