It may have hit the charts in 1971, but when I heard “Burning Bridges” by The Mike Curb Congregation earlier this evening, I still knew the words…
My family were watching a video of the Clint Eastwood/Donald Sutherland/Telly Savalas film “Kelly’s Heroes” from 1970 – one of a big box of videos we recently acquired.
“Burning Bridges” was written by Argentinian Lalo Schifrin, who was also responsible for the themes of the TV series “Mission: Impossible”, “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” and “Starsky and Hutch” among others, as well as dozens of movies, such as the Clint Eastwood films “Coogan’s Bluff” (1968) and “Dirty Harry” and the Steve McQueen classic “Bullitt”. (You can see all the movie themes by Lalo Schifrin here [1].)
Here is a video of “Burning Bridges” with the opening scenes from “Kelly’s Heroes”, plus further shots accompanied by an instrumental version without the singing (uh, how was that for a redundant phrase…):
Some songs just stay with you for years.
Paul