in memoriam

I think the best words to memorialize Burt Bacharach are to quote William Goldman describing the hole he was leaving in the screenplay of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, that Bacharach and Hal David later filled with "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head."

Musical Interlude Number One. There are going to be three of them before the film is over. This, the first, is a song sung while Butch and Etta ride the bike. The song will be sung by male voices, and the feel of it is terribly contemporary, because in fact, the sound of the songs of this period are shockingly close in feel to the popular music of today. ... The song that we hear will not be along the lines of 'A Bicycle Built for Two.' None of the songs in the film will make a literal comment on scenes, but rather an emotional one. This song, for example, will not be loud. But it will be poignant. And pretty as hell.

And so it was.