Thursday Inspiration #223 Rainy Days and Mondays

Respond to this challenge, by either using the prompt word old, or going with the above picture, or by means of the song ‘Rainy Days and Mondays’, or by going with another Carpenters song, or any other song about rain or a day of the week, or you can go with anything else that you think fits.  Paul Williams wrote this song with Roger Nichols and as a child he displayed a knack for music and he wanted to be a singer.  In 1954, Paul’s dad died in a car crash when he was 13, and his mother shipped him off to live with an aunt and an uncle that he didn’t know.  Somebody told his mother that she couldn’t afford to keep both of her sons, so she kept Paul’s little brother and he was shipped off to California.  Paul wanted to be somebody other than himself at that time, and he was able to get that from acting.  Paul turned his attention from singing to acting, but his acting career fizzled when he was around twenty-seven, after getting a minor part in a movie called The Chase, which he thought was going to be his big break, even though he only had a few lines.  When the movie was released, his part was cut out.  On the set of The Chase Williams began fooling around with a guitar and writing songs.  After acting didn’t pan out for him, depression began to set in and that was when Williams turned to writing songs as a form of home therapy.  It was a true example of that old adage, “one door closes, another door opens.”

Paul Williams was one of many people turned down for a role in the Monkees.  Unable to land any acting roles Willians got an office at A&M, where he would constantly write song lyrics during the day.  In 1968, Williams began his professional songwriting career with Biff Rose in Los Angeles.  The two men first met while working together on a television comedy show.  Together, they wrote the song ‘Fill Your Heart’ which was recorded by Rose on his first album and it was covered by Tiny Tim on the B-side of his novelty hit, ‘Tiptoe Through the Tulips’.  Williams formed a group called Holy Mackerel, and they released an album that attracted virtually no attention.  In 1970, Williams released his debut solo album Someday Man which was also met with silence, but the Monkees did record the title track from this.

Publisher Chuck Kaye teamed Williams up with composer Roger Nichols, a collaboration that started slowly but lasted for many years and produced countless hits.  The first day they met, Roger gave Paul a melody to work with and he came back the nest day with the finished lyric to ‘It’s Hard To Say Goodbye’, and their first song was recorded by Claudine Longet.  At the end a typical day of their writing sessions, Roger Nichols would go home to his girlfriend, and Paul would stay in the office and write with anybody that came by or he would write alone.  I guess that Paul may have been living with his mother at the time and he would stay up all night writing songs.  His mother would get up in the morning, and tell him not to worry, because God has a plan.  She talked to herself, mumbling and walking away, which made him wonder what’s the matter?  She’d say, “You wouldn’t understand.  I’m just feeling old.  That’s probably where the line in the song, “Talking to myself and feeling old” came from.

This song has nothing to do with rainy days or Mondays, as it is about depression, feeling old and being alone and having “what they used to call the blues.”  This song also inspires hope, because the singer knows that somebody loves her.  The 5th Dimension passed on this song, but the Carpenters picked it up, giving them their second hit written by Williams and Nichols, who also wrote ‘We’ve Only Just Begun’.  This song peaked at #2 in the US and went to #63 in the UK and it was released on the brother and sister duo’s 1971 third studio eponymous album Carpenters.  The Wrecking Crew backed the Carpenters on this album and even though Karen was a great drummer, Hal Blaine played drums on this sing.

Talkin’ to myself and feelin’ old
Sometimes I’d like to quit
Nothin’ ever seems to fit
Hangin’ around
Nothin’ to do but frown
Rainy days and Mondays always get me down