Barry Mann
Barry Mann (born Barry Imberman; February 9, 1939) is an American songwriter and musician, and part of a successful songwriting partnership with his wife, Cynthia Weil.
He has written or co-written 53 hits in the UK and 98 in the US.
Early li ...
and
Cynthia Weil
Cynthia Weil (born October 18, 1940) is an American songwriter who wrote many songs together with her husband Barry Mann.
Life and career
Weil was born in New York City, and was raised in a Conservative Jewish family. Her father was Morris Wei ...
Mama Cass
Mama(s) or Mamma or Momma may refer to:
Roles
*Mother, a female parent
* Mama-san, in Japan and East Asia, a woman in a position of authority
*Mamas, a name for female associates of the Hells Angels
Places
*Mama, Russia, an urban-type settlement ...
.
Overview
The song describes the singer's satisfaction with a love relationship that is down-to-earth rather than extravagantly romantic, a subgenre of love song exemplified by the Jerome Kern/ P. G. Wodehouse composition "
Bill
Bill(s) may refer to:
Common meanings
* Banknote, paper cash (especially in the United States)
* Bill (law), a proposed law put before a legislature
* Invoice, commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer
* Bill, a bird or animal's beak
Plac ...
". Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil had previously written the similarly themed " He's Sure the Boy I Love", a hit for the Crystals in 1963.
The earliest evident recording of "It's Getting Better" was by
the Vogues
The Vogues are an American vocal rock and roll group from Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh. The original lineup consisted of Bill Burkette (lead baritone), Don Miller (baritone), Hugh Geyer (first tenor), and Chuck Blasko (seco ...
for their August 1968 album release ''Turn Around, Look at Me'' (
Reprise Records
Reprise Records is an American record label founded in 1960 by Frank Sinatra. It is owned by Warner Music Group, and operates through Warner Records, one of its flagship labels.
Artists currently signed to Reprise Records include Enya, Michael ...
). Also in 1968, the song was featured on the Leonard Nimoy album ''The Way I Feel'' ( Dot Records) released that October. The first evident single release of "It's Getting Better" was by
Pierre Lalonde
Pierre Lalonde (January 20, 1941 – June 21, 2016) was a Canadian singer and television host.
The son of Jean Lalonde, a popular singer in the 1940s, Lalonde attended high school in the United States but returned to Canada in 1960, where he wo ...
on the Montréalais label Disco Prestige in September 1968 with the track's parent album: ''Introducing Peter Martin'', being released that November.
In March 1969,
the Will-O-Bees
The Will-O-Bees were an American folk rock and sunshine pop trio in the 1960s comprising Janet Blossom, Steven Porter, and Robert Merchanthouse (born c.1946, Indiana, died 2019).
Career
Blossom and Merchanthouse both attended Richmond High School ...
, a New York City-based trio (Janet Blossom, Steven Porter, and Robert Merchanthouse) who recorded a number of Mann-Weil compositions, had a single release of "It's Getting Better" on the SGC label (Screen Gems Columbia). Overall 1969 saw the release of several single versions of "It's Getting Better" but only Cass Elliot's was by an established artist at that time, the other versions being by Ronnie Buskirk, Freddie Gelfand, and P. K. Limited. The song has since been recorded and covered by many well-known artists around the world including UK singer and ex-cruise star
Jane McDonald
Jane Anne McDonald (born 4 April 1963) is an English singer, songwriter and television presenter. Born and raised in Wakefield, McDonald spent much of her early career performing in local clubs and pubs before landing work as a singer on cruis ...
.
"It's Getting Better" has also been recorded by Richard Barnes, the
Günter Kallmann
Gunter or Günter may refer to:
* Gunter rig, a type of rig used in sailing, especially in small boats
* Gunter Annex, Alabama, a United States Air Force installation
* Gunter, Texas, city in the United States
People
Surname
* Chris Gunter ( ...
