This Guy's In Love With You

Album

Beat of the Brass

Label

A&M Records

Genre

Easy Listening

Composer(s)

Burt Bacharach;Hal David

Entered Chart

May 18, 1968

Peak Date

Jun 22, 1968

Released

May 1968

Recorded

April 1968

Catalog #

A&M 929

B-Side

A Quiet Tear (with Tijuana Brass)

Alpert was a trumpet player and bandleader who started a record label with Jerry Moss in 1962. They named it A&M Records, after their last names. This was the first #1 hit for both Alpert and the record label. This was written by the team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David. It was their first #1 Pop hit in the US. Marty Robbins' "The Story of My Life" was #1 on the Country chart, and a cover by UK artist Michael Holliday went to #1 on the UK Pop chart on February 14, 1958, just two weeks before Perry Como took their "Magic Moments" to UK Pop #1 (for eight weeks) on February 28 - a decade before "This Guy's in Love With You." >> Alpert's previous material consisted of instrumental songs recorded with The Tijuana Brass Band. This was his first released on A&M Records that contained vocals. He had released vocal recordings for another label, Dot Records, under the assumed name of Dore Alpert. Alpert sang this to his first wife in a 1968 TV special called The Beat of the Brass; the sequence was taped on the beach in Malibu. The song was not intended to be released, but after it was used in the TV special, thousands of telephone calls to CBS asking about it convinced label owner Alpert to release it as a single two days after the show aired. According to the book Bacharach by Michael Brocken, Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss owned A&M records (A = Alpert, M = Moss). The Tijuana Brass were offered a TV special and the director suggested Alpert sing a song. Alpert contacted friend and label mate Burt Bacharach to ask him for a song. Hal David actually re-wrote some of the lyrics at Alpert's request: "He wanted to do our song on a TV special he was doing. It was a song he was going to sing to his wife, and the lyric was not quite appropriate for what he wanted to say. He asked us whether we could change it so it would fit what he needed. And I did; and he did it on the show and got a terrific reaction and recorded it. And it turned out to be a stunning hit!" In 1969, Dionne Warwick's version ("This Girl's in Love With You") peaked at #7 in the US. She recorded a lot of songs Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote, including "Don't Make Me Over" and "I Say a Little Prayer." Herb Alpert is the only solo act to be credited with a #1 vocal single ("This Guy's in Love With You") and a #1 instrumental single ("Rise"). >> After four weeks at #1 in America, this was bumped on July 20, 1968 by Hugh Masekela's "Grazing In The Grass," an instrumental trumpet-based song. Masekela was being marketed as an African Herb Alpert. Burt Bacharach (from Record Collector magazine): "'This Guy's In Love With You' was gonna be a big record. It was a television show. Herb was very hot and his band, The Tijuana Brass was very hot. I was signed to A&M as an artist. There were great guys running the record company, Herb and Jerry (Moss). They asked me to do it, to write a song with Hal David, come in and write the arrangement and conduct the orchestra. I did it as a favor. If you asked me when I got in my car leaving Gold Star Studios that night and thought this was ever gonna be a hit I would have said no way. Then three or four weeks later it was #1. Wow!" Petula Clark, Dionne Warwick, Dusty Springfield, Johnny Mathis and The Dramatics are among the artists to record this song. In 1997, the band Fastball did a lounge version for the album Lounge-A-Palooza, compilation of classics done in lounge style by artists on the Hollywood Records label. At the time, Fastball's first album had been released, but it sunk. Their next one, released in 1998, was their breakthrough, containing their hit "The Way." In 2005, much of Alpert's material was re-released, including his albums Whipped Cream & Other Delights and The Lonely Bull.

You see this guy, this guy's in love with you
Yes I'm in love who looks at you the way I do
When you smile I can tell we know each other very well

How can I show you I'm glad I got to know you cause
I've heard some talk, they say you think I'm fine
This guy's in love and what I'd do to make you mine

Tell me now is it so don't let me be the last to know
My hands are shakin' don't let my heart keep breaking cause
I need your love, I want your love
Say you're in love, in love with this guy, if not I'll just die

Tell me now is it so don't let me be the last to know
My hands are shakin' don't let my heart keep breaking 'cause
I need your love, I want your love
Say you're in love, in love with this guy, if not I'll just die
Writer/s: Burt F. Bacharach, Hal David