Sometimes the most powerful love song isn’t bombastic; it doesn’t even have to be particularly long. It just has to be “Aint No Sunshine” by Bill Withers, and all the sentiments of true love and longing for that one true soulmate are summed right up.
To say he made a strong first impression is an understatement, as “Ain’t No Sunshine” was a song on Bill’s debut album, Just As I Am, released in 1971; for even more context, he just started in the industry four years prior and wasted no time telling us who brings the warmth and the sun, who makes a house a home. But a surprising amount of stars had to align for this beautiful blend of soul, folk rock, and R&B to grace the airwaves.
Bill Withers got some surprising inspiration for “Ain’t No Sunshine”
“Ain’t No Sunshine” is a simple and effective love song to croon that has some of the most heartfelt sentiments put to music. But Withers was originally inspired to compose this song by watching the 1962 movie Days of Wine and Roses. The movie follows the deterioration of two everyday citizens, played by Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick. Their hopes for a brighter tomorrow are often sabotaged by addiction struggles.
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“They were both alcoholics who were alternately weak and strong,” mused Withers. “It’s like going back for seconds on rat poison. Sometimes you miss things that weren’t particularly good for you. It’s just something that crossed my mind from watching that movie.”
There are definitely undertones of pining in the lyrics, teetering dangerously over the precipice of addiction. But he also credited “probably something else that happened in my life that I’m not aware of.” That wasn’t the only mystery to this song lost to time, though.
Sometimes simple is better
The latter half of the song gets pretty easy to remember, as long as the singer can count while belting out “I know,” for a total of 26 repeats of same two words. That hadn’t been the original plan, however. Withers had fully intended on writing more lyrics, but he received advice that was pretty impossible to ignore.
“Graham Nash was sitting right in front of me, Stephen Stills was playing and there was Booker T and the MGs,” he remembered. “They were all these people with all this experience and I was this factory worker. Their general feeling was, ‘Leave it like that.’” The third verse of the song was “like that” because Withers actually hadn’t finished writing it and so had improvised “I know” over and over. As far as the industry veterans around him were concerned, however, that was just right.
“So,” he added, recalling the songwriting process, “when they said to leave it like that, I left it.” That’s not an exaggeration; Withers, at the time 31, had worked at a factory that made bathrooms for 747s. But if there’s one thing “Ain’t No Sunshine” has taught us – besides an intense and thoughtful look at love – is that great things come in unexpected places.