Popinjays
The Popinjays are a British indie pop band, mainly active between 1988 and 1994, and again from 2015 to the present. Most of their records were released on the One Little Indian Records label in the UK, and on Epic Records, Epic/One Little Ind ...
,
Kevin Rowland
Kevin Rowland (born 17 August 1953) is a British singer and musician best known as the frontman for the pop band Dexys Midnight Runners (currently called ''Dexys''). The band had several hits in the early 1980s, the most notable being "Geno" an ...
and John & Anne Ryder.
Bobby Rydell
Robert Louis Ridarelli (April 26, 1942 – April 5, 2022), known by the stage name Bobby Rydell, was an American singer and actor who mainly performed rock and roll and traditional pop music. In the early 1960s he was considered a teen idol. His ...
recorded the song for his 1976 album release ''Born With a Smile'', his sole album released after 1964, and his version was issued as a single in 1977.
Jane McDonald
Jane Anne McDonald (born 4 April 1963) is an English singer, songwriter and television presenter. Born and raised in Wakefield, McDonald spent much of her early career performing in local clubs and pubs before landing work as a singer on cruis ...
's rendition of "It's Getting Better" can be heard on her 2010 concert album ''Live at the London Palladium''. A Swedish rendering of "It's Getting Better" by lyricist Stig Anderson entitled "Det Känns Bara Bättre" was cut by
Anna-Lena Löfgren
Anna-Lena Löfgren (1 May 1944 – 21 May 2010) was a Swedish singer from Stockholm. During the years 1962 and 1995, more than 40 of her songs made it onto Svensktoppen, the record chart of Sveriges Radio. Löfgren became one of the most best kno ...
in 1970.
Cass Elliot version
Background
"It's Getting Better" had been recorded by
Cass Elliot
Ellen Naomi Cohen (September 19, 1941 – July 29, 1974), known professionally as Mama Cass and later on as Cass Elliot, was an American singer and voice actress. She was a member of the singing group the Mamas & the Papas. After the group brok ...
Joe Osborn
Joseph Osborn (August 28, 1937 – December 14, 2018the Mamas & the Papas — were among the instrumentalists on the album.
"It's Getting Better" was issued as the second advance single in May 1969 following the release that March of "
Move in a Little Closer, Baby
"Move in a Little Closer, Baby" is a Pop music, pop song, first recorded by Harmony Grass as "Move in a Little Closer." The song became an international hit for Cass Elliot in the spring of 1969.
Grass had recorded the song in 1968, and release ...
", a single reminiscent of the Mamas & the Papas sound which reached a ''Billboard'' Hot 100 peak of #58 (#30 Canada). Steve Barri would recall that "Move in a Little Closer, Baby" was "one lbum tracklliotwasn't ''too'' thrilled about...but she loved 'It's Getting Better'".
Elliot herself did convey reservations about "It's Getting Better", stating in a September 1969 ''
Melody Maker
''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born ...
'' interview that while pleased with the single was rising toward the UK Top Ten - "It shows I am being accepted on my own and that is something I've worried about ever since I left the Mamas & Papas" - "musically, though, it's not quite what I want to be doing. It doesn't satisfy me, It's a good recording for what it is, but you wouldn't exactly call it social commentary and musically it's not very complicated." Elliot further told ''Melody Maker'' - regarding "It's Getting Better" or perhaps the overall focus of its parent album - " Bubblegum music is very pleasant to listen to...but it's like they say about Chinese food: half an hour after tasting it you are hungry again", although she did concede "maybe ubblegumis what I am supposed to be doing incemy voice is very light...I just can't sing heavy material". Elliot would be less easygoing in her 1971 summation of her 1968-1970 tenure with Dunhill Records, saying she had been "forced to be so bubblegum that I'd stick to the floor when I walked."''Los Angeles Times'' 5 December 1971 "Mamas & Papas: four rugged individuals getting back together" by Nat Freedland p.705
A #13 Easy Listening hit, "It's Getting Better" peaked at #30 in August 1969 during what was then considered an unusually lengthy 19-week run on ''Billboards Hot 100. Only five other 1969 releases had longer chart runs on the Hot 100.”Billboard Hot 100 Charts – The Sixties/The Seventies”, Record Research Inc, 1990 The single's regional success was staggered, and it reached the Top Ten in several markets, ranking as high as #2 in Minneapolis-Saint Paul and San Diego. Its estimated U.S. sales were 500,000 copies.Coxhill, G: "Mama Cass Hates Hypocrisy" - ''NME'' - 25 October 1969 archived at http://casselliot.com/nmexpress.htm retrieved 22 September 2009
Cass Elliot made her first solo appearance on ''
American Bandstand
''American Bandstand'', abbreviated ''AB'', is an American music-performance and dance television program that aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989, and was hosted from 1956 until its final season by Dick Clark, who also served as the pro ...
