Trains and Boats and Planes

If I was still in my young edgelord phase, I would say that this is a very schmaltzy song. I would say that that Burt Bacharach wrote a lot of the schmaltziest hits of the sixties, and Dionne Warwick seems to have performed a disproportionate number of them. But I can admit now that it’s a beautiful song, and it’s the peak of a particularly rococo approach, one in which musical theatre crosses over into pop. Bacharach was indisputably the master of this kind of orchestral pop, and what he lacked in edginess he made up for in popularity. Dionne Warwick, for her part, was an ideal performer for this material, with a crystal clear voice and a glamorous image. She didn’t get the same respect at the time as more ‘serious’ soul singers who made their gospel roots more obvious, but she has outlived most of her peers and found a ninth life for herself as a television personality, so who’s got the last laugh. She is one diva who has never allowed herself to fall into obscurity, and if conquering Twitter is the way into the hearts of a new generation, then so it is.