Released 1964 Genre Pop Label Big Hill | Format 7" single Length 2:58 | |
B-side "Wouldn't That Be Something" | ||
"(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me" is a song written in the 1960s by songwriting team Burt Bacharach and Hal David.
Contents
Lyrics
The lyrics are sung by a man who has just broken up with his lover, and wants to forget about her. However, everywhere he goes (city streets, cafe) something reminds him of her.
First charting versions
Originally recorded as a demo by Dionne Warwick in 1963, "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me" first charted for Lou Johnson whose version reached #49 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the summer of 1964.
British impresario Eve Taylor heard Johnson's version while on a US visit scouting for material for her recent discovery Sandie Shaw, who consequently covered the song for the UK market. Rush-released in September 1964, the song was premiered by Shaw with a performance on Ready Steady Go!, the pop music TV program. Shaw's version reached #1 on the UK charts in three weeks, spending three weeks at #1 in November 1964, and that same month it debuted on the Billboard Hot 100. However, despite reaching the Top Ten in some markets including Detroit and Miami Shaw's version failed to best the US showing of the Lou Johnson original; the Hot 100 peak of Shaw's version was #52.
A #1 hit in Canada and South Africa, Shaw's version of "...Always Something There to Remind Me" was also a hit in Australia (#16), Ireland (#7) and the Netherlands (#10), the track's success in the last territory not precluding hit status for the Dutch rendering by Edwin Rutten entitled "Ik moet altijd weer opnieuw aan je denken" (#12). Shaw herself recorded "...Always Something There to Remind Me" in French, as "Toujours un coin qui me rappelle", with lyrics by Ralph Bernet, which reached #19 in France. A cover by Eddy Mitchell was more successful, reaching #2 in France in April 1965 and also reaching #3 on Belgium's French-language chart. Shaw made a bid for a German hit as well, rendering "...Always Something There to Remind Me" as "Einmal glücklich sein wie die ander'n". It was not a success.
Dionne Warwick recorded "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me" on 13 April 1967 in the same session which produced her Top 40 hit "The Windows of the World", and it was on the July 1967 album release The Windows of the World that the first-named track was debuted. Warwick's "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me" had a belated single release in August 1968 as the intended B-side of the Top 40 hit "Who Is Gonna Love Me"; the first-named track received sufficient airplay to reach #65 on the Hot 100.
"(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me" – as "Always Something There to Remind Me" – entered the US Top 40 for the first time via a version by R. B. Greaves which reached #27 in February 1970. Recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in 1969, with production by Ahmet Ertegun and Jackson Howe, Greaves' version was also a #3 Easy Listening hit.
Naked Eyes version
Twenty years after its composition, "Always Something There to Remind Me" (so titled) reached the US Top Twenty for the first time via a synthpop reinvention of the song by Naked Eyes which reached the Top Ten on the Billboard Hot 100 in the summer of 1983.
Vocalist Pete Byrne and keyboardist Rob Fisher first cut "Always Something There to Remind Me" as one of a number of demos recorded in Bristol upon forming the duo later known as Naked Eyes in early 1982. Byrne would recall: "I had always loved [the] song ["Always Something There to Remind Me"], so we called a friend who had the record, he read the lyric over the phone and we put it together from memory."
On the strength of the demos cut in Bristol Byrne and Fisher were signed to EMI Records in May 1982 and the track "Always Something There to Remind Me" was cut 1 September 1982 in a session at Abbey Road Studios produced by Tony Mansfield. Byrne would recall: "The record was recorded at Abbey Road, and we were invited to a party downstairs, with Paul McCartney and many other stars...When we returned upstairs to the studio around 1 a.m., I decided to have a go at the vocal, It was the first time I have ever recorded a vocal in one take".
Released in the US in January 1983, Naked Eyes' "Always Something There to Remind Me" gradually gained attention entering the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1983 to peak at #8 that June. The cachet of entering the US Top Ten allowed the single, previously overlooked in its performers' United Kingdom homeland, to make a July 1983 UK chart debut, although it only rose to #59. "Always Something There to Remind Me" did afford Naked Eyes' Top 10 success in other countries besides the United States: Australia (#7), Canada (#9) and New Zealand (#2).
In Brazil, the song was included on the international soundtrack of the soap opera "Guerra dos Sexos/War Of the Sexes" in 1983.
Naked Eyes re-recorded the song as an acoustic version for the 2007 album Fumbling with the Covers.
In the Philippines, the song was one of the most popular singles released in 1983.
Other versions
Other artists who have recorded this song include Viola Wills, Braid, Lou Christie, José Feliciano, Wayne Fontana, The Four Seasons, the Hippos, Jay and the Americans, La Lupe, Brenda Lee, Peggy Lee, Jim O'Rourke and Thurston Moore, Martha and the Vandellas, Johnny Mathis, Ted Neeley, Don Williams and Blue Swede.
Michael McDonald made his recording debut singing lead vocal on a 1968 single version by the Del-Rays.
Sandie Shaw re-recorded the song in 1985 for the soundtrack of the movie Letter to Brezhnev.
In 1965, Percy Faith and his orchestra released an album titled Percy Faith Plays Latin Themes for Young Lovers that included an "easy listening" instrumental version of this song.
In 2007 an episode of "The Sarah Jane Chronicles" named "Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane Smith?" features the original Dionne Warwick version playing in the background during character Andrea Yates birthday party. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1030460/?ref_=ttep_ep8