![]() ![]() Bacharach and David accept their award where Bacharach speaks in a relatively quiet tone for an industry figure accepting a major award like a shy high school kid.Bob led the group through our warm-up song – Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds.” He then dove into a detailed tutorial of “Raindrops.” Bob led us through helpful exercises to get us comfortable playing the chords, chord progressions, strum styles and more. Thomas performing at the ceremony and in a nod to the film a crew of bicyclists appears on stage to do a little musical number after the song ends. A few months later, “Raindrops” would dominate the Oscars when it won the big music prize of Best Original Song, the first #1 song to do so, with B.J. It climbed its way up the charts through the end of 1969 until it reached the top spot right after the end of the year becoming the first Hot 100 #1 song of the ‘70s and staying there for most of January 1970. When you listen to “Raindrops,” it can feel like all your troubles melt away for three minutes.īutch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was released in September 1969 with the song being released not long after and it was an immediate hit. I’m not a fan of the trumpet and that outro but it’s a song that radiates nothing but comfort with an easily memorable hook, something we don’t get often in pop songs. In his review, Stereogum’s Tom Breihan bemoaned how the song previewed a lot of the boring easy listening/soft-rock music that would dominate the early ‘70s charts- Thomas himself wasn’t happy about that and literally tweeted “fuck you” to him over his review- and yeah it can come across as boring to some. Bacharach said he got the song from watching the bicycle scene and it fits well with the freewheeling nature of the scene. There’s also the last 30 seconds where Thomas’ voice ends and the song goes into a trumpet-led section that sounds like the montage music they would play on old game shows. ![]() Like a lot of Bacharach and David songs, it’s a full-down-the-middle pop production with a guitar that sounds like a ukulele, comforting strings and backing vocals, quiet drums, an old-timey piano, and a chintzy sounding trumpet that Bacharach and David seem to like a lot in their songs. Musically, the song radiates a peaceful bliss that fits well with Thomas’ sunny delivery. There’s a dorky quality to his performance especially in the way he sings the chorus with an upward inflection on each line but it works. He doesn’t sing as if he’s down and out about the rain but instead, he sings with a sunny optimism that everything is going to be great amid the rain. This attitude comes through a lot in Thomas’ singing. He realizes that nothing’s gonna change if he complains or cries about the rain and feels carefree. But Thomas doesn’t fret too much as the blues won’t defeat him since happiness will soon come to greet him. Nothing is going his way like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed to where he tries to talk to the sun saying he doesn’t like him sleeping on the job in providing sunshine. Thomas is having a bad day where rain keeps coming down on his head. The lyrics in “Raindrops” are pretty simple in its concept. After he recovered from his laryngitis, Thomas went back to the studio to record “Raindrops” again for the version that would be released commercially as a single which is the version that still gets played while his raspier original take plays in the movie. Amid the setback, Bacharach and David liked Thomas’ performance and it apparently impressed a 20th Century Fox exec who was at the session to where he thought Thomas sounded like Paul Newman. Thomas’ doctor had ordered him to rest his voice for two weeks but after pleading the doctor allowed him to record treating his throat to help him with recording. Thomas for “Raindrops” but he came down with laryngitis right when he was about to record the song. Bob Dylan was also reportedly approached to sing the song but he also declined though I find it funny thinking of how Dylan’s version would’ve sounded.Īfter those rejections, Bacharach and David settled on B.J. The country novelty star Ray Stevens was approached to sing but didn’t like the song so he turned it down. It just so happened that Bacharach and his writing partner Hal David had “Raindrops” written for Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid but were having trouble finding the right person to sing it. It was “Hooked On A Feeling” that got Thomas connected with songwriter Burt Bacharach when his regular collaborator Dionne Warwick, Thomas’ label mate at Scepter Records, brought the song to Bacharach encouraging him to do some work with Thomas. ![]()
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