ANYONE WHO HAD A HEART (SONG)

"'Anyone Who Had a Heart'" is a 1960s song by American songwriting duo Burt Bacharach and Hal David. The song was originally written for Dionne Warwick. Warwick's original (recorded at the same December 1963 session in New York that yielded "Walk On By"), released as a single in 1963 and eventually appearing on her album of the same name, became her first top ten hit on the Billboard Hot 100.
The song's lyrics describe the pain felt by a singer as she continues to love the person to whom she sings, but is continually hurt by that person. The song, with its many time signatures, was unlike many ballads on the scene in the early 1960s.
The song was covered by several 1960s female singers: Vikki Carr, Marlene Dietrich, Mary May and Dusty Springfield. Most notably, Cilla Black's version -- arranged by Johnny Pearson and orchestrated by George Martin -- hit Number One in the 1964 UK Top 75. Dionne Warwick maintains to this day that Black's version was a note-for-note copy of hers. On a 1995 production of "Great Performances" highlighting Burt Bacharach, Warwick stated that the cover was so verbatim that if she had coughed or the organ player hit a wrong note in the middle of the song, Black would have done the same thing. On the same telecast, Black said of her recording, "It was a Number One; Dionne was dead choked, and she's never forgiven me, to this day."
Petula Clark recorded the song in French as ''Ceux Qui Ont Un Coeur'', in German as ''Alles ist nun vorbei'', in Spanish as ''Tú no tienes corazón'' and in Italian as ''Quelli che hanno un cuore'', making it to the 1964 Italian Top 10. Mina Mazzini performed the Italian version in 1968 on the Italian Broadcasting Service annual TV show Canzonissima.
Over the years the song has become an often-covered standard of excellence with Shirley Bassey, The Four Seasons, and Maureen McGovern. More recently, Luther Vandross both solo and in a duet with Elton John, Wynonna Judd, and Linda Ronstadt have recorded it, along with Jan Graveson, Tim Curry, Bic Runga, Olivia Newton John and Sandie Shaw, one of the few British girl singers who did not cover the song in the 1960s.

Contents

Sandie Shaw version

Sandie Shaw version

One of the reasons Shaw did not record the song in the 1960s was because she felt that the emotional content of the lyrics was too strong to be sung by a young girl and should be sung by a more mature woman who had experienced true heartbreak. In 1982, she was introduced to the British Electric Foundation by future husband Nik Powell. The B.E.F. (formerly members of The Human League and later with singer Glenn Gregory would become Heaven 17) asked Shaw to record a song for their ''Music of Quality and Distinction Volume 1'' album on which they intended people to cover old songs and give them an updated electronic sound. At first she recorded a version of The Ronettes' "Be My Baby" but this was scrapped in favour of "Anyone Who Had a Heart." Shaw was particularly proud of her emotional vocals on the song which was subsequently released as a single. She had been in semi-retirement for some years at the time and this release brought attention back to her and she discovered that many current pop stars (including Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders) had been strongly influenced by her work. This proved to be the beginning of her 1980s comeback.