Factory Worker Bill Withers’ Brilliant Debut: ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’
‘200 Greatest 70s Rock Songs’ Book Excerpt
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Bill Withers was working in an aircraft factory when Stax session legend Booker T. Jones offered to produce his first album, 1971’s Just As I Am. Jones lined up A-list musicians that included Donald “Duck” Dunn on bass, Stephen Stills on guitar, and drummer Al Jackson. Originally intended as a B-side to “Harlem,” the sessions produced Withers’ 1971 №6 hit, “Ain’t No Sunshine.”
Withers was inspired by the 1962 film Days of Wine and Roses. Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick portrayed a couple battling their addictions. “They were both alcoholics who were alternately weak and strong,” Withers explained in Songfacts.
“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.
“Watching the movie probably affected me and made me stop long enough to putz around, and that phrase crossed my mind, so you just kind of go from there.”
One of the most memorable parts of the song was Withers’ repetition of the phrase “I know” 26 times. It was originally a placeholder until he wrote more lyrics. “I wasn’t going to do that, then Booker T. said, ‘No, leave it like that.’
“I was going to write something there, but there was a general consensus in the studio. It was an interesting thing because I’ve got all these guys that were already established, and I was working in the factory at the time.
“Graham Nash was sitting right in front of me, just offering his support. Stephen Stills was playing and there was Booker T. and Al Jackson and Donald Dunn — all of the M.G.’s except Steve Cropper. They were all these people with all this experience and all these reputations, and I was this factory worker in here just sort of puttering around. So when their general feeling was, ‘leave it like that,’ I left it like that.”
Frank Mastropolo is the author is 200 Greatest 70s Rock Songs and 200 Greatest 60s Rock Songs.
