Ain't No Sunshine – Bill Withers

I knew the name Bill Withers, he's the punchline to a funny joke. 'How do you make a duck into a soul singer?' 'Put him in the microwave until his bill withers.' But seriously, Bill has written some of the most iconic songs ever, Lovely Day and Lean On Me being huge hits and their up there with the best known songs around. I recently watched a Sky Arts TV interview with him about songwriting, I found him refreshing and very honest. He gave the host quite a hard time for asking silly questions. 'Do you find the words or the melody come first?' he asked. 'I don't want to know the answer to that,' Bill replied, 'That would kill the magic.' He didn't have his first hit until he was in his early 30s, which would probably be unheard of in today's music. But that meant he could put all his life experiences into his songs rather than silly pop song lyrics. It sounds like he had a hard time being black and growing up in the South of the States, so I think he had something to prove to the world.

I wasn't aware of this song until Will Young covered it on Pop Idol, the original singing reality show in the UK. Will went on to win the series and had a number of big hits himself, but I remember him singing this on the show and him saying it meant a lot to him with big family connections. I also remember how he stood up to the then lesser known Simon Cowell and stated his point of view to why he thought he should be put through to the next round. The funny thing to me was Will got to the final and he was up against a very nice chap, Gareth Gates. Gareth went on to have his own music career and some big hits, but the thing he was best known for at the time was having a stutter, all his spoken interviewers on the show were very difficult for him. The irony for me was that Bill Withers told how he had a serious stutter when he was a kid, something odd about that for me. I can recall being in a bar in Romford on the Saturday night of the TV show final, there was a huge ripple round the place as the rumour spread Will had won.

The other funny thing was in the interview after everything Bill Withers said he muttered, 'You know!' He said it over and over, so the refrain in this song where he sings 'I know, I know' probably just came about just because that's the way Bill speaks. When you hear the song not knowing that it sounds like some clever chant to emphasise a big point. The rest of the words are very poetic, what an image they paint, ain't no sunshine when she's gone. The backing is sparse and atmospheric, his voice just tells the story, no big drama, just a straight delivery, all in all a classy song.

Favourite lyric : Ain't no sunshine when she's gone / And this house just ain't no home