Song of the Day 9/16: B.J. Thomas, “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head”
Robert Redford, who died early today at 89, was launched into stardom when he co-starred with Paul Newman in the 1969 George Roy Hill film “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” The movie featured this Burt Bacharach-Hal David tune as its theme song, to Redford’s consternation. “When the film was released, I was highly critical,” he said. “How did the song fit with the film? There was no rain. At the time, it seemed like a dumb idea.”
He wasn’t the only one who thought so – so did Hal David. Hill hired Bacharach and David because he didn’t want a traditional Western score, and Bacharach delivered – he won an Oscar for his work on the film. As Bacharach watched the scene of Paul Newman and Katharine Ross on a rickety bicycle, he said, “I wrote the entire melody, and the only words that kept running through my mind from top to bottom were ‘Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head.’”
David, noting that the sun shines throughout the sequence, tried to come up with something else, but nothing worked. Even when the studio balked at including it, Hill stood his ground.
B.J. Thomas wasn’t Bacharach’s first choice as vocalist – Ray Stevens was, but he turned it down so he could be the first to record Kris Kristofferson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down.” Frequent Bacharach collaborator Dionne Warwick recommended Thomas, who was coming off a bout of laryngitis when he recorded it for the film. “I thought I sounded terrible, scratchy,” Thomas said. “As it turned out, Mr. Bacharach liked that sound. He thought it sounded more authentic.”
Thomas recorded it again a couple of weeks later for its release as a single. It hit stores in October of 1969 and didn’t do much until the film’s nationwide release weeks later, when it soared to No. 1 in January 1970, becoming the first chart-topper of the 1970s.
Every easy-listening singer of the period recorded it after that, but the most notable cover came in 1995, when the Manic Street Preachers recorded it for a charity album in the wake of the disappearance of their lyricist, Richey Edwards.
I was in an elevator at the National Endowment for the Arts once with Redford. He was there to meet with someone about getting a grant for the Sundance Film Fest. I’m 5’7″ and had a good two inches on him. There was no way he was 5’10” as described in his bio. Handsome guy though. Even then, all craggy and old.
Redford was also in a couple of notable political movies, most famously in “All the President’s Men.” He bought film rights to the book soon after it was published, and played Bob Woodward in the picture.
Less remembered was a 1972 movie he starred in, “The Candidate.” He played Bill McKay, the idealistic son of a former California governor recruited to challenge a three-term conservative Republican for his Senate seat (yes, kidz, California used to elect Republicans to statewide office). It was written by a former aide to Eugene McCarthy. Barack Obama is one of many politicians who said it is the best movie ever made about political campaigning. Except for the dated technology It holds up remarkably well, because almost nothing about politcal campaigning has changed in the interim.