'' belatedly promoting "It's Getting Better" on its broadcast of November 8, 1969.
Elliot's "It's Getting Better" had a more pronounced chart impact in the UK, reaching #8 in October 1969 and selling almost 100,000 copies. The single bested the UK chart performance of Elliot's signature song, "
Dream a Little Dream of Me
"Dream a Little Dream of Me" is a 1931 song with music by Fabian Andre and Wilbur Schwandt and lyrics by Gus Kahn. It was first recorded in February 1931 by Ozzie Nelson and also by Wayne King and His Orchestra, with vocals by Ernie Birchill. ...
" (#11), which had lost some popularity to a rival version by
Anita Harris
Anita Madeleine Harris (born 3 June 1942) is an English actress, singer and entertainer.
Harris sang with the Cliff Adams Singers for three years from 1961 and had a number of chart hits during the 1960s. She appeared in the ''Carry On'' film ...
. In Ireland, where "Dream a Little Dream of Me" had reached #13, "It's Getting Better" reached #3.
"Dream a Little Dream of Me" and "It's Getting Better" would be Elliot's only charting singles in the British Isles. In the U.S., "It's Getting Better" was the fourth of Elliot's seven solo ''Billboard'' Hot 100 appearances and her second Top 40 hit after "Dream a Little Dream of Me".
In Australia, Cass Elliott's "It's Getting Better" charted concurrently with a version by Paul Jones, these singles peaking at respectively #53 and #52. Produced by Jones himself and arranged by Tony Visconti, the Paul Jones version was featured on his album ''Inside My Music Box'' and was released concurrently as a single with the Cass Elliott version in both the UK and Ireland without reaching the chart in either territory.
In the wake of the success of "It's Getting Better", Elliot's next two singles were recordings of Barry Mann-Cynthia Weil compositions: " Make Your Own Kind of Music" — which like "It's Getting Better" had been recorded by the Will-O-Bees in 1968 — and a new song, "New World Coming". Although both songs are now considered
soft rock
Soft rock is a form of rock music that originated in the late 1960s in Southern California and the United Kingdom which smoothed over the edges of singer-songwriter and pop rock, relying on simple, melodic songs with big, lush productions. S ...
classics, their original chart success was fairly mild: "Make Your Own Kind of Music" peaked at #36 (Elliot's third and final solo Top 40 appearance) (#20 Canada), and "New World Coming" peaked at #42 (#22 Canada).
In 2011 Cass Elliot's "It's Getting Better" was employed in a television advertisement for
Nestea
Nestea is a Switzerland, Swiss brand of iced tea and pop beverages owned by Nestlé, manufactured by The Coca-Cola Company and distributed by Nestlé's beverage department in the United States and by Beverage Partners Worldwide (BPW),abc's
LOST
Lost may refer to getting lost, or to:
Geography
*Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland
* Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US
History
*Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have bee ...
Bobby Rydell
Robert Louis Ridarelli (April 26, 1942 – April 5, 2022), known by the stage name Bobby Rydell, was an American singer and actor who mainly performed rock and roll and traditional pop music. In the early 1960s he was considered a teen idol. His ...
covered "It's Getting Better" on his 1976 LP ''Born with a Smile''.