Do you know the way to San Jose?
I've been away so long
I may go wrong and lose my way
Do you know the way to San Jose
I'm going back to find some piece of mind San Jose
L. A. is a great big freeway
Put a hundred down and buy a car
In a week - or maybe two - they'll make you a star
Weeks turn into years and quickly pass
And all the stars there never were a parkin' cars and pumpin' gas
I've got lots of friends in San Jose
Wo oh oh oh
Can't wait to get back to San Jose
Wo oh oh oh
Do You know the way to San Jose?
Music: Burt Bachrach
Lyrics: Hal David
Copyright © ASCAP. All rights reserved.
Mary Ethel has returned & all is now right with the world
Welcome back . Was it the Baja Marimba Band that recorded this or someone else ?
Especialy if you're Dionne Warwick, freak...
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/3/04
I really don't like this song anymore. My family moved to the lower Bay Area and I fly into San Jose. Whenever someone takes me to the airport they sing that damned song!
That's a shame, Yenta.
Y'know, I just realized, they NEVER play "Big D" at DFW...
Dionne Warwick really faded fast after a meteroic rise. What happened ?
This song & others like it mirror a time when we had a more peaceful & less dangerous pre terrorist world. Ah for the good old days
EXCELLENT Question, Mr Roxy
I believe Warwick focus pretty much on the club circuit now.
I saw her perform at a Club in Atlantic City in the 1980s...
Santa Clara Valley Medical Center - Mental Health Department
Mental Health Services
820 Enborg Ct, San Jose, CA 95128
Details: Emergency Psychiatric Services
(40
885-6100
More peaceful? Wasn't this song released in the late '60s? Vietnam War. Protestors. Civil Rights movement. The assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy. The Tate-LaBianca murders. Umm yeah, peaceful times man.
Marquise is correct.
Dionne Warwick received the Grammy for "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" in 1968.
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/3/04
Thanks Sueleen, but my family prefers Stanford.
Speaking of Warwick, fans should check out the latest 2-fer re-releases of her classic albums on compact disc from Rhino Handmade. They're online exclusives and some of her best albums are featured.

"San Jose" was featured on this album and was the flip side to the single of "The Theme from Valley of the Dolls"...both sides charted with "Valley" being Warwick's biggest hit of the decade earning her her first Gold record. Updated On: 7/24/05 at 04:50 PM
That is an INTENSE album cover :0)
I was wrong "Valley" was the A side and "I Say A Little Prayer" was the B side and was her first double-sided hit. "San Jose" was the follow up single to "Valley/Prayer" in 1968.
Updated On: 7/24/05 at 05:00 PM
That's a cool Lp cover. I have it framed in my den.
What I find interesting is that Warwick recorded the title songs for the original VALLEY OF THE DOLLS movie AND its remake for TV in 1981.
oh i looooooooove dionne! esp "walk on by". so sad. mmm. everything she did with burt, man, it's classic.
"Walk on By":
I just can't get over losing you
And so if I seem broken and blue
Walk on by, walk on by
Foolish pride
Is all that I have left
So let me hide
The tears and the sadness you gave me
When you said goodbye
Walk on by
and walk on by
and walk by (don't stop)
Walk on by, walk on by
Foolish pride
Is all that I have left
So let me hide
The tears and the sadness you gave me
When you said goodbye
Walk on by (don't stop)
and walk on by (don't stop)
and walk by (don't stop)
Music: Burt Bachrach
Lyrics: Hal David
Copyright © ASCAP. All rights reserved.
Joined: 12/31/69
I have always loved this song-- and one of the things I love about it is that people HEAR it as a happy, lighthearted song, when it's not at all. Look at this line:
L. A. is a great big freeway
Put a hundred down and buy a car
In a week - or maybe two - they'll make you a star
Weeks turn into years and quickly pass
And all the stars there never were a parkin' cars and pumpin' gas
So they came up to LA, thought they would find stardom and are now working at a gas station. The next lines talk about how they have friends in San Jose and everything will be OK once they get home to San Jose.
I love it! Such an eloquent song.
I love it by both Warwick and The Carpenters.
Me2
Loves me some Dianne n' B&D - all the songs listed plus "I Say A Little Prayer". Among the greatest songs of the '60s.
And that LP cover is fierce - though it does give one pause that she looks nothing remotely like that today.
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/22/03
See how selective the memory has to be for nostalgia? A more peaceful time! RIGHT. The Cold War raged on and anybody who came of age from the '50s on had the sense of palpable dread that Russia had its nukes pointed right at us.
Riots. Assassinations. SUCH a great time!
And Dionne Warwick performed a lot of great Bachrach/David numbers, then she stopped. Years later she started the Dionne Warwick Fund for AIDS and NOT ONE RED CENT actually made it to any AIDS program or person with AIDS. Her own indulgent expenses were completely covered, as you might imagine. She also was spokeshill for the Psychic Friends Network. Which went bankrupt.
Truly, that's what friends are for.
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