Song of the Day 2/20: The Association, “Windy”

Here’s a symptom of climate change you don’t hear about much in the States: destructive hurricane-force winter winds of more than 120 mph. There’s plenty of video to prove it. Suffice it to say this didn’t used to happen.

Though they’re not much heard today, The Association was all the rage in the days of sunshine pop. This 1967 release was The Association’s second No. 1 hit, following “Cherish” in 1966. Though they were the first to record the song, it was written by a singer/songwriter named Ruthann Friedman, who was introduced to The Association by her friend Van Dyke Parks.

When Friedman wrote and sang it, she imagined a man. She told Songfacts:

I was sitting on my bed – the apartment on the first floor of David Crosby’s house in Beverly Glenn – and there was a fellow who came to visit and was sitting there staring at me as if he was going to suck the life out of me. So I started to fantasize about what kind of a guy I would like to be with, and that was Windy – a guy (fantasy). The song took about 20 minutes to write.

Legendary producer Bones Howe, the hitmaker behind the Fifth Dimension as well as The Association, not only changed the tempo to 4/4 time, he sped it up to get it under the 3-minute mark.