But in the next breath Bacharach is humming with pride about his other three children who include a teenage son and daughter by fourth wife Jane.
His 18-year-old son Oliver, a nationally ranked snowboarder will be accompanying him to New Zealand in July for his 79-year-old father's concert before hitting the slopes.
"I am not touring as much as I did. I got three young kids. It's not as important, that whole aspect, as it used to be. It gets harder to be on the road because air travel sucks now, you know?
"And so I want to spend time with these kids and have them know me and me know them.
"When you get a chance to do that later in your life - have a family, have kids - it's just much more meaningful. If you do it in your 20s or 30s you're jump-starting your career; that's what you are thinking about and you are focused not on your children."
Yes, Bacharach says his kids have some musical inklings. And they have come to realise their father's place in pop history.
"I think they have pride in their father. They are happy to listen what they are listening to on their iPods but they know what I've done and what I am doing."
Even for a teenager these days, Bacharach and his songbook remain inescapable - whether it's Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head turning up in Spider-Man 2, Joss Stone covering Alfie for the Jude Law remake of the film, being sampled by Kanye West, making guest appearances on American Idol and the Austin Powers films, or the White Stripes twisting (some might say torturing) the Dusty Springfield hit I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself.
"I like the White Stripes record of I Don't What to Do with Myself. I don't like it as much as the way it was in the original form. But you know, sometimes somebody can come along and make a version of a song like Aretha [Franklin] did on Say A Little Prayer and make a much better record than I made with Dionne [Warwick]. And Dionne's was a huge hit. But you ask me which record I prefer - it's Aretha's."
Not only is he still touring, Bacharach has kept making albums too. There was his Grammy-winning Painted from Memory with Elvis Costello in 1998, then in 2004 another collaboration on Ronald Isley Meets Burt Bacharach: Here I Am on which the composer rearranged his classics for the veteran R&B/soul singer. Both albums he says are amongst his most under-appreciated work.
"I think [Painted From Memory] is one of the best albums I ever made. The Elvis album is like a cult record, a lot of people love that thing. But that wasn't the best time because after the record came out the record company kind of folded.
"And the same thing happened with this next album I did with Ronald Isley. And that album was very challenging to me because I could take things that I had written and be challenged to put them in a whole different framework - songs like Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head done very soulful. All he had to do was sing one bar and I knew where I could take that.
"But unfortunately, also, the day it came out the record company went under," Bacharach chuckles.
Costello, along with Rufus Wainwright and others guested on Bacharach's 2005 album At This Time, the first time an album had featured his own lyrics - and words which bemoaned the state of the world and the US invasion of Iraq.
Ironically, perhaps, it won Best Pop Instrumental Album - not for his outspoken lyrics. But it still helped bring Bacharach and his views wider attention.
"When I went through the press line after I won the Grammy and the question came up why did you write this kind of album? I said 'I always had trouble with a girlfriend who lied. I always had trouble with an agent who lied. I will always have trouble with a president who lies'. I can't stand him.
"Basically it's a year on from when it came out and I think if I was writing it now how much more severe and fighting this album would be. Because if I was angry and enraged and frustrated two years ago, I am more so now."
He offers a good-natured laugh when it's suggested we turn from politics to use the little time remaining to discuss those great deceptively complicated songs with their often unconventional time signatures and indelible melodies. There have been quite of few (see Lowdown), not that Bacharach spends much time listening to them - because it can get too daunting.
"I'm not a great one for looking back. But there are times I think 'Holy shit that's a lot of songs' and be very, very proud and almost a little bit in awe of the amount that I have written. And there's been a lot of bad songs that you've never heard and you never will. They were not all goodies."
So what makes a goodie? What's the Bacharach theory of perfect pop? "Something that stays in your head, first of all. That is where the music has it a little bit over the lyric; it's what you hum, it's what you may whistle. You may not remember all the words, or remember very few of the words. It's the melody that stays with you.
"[You need] a melody that doesn't exhaust you or tax you too much so you don't want to hear it after a week and a half. But it has got to have some substance to it. I was lucky that way. A lot of songs I wrote, yeah, they were a little complicated but they had substance and that is why they are still alive and doing quite well."
And Bacharach says he still gets a kick when he hears one of his old tunes drifting past, even if it isn't delivered with the same finesse as the original.
"It makes me feel good when you hear someone whistling your song. It makes me feel great.
"You can go into a bar, like I did recently in Italy in a little seaside resort town with this guy playing piano ... maybe he's playing the wrong chords on That's What Friends Are For and it doesn't matter.
"It doesn't upset me that he is playing the wrong chords. The fact that he is playing it is a thoroughly complimentary thing."
Lowdown
Who: Burt Bacharach
Born: May 12, 1928, Kansas City, Missouri
Songs of his you might know: Walk on By, I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself, Make it Easy on Yourself, Always Something There to Remind Me, Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa, I Say A Little Prayer, What the World Needs Now is Love, Baby It's You, Anyone Who Had a Heart, Blue on Blue, The Look of Love, I'll Never Fall in Love Again, Do You Know the Way to San Jose, Alfie, Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head, Close to You, Wishin' and Hopin', This Guy's in Love with You, That's What Friends Are For The numbers: Three Academy Awards, seven Grammy Awards, nine US number one hits, 48 top 10 hits, and more than 500 songs composed.
Playing: Vector Arena with the Auckland Philharmonic, Friday, July 20
