Dionne Warwick Hated This 1968 Song, Even Though It Became One of Her Biggest Hits

By 1968, Dionne Warwick had already had several hits, including “Don’t Make Me Over”, “Walk On By”, and “Reach Out To Me”, among others. So when she heard “Do You Know The Way To San Jose”, written by songwriters Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Warwick didn’t think the song would have any success.

“I did not want to sing or record ‘San Jose,’” Warwick tells People. “It was not one of my favorite songs that David wrote. I just couldn’t imagine Hal writing a lyric that had ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa….’”

Bacharach and David had already written most of Warwick’s hits up to this point. Still, that wasn’t enough for Warwick to fall in love with “Do You Know The Way To San Jose”.

“I said to him, ‘How could you?’” she recounts. 

Fortunately, David liked the song enough that he convinced Warwick to record “Do You Know The Way To San Jose”. It appears on her Dionne Warwick In Valley Of The Dolls record.

“I sang it because of the affinity he had for the song and cried all the way to the bank,” she says. “What can I tell you?”

In a separate interview, Warwick recalls not thinking the song made much sense.

“I thought it was a really silly song,” she remembers. “Obviously Hal David had a great affinity for San Jose, as I believe he was stationed there during his time in the Navy. He loved the place, and he wrote a song about it. I just giggled all the way to the bank.”

What the Songwriters Say About Writing “Do You Know The Way To San Jose” for Dionne Warwick

Warwick may not have thought “Do You Know The Way To San Jose” was a hit. But the writers had an idea early on that the song would be successful.

 “That was a melody I had started,” Bacharach tells Analog Planet. “It was uptempo. We didn’t cut too many things up like that with Dionne. I played it for Hal, he got an idea, then we kind of steamrolled it together. We finished it and played it for Dionne, who wasn’t too crazy about the song. “

Warwick’s lackluster feelings about “Do You Know The Way To San Jose” became especially evident in the studio.

“When she performed it at the recording session, I think it was the only time during that period we didn’t get a vocal from her that was good enough to use,” Bacharach shares. “So we had to bring her back into the studio to have her overdub her vocals.”

Warwick won the first Grammy Award of her career for “Do You Know The Way To San Jose”.

Photo by CBS via Getty Images

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