Twenty-Four Hours From Tulsa by Gene Pitney

Album: Blue Jean (1964)

Charted: 5 17

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"Twenty-Four Hours From Tulsa" was written by the team of composer Burt Bacharach and lyricist Hal David. Their songs were often musically complex with characters who are either conflicted, lovelorn or incorrigible. This one falls into that incorrigible category.

The guy in the song writes a letter to his girl in Tulsa to let her know he won't be coming home. He was driving back from a trip, just 24 hours away, but he met a woman at a motel and has decided to take up with her.

What's galling is how much detail this guy provides, as if spilling his guts about his special night when he gave into temptation will make her feel any better.
Released on United Artists, this song entered the Billboard Top 100 at #99 week ending October 19, 1963 and peaked at #17 on December 7. >>
Suggestion credit:
Alexander Baron - London, England
This song has been included on at least 80 albums, over 48 of which are Gene Pitney's version. It has also been covered by Dusty Springfield, Ian and Sylvia, and Chet Baker, among others.
Singer Gene Pitney was known for his songwriting talents as well as his singing, having penned the hit songs "He's a Rebel" for the Crystals and "Hello Mary Lou" for Ricky Nelson. In fact, his first hit as a singer was a self-penned tune called "(I Wanna) Love My Life Away." He not only wrote the song, but he produced it and played all the instruments on it, as well. It reached 39 on the U.S. Hot 100 in 1961.
Pitney's collaboration with songwriters Burt Bacharach and Hal David began in 1962 with "(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance," which was a song written for the John Wayne vehicle of the same name, but was inexplicably never used in the movie. Their collaboration continued on through a handful of songs, including "Only Love Can Break A Heart," "The Fool Killer" and "If I Never Get To Love You."
In a 1997 DISCoveries interview, Hal David recalled how the song came together: "I wrote that to a melody that Burt wrote and that's what the melody said to me. Music speaks to a lyric writer, or at least it should speak to a lyric writer. And that's what the music said to me. And why it did, I don't know. I don't think I had ever been to Tulsa. I've always kind of liked what I call 'narrative songs' - story songs. And when I hear music, very often I hear a story. The fact that it was Tulsa, as opposed to Dallas, is not terribly meaningful, but the sound of 'Tulsa' rang in my ear."
This was used in three season 1 episodes of the Stephen King-inspired Hulu series Castle Rock: "Severance," "The Box," and "Filter."
A year after this song was released, the Billy Joe Royal song "Down In The Boondocks" came out, with nearly identical opening notes.

Comments: 4

Stefano from Vignola, ItalyJust a curious fact. Have you ever seen "The Commitments" ? It's a must see comedy movie released in 1991. Set in the Northside of Dublin, the film tells the story of Jimmy Rabbitte (Robert Arkins), a young music fanatic who assembles a group of working-class youths to form a soul band. At the very start of it Jimmy goes at a wedding party where he meets his friends and guess what... there's a band on stage playing "Twenty-Four Hours From Tulsa"... at the wedding party... that made me laugh my head off.
Babbling Babette from Tulsa OkGrowing up in the Sixties, I was a big Gene Pitney fan. Loved all his work & this hit in particular. I even recall the first time I heard it in fall of '63. I was in a school bus hauling the marching band of my high school to a football game in the Tulsa, OK. suburbs. We were going to the Skiatook High School stadium. Then this song came on from a Tulsa AM rock station. Me & my friends loved the arrangement & production. It almost sounded like a Phil Spector production, but I don't think it was. The message in the song was so bizarre for a love song. Betrayal? Infidelity? Ooooo! And that jukebox. In Oklahoma at the time, I recall it was a Top Ten hit on my fav AM rock station, but I see that here it shows Billboard had it peak at #17. I think it was worthy of Top 3 back when I was a kid in '63 and I still do now. But I'm now babbling.....
Steve Dotstar from Los Angeles, CaI think Burt was influenced heavily by Leonard Bernstein's 2 notes on Somewhere from West Side Story, or perhaps, more likely, it was Leiber and Stoller's production of Jay and the Americans Come an Little Bit Closer arrangement... whatever the inspiration was, I love his twist on that riff, dragging it out and making it so dramatic in the opening, and then using it as an ostinato thruout the song!...brilliant.
The riff was used again a year later on Billy Joe Royal's "Down in the Boondocks"
Bob from Southfield, MiI love this song (and anything else by Gene Pitney) but whenever I hear it, I think "this guy just cheated on his girlfriend, is leaving her to run away with this new love, and he is playing the victim? What's up with that?

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