Monday, April 06, 2020

Wine + Roses = No Sunshine



Musician legend Bill Withers passed away seven days ago at the age of eighty-one. My guess is he was best known by the general pubic for one of those singalongs almost everybody knows, Lean On Me. Back in the day, I owned a piece of Bill Wither's vinyl, the album Still Bill which is pictured above. My favorite Wither's work, though, is the classic song that starts with a double negative, Ain't No Sunshine. I once asked my classes how many times Bill sang 'I know' in the chorus/bridge of Ain't No Sunshine. The correct answer? Twenty-six! I wonder if he ever changed it up in concerts to 25 or 27 just to mess with people!

Here's a couple of interesting things about Ain't No Sunshine. at least to me. It was supposed to be the B side of the single but DJ's played it instead.... thank goodness!  Famed singer Stephen Stills played guitar on the record. Withers was making toilet seats for airplanes in a Boeing factory when the song came out and kept his job, not knowing if the success was long lasting. He said every woman who he was ever involved with thinks the song is about her. There is no introduction- he simply starts singing. He originally was going to add another verse but instead dropped the idea on the advice of other musicians- another thank goodness! 

I saw an interview with Bill Withers about Ain't No Sunshine which I found fascinating. It wasn't long, only about five minutes or so. He shared how the song came to him while he was watching the movie, Days Of Wine And Roses, a story of married alcoholics starring Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick. He spoke of the addiction of the characters and how when you have an idea for a song, you should write it down right then..... and he did. And the result was what Rolling Stone ranked as # 285 of The 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time. (Perhaps not shockingly, Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone their pick for #1. Maybe a bit of self glorification?)

I've written in this blog before that I often ask the Lord for something to write about in the morning. I've come more and more to lean on the words of Ephesians 2:10 in my life:
For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
In my mind, one of the good works God prepared for me to do is write these devotional thoughts down and send them out as e-mails as well as posting on the Internet, primarily through Facebook. They started as a result of a teacher's meeting and a guest speaker in 2005. What if I had a ball game that day or excused myself early- would you be reading this today? What if Bill Withers decided to read instead of watch television that fateful afternoon? Would the world be deprived a great piece of art which has become a standard? Bill Withers kept saying I know but truthfully, I don't. But, I do know that I ask for inspiration or guidance from above. Ideas come at the strangest times and from unexpected sources. A note on a quiz. An incident in basketball practice. A long forgotten conversation which comes to mind out of the blue. The funny thing is I saw the clip about Ain't No Sunshine several days before he died and had decided it might make an interesting topic. You'll have to be the judge of that. But do we have a loving Father leading us down the path of life if we choose to follow? That, my friend, I know.

To watch and listen to Ain't No Sunshine from the Midnight Special, copy/paste or click the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5vH1ggTv-A

Applicable quote of the day: 
"They were both alcoholics who were alternately weak and strong. 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, and probably something else that happened in my life that I'm not aware of."
Bill Withers, on the characters in Days Of Wine And Roses


God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1

E-mail me at shawley@westburychristian.org



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