WE SAY A LITTLE PRAYER FOR THEM...

RIP to the brilliant Hal David, passed on at 91, of the Bacharach-David songwriting team, whose finely-crafted, elegantly rhymed lyrics put to shame most contemporary pop lyrics—and, for that matter, most pop lyrics of David’s own time. Here is the excellent Gene Pitney singing perhaps my favorite Bacharach-David song, “(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance.”

RIP also to the ebullient character actor Michael Clarke Duncan, departed way too young at 54. Duncan is best-known for his role in The Green Mile, for which he received an Oscar nomination, but I always remember him for his final scene in 2005’s The Island, in which he brought a sudden shock of horrifying pathos to that otherwise not very good movie.