How apt that one of Burt Bacharach's very first hits was The Story Of My Life. Because reading the tributes prompted by his loss a couple of days ago, it turns out that his music was pretty well a soundtrack to the lives of millions who--especially in the Sixties, an era of profound societal tension between materialism and idealism--wanted assurance that the essential bonds of humanity still united them all. He transcended those divisions much as he did musical genres, knowing that the middle-aged hosts of suburban cocktail parties and...