She was a background singer on a lot of the recording dates, and she came to Burt wanting to do some demo records for him. He invited her up to Famous Music, and she sang for both of us. We were both very impressed, and we went in and did a couple of demo songs with her ... ”Make it Easy on Yourself” was submitted to Jerry Butler ... Dionne was much perturbed because she thought that was her song. I think that’s what prompted us to go and take Dionne to Florence Greenberg at Scepter Records and see if we could get her a contract, which we were able to do right away.
Here is Dionne Warwick’s version.
It came about because of a fight I had with Hal and Burt – not really a fight but a little argument. I felt Hal and Burt had given my songs away, and they felt they hadn’t and that maybe I was being a bit unreasonable. Well, one word led to another, and finally I said, “Don’t make me over, man!” and I walked out. About a week later I walked back in. The mad was gone, and they had written the song.
Note how Hal David and Burt Bacharach work between the bar lines with the lyrics in the steady 6/8 pulse. This was just a hint of what Bacharach was to do with time signatures in the future.
One of my favorites!