Each week in the American Songwriter Membership Hub we break down a popular song. This week we’re going “Under the Hood” of “Ain’t No Sunshine” by Bill Withers to learn a thing or two about saying more with less, when you might just want to get from point A to point A, and why repetition is effective with help from Taylor Swift, Counting Crows, Bob Dylan, and more.
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If you’ve never heard “Ain’t No Sunshine” before (or it’s been a while) please take a couple minutes to listen before reading the analysis below. Let’s dig in…
SAYING MORE WITH LESS
The song is a lesson in word economy:
• There are only 40 unique words.
• There is NO CHORUS. Just 3 verses and bridge.
• Each verse has 5 lines. And of those 15 total lines – 7 of those are the hook!
THE VERSE
Some of the best songs ever written take the listener on a journey from point A to point B.
Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” takes us from We were both young when I first saw you to Marry me, Juliet. In between we get the full story of their relationship in 3 minutes and 56 seconds.
Bob Dylan’s “Hurricane” tells the story of a barroom murder, boxer Rubin Carter being wrongfully accused in 1966 and the events that unfolded over the 10 years that followed, up to the point of Dylan writing the song in 1976.
“Ain’t No Sunshine” is a perfect example that sometimes the journey is in a singular moment. The song is a snapshot of life inside of point A, where point B feels impossibly far away.
THAT’s the point: the moment.
The moment that he knows so well…when she leaves, just like she always does, and robs his whole world of light.
Check out verse 1
Only 2 lines of this verse are new and in those 2 lines, he’s still basically saying the same thing as the hook:
Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone
It’s not warm when she’s away
Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone
And she’s always gone too long
Anytime she goes away
Could he talk about:
- How he stays up late for nights on end waiting for her to return?
- How he drinks until he passes out watching TV?
- How he’s run out of friends to call and sob to?
- Her hair?
- The color of the wallpaper he’s staring at?
- The smell he misses from her clothes?
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.
He could’ve done all of those things.
Check out all of the details in “Mr. Jones” by Counting Crows:
I was down at the New Amsterdam
Staring at this yellow-haired girl
Mr. Jones strikes up a conversation
With a black-haired flamenco dancer
Because of the details, we, the audience can picture the characters and the scene.
In “Ain’t No Sunshine,” the lack of detail is the magic. It allows the listener to fall into the emotional world that he has created instead of being distracted by visual details. Withers already said the sun is gone. It is dark after all.
Verse 2
The second verse in “Ain’t No Sunshine” is also just 5 lines. But this time Withers gives us three new lines— the first, second, and fourth:
Wonder this time where she’s gone
Wonder if she’s gone to stay
Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone
And this house just ain’t no home
Anytime she goes away
Notice how Withers chooses to keep the hook in the middle of the verse. That’ the most important line in the song. Important enough to be the title. And important enough to be repeated seven times. So, it is interesting to tuck it into the middle line of the verse. Because of the number of syllables in each line, it could fit anywhere. But by starting the verse with a new line, Wonder this time where she’s gone? we think we’re on to a new thought.
But no, just like every thought in this poor guy’s mind, all thoughts lead back to the hook, Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone. It interrupts the verse. It interrupts his questions:
Wonder this time where she’s gone
Wonder if she’s gone to stay
And it’s not giving any answers. It just reminds him of the darkness.
The Bridge
It would be easy to toss the bridge aside as an uninspired throw away bridge. It is a stutter on “I know.”
And I know,
I know,
I know,
I know
I know,
I know,
I know,
I know,
I know
I know,
I know,
I know,
I know,
I know
I know,
I know,
I know,
I know,
I know
I know,
I know,
I know,
I know,
I know
I know,
I know
I know is repeated 26 times before finally settling in on the entire statement, Hey I oughta leave young thing alone.
He could have filled all of that real estate with reasons why he oughta leave her alone. But c’mon…
The phonetic groove feels soooo good and gives such a nice contrast to the verses. Everything but the drums completely drop out. If what he is saying wasn’t important he’d be leaning on the band a bit more wouldn’t he? There is such honest emotional depth in the simple statement of the bridge.
At first it feels like he’s trying to convince us (and maybe himself) with each I know. But then we finally get that full statement:
Hey I oughta leave young thing alone
But ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone
Didn’t Shakespeare say it first?
“But, soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun“
That is great songwriting: take what is familiar, even seemingly unoriginal and give us a unique approach to the truth of it.
And here, Bill Withers does so with 40 words. That’s it. But I’d argue that it packs 10 times the punch as songs with 10 times the words.
Photo by Fin Costello/Redferns
About The Author
Dean Fields is a singer, and songwriter, as well as a mentor at American Songwriter. His songs have been No. 1 on the Texas radio charts, featured in film/tv and commercials, recorded by Lori McKenna, and produced by Garth Brooks. He is also director of American Songwriter’s dynamic Membership Hub where members get access to exclusive content, a community of songwriters, and the tools to take their songwriting to the next level.
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