Make It Easy on Yourself
Burt Bacharach’s first hit had come in 1957, with the hokey country ballad The Story of My Life, his first collaboration with lyricist Hal David. The first of the songs that would define him came in 1962, with Tommy Hunt recording I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself, then Jerry Butler tackling Make It Easy on Yourself. The definitive version of that song was recorded by the Walker Brothers in 1965, a huge, overwrought edifice – strings, timpani, and Scott Walker piling on the melodrama – that highlighted the drama of Bacharach’s writing.
