Anybody know the back story of this song? Why was the city of San Jose used? It's not like it was a well known cosmopolitan city back in the 60's when it came out.
2006-09-28 11:16:38 · 10 answers · asked by Gwen G 1 in Entertainment & Music ➔ Music
"Do You Know the Way to San Jose" is a popular song by Burt Bacharach and Hal David.
The 1968 version by Dionne Warwick on her album Dionne Warwick in Valley of the Dolls made it to #10 on the U.S. Chart and #8 on the UK Chart. The song earned Warwick a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Pop Female Vocal.
The lyrics are about a woman who moved to Los Angeles to pursue fame and fortune, but plans to move back to San Jose, where she was born and raised.
The song has been covered many times, including by The George Shearing Quintet, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, The Starlite Orchestra, The Avalanches, the Carpenters, and Stunt Monkey, a local San Jose punk band. Warwick herself recorded a new salsa version of the song in 1998 along with Celia Cruz and the Pete Escovedo Orchestra for her Dionne Sings Dionne album.
2006-09-28 11:27:58 · answer #1 · answered by Bill P 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote this. They discovered Dionne Warwick and wrote many of her hits. Warwick: "I thought it was a really silly song. Obviously Hal David had a great affinity for San Jose as I believe he was stationed there during his time time in the Navy and he loved the place and he wrote a song about it. I just giggled all the way to the bank, what can I tell you?" The lyrics are about a woman who moved to Los Angeles to pursue fame and fortune, but plans to move back to San Jose, where she was born and raised.
San Jose was the first town in the Spanish colony of Nueva California (later Alta California), founded in 1777. Originally, the city served as a farming community to provide food for nearby military installations. It served as the first capital of California after it gained statehood in 1850. After over 150 years as an agricultural center, increased demand for housing from soldiers and other veterans returning from World War II and starting families, as well as aggressive expansion during the 1950s and 1960s led to San Jose being a bedroom community for Silicon Valley in the 1970s, which attracted more businesses to the city.
Many people's view of San Jose is still formed by the Dionne Warwick hit from 1968, "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" Written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David (neither of whom had spent time there and chose the name because it suited the tune), it includes the lyrics, "there's a lot of space in San Jose; there'll be a place where I can stay" and "I may go wrong and lose my way," and contrasts it to Los Angeles, "a great big freeway." In 1960, the population of San Jose was only 204,000, just over a fifth of the 2003 population. The only freeway through or near San Jose was U.S. Route 101, which touched only the outermost edges of the city and was still a rural route or controlled by traffic lights in some areas. A large portion of the Santa Clara Valley still contained commercial orchards.
2006-09-28 18:45:23 · answer #2 · answered by JFAD 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
read/listen to the lyrics. They compare and contrast two diametrically opposed worlds
Girl leaves home in San Jose seeking fame and fortune in LA
discovers that the La world is phony ,loses her soul , sees others around her in similar situations
Goes home to the real world in San Jose
Midnight Train to Georgia is the same song
as is It Never rains In California and a dozen others
and it's all based on the Wizard of OZ
2006-09-28 18:29:10 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
How well known and cosmopolitan does a city have to be to qualify for your "well-known and cosmopolitan" list? It was well-known enough in the 60's, I certainly had heard of it!
2006-09-28 18:27:17 · answer #4 · answered by pessimoptimist 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Dionne Warwick - written by Burt Bacharach the guy in the Geico commercials!!!
2006-09-28 18:18:57 · answer #5 · answered by bbjones9 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
"I've got lots of friends in San Jose, LA is a crazy place, put a hundred down and buy a car...."
Dionne Warwick....great song
2006-09-28 18:19:49 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Burt was snorting cocaine back in the day, so he said San Jose!
In week, maybe two they'll make you a star.
2006-09-28 18:22:17 · answer #7 · answered by garcia 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I don't know but Dionne Warwick sang that song!
2006-09-28 18:17:53 · answer #8 · answered by Redbird 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Who knows? Its not a well-known cosmopolitain area now.
2006-09-28 18:18:46 · answer #9 · answered by VantheMan 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
yes
2006-09-28 18:18:58 · answer #10 · answered by Sleeper_M3 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