Alfie

Alfie
lyrics by Hal David
music by Burt Bacharach

I’ve always been a big Burt Bacharach fan. Growing up, I heard the old saying that classical music has its “Three B’s” (Bach, Beethoven and Brahms). I had my own “Four B’s”: Brubeck, Bacharach, the Beatles and the Beach Boys. I learned something from each of them when it comes to popular music: Brubeck and Bacharach explored rhythmic complexities and polytonality, Bacharach took melodies outside the standard eight or sixteen bars, the Beatles redefined the popular song in the era of rock, and the Beach Boys layered in rich vocal harmonies – even on their “poppiest” of pop songs.

Mr Bacharach’s lyricist for most of the 60’s and 70’s was Hal David. I understand that they had great respect for each other, but were very different. Mr Bacharach was outgoing, he was involved in the life of celebrity with his wife, Angie Dickinson, he owned racehorses – and he couldn’t abide cigarette smoke. Mr David was a chain smoker who was content to put his head down and work and then spend evenings and weekends at home with his family. But the pair complemented each other nicely. Sometimes, Mr David’s thoughtful lyrics helped save a tune that Mr Bacharach had overloaded with one too many rhythmic or melodic anomalies. And sometimes, Mr Bacharach’s inventive music would become an instrumental standard, even after Mr David’s lyrics were long forgotten. But every once in a while – often, actually – the team came up with some truly wonderful music. The amazing thing about some of their classics is that, even when they are “stuck” in the era in which they were written – both musically and in terms of subject matter – they manage to still speak to timeless matters of the human heart.

Today’s song is from the 1966 film of the same name. Alfie, played by Michael Caine, is at once a likeable bloke and a detestable cad. He is living the swinging singles life of mid-60’s London and leaving a trail of broken hearts – and worse – in his wake. The film is all the more jarring to me because Alfie speaks directly to the camera. It’s as if you’re one of his mates, headin’ ‘round to the pub together. I wonder sometimes if there are very few works written in the second-person because, if you’re being referred to in the second person, it means you are intimately connected to the first person.

Of course, the Bible is full of the second-person – and I don’t just mean the Second Person of the Trinity. All through Scripture, the Lord is speaking directly to us, friend-to-friend, father-to-child. And there is an invitation to intimacy there, if we will let it be there.

In Alfie’s case, Mr David’s lyrics give voice to the questions that Alfie, perhaps, has never even given thought to himself. But they are, nevertheless, at the core of his – and our – longings:

What’s it all about, Alfie?
Is it just for the moment we live?
What’s it all about when you sort it out, Alfie?
Are we meant to take more than we give,
Or are we meant to be kind?

And if only fools are kind, Alfie,
Then I guess it is wise to be cruel.
And if life belongs only to the strong, Alfie,
What will you lend on an old golden rule?

As sure as I believe there’s a heaven above, Alfie,
I know there’s something much more,
Something even non-believers can believe in.

I believe in love, Alfie.
Without true love we just exist, Alfie.
Until you find the love you’ve missed you’re nothing, Alfie.
When you walk let your heart lead the way
And you’ll find love any day, Alfie, Alfie.

Musically, Mr Bacharach supports this dialogue perfectly, in my mind. The whole melody until the bridge is diatonic (that is, it stays strictly in the key of the song, with no accidentals). At the same time, though, the accompaniment starts diatonic but then begins wandering all over the board. It’s as if the questions are being asked calmly and insistently by a close friend, as the world around gets progressively more complex. In the bridge of the song (the “as sure as I believe” part), the tonality centers around the dominant chord. This is also a break with tradition, as the normal progression would be to either stay in the tonic key or maybe go to the subdominant (think of the “Trio” section in a Sousa march).

As we get to the third verse (the “I believe in love” part), we’re back to the diatonic melody. As we approach the end, though, the tune jumps a whole ninth (an octave plus a step) on “we just exist” and again on “the love you’ve missed”. I’m sure there is another song with that large a jump between two syllables, but I can’t think of one right now. Then, as the melody climbs on “you’re nothing, Alfie”, the chord underneath exits Western music altogether and becomes a whole-tone arpeggio, leaving the music in the most unresolved state it can be. The final repetitions of Alfie’s name are on similar unresolved chords, firmly placing the ball in his court.

Alfie addresses universal and timeless questions of love, purpose, and a higher power, even while it is firmly planted in swinging, 60’s London. And to those of us on this side of Easter, we know that the answer to these questions is equally timeless and universal. Near the end of the film, Alfie tells the camera, "What I loved once and what I love now are two different things." As we, too, "put away childish things", we find “love” with a capital L, the One in whom “we live and move and have our being.”