I started out with a plan for tonight’s music post … it was gonna be Sam Cooke!  But, I’ve played all my favourites of his in the last year or two, so that led me off on a different, but similar tangent and I came up with this great one by Johnny Nash!  An oldie, but goodie, as it were.

According to SongFacts …

This is not a song about suicide, as has been hypothesized. It is a song of hope and courage for individuals who have experienced adversity in their lives but have overcome it.

This was the first reggae song to hit #1 on the Hot 100, where it stayed for four weeks late in 1972.  Really???  I had no idea this song was considered reggae!  The next reggae(ish) song to hit the top spot was Eric Clapton’s cover of Bob Marley’s “I Shot The Sheriff” in 1974, followed by “The Tide Is High” by Blondie in 1981.

Thanks to this and his other reggae-influenced songs, Johnny Nash is associated with Jamaica, but he was from Texas. Born in Houston in 1940, he sang in church and at 13 got a gig singing on a local TV show called Matinee, becoming one of the few black faces on the screen. At 16, he got a record deal with ABC Paramount and performed regularly on The Arthur Godfrey Show, a national broadcast. During this time, he recorded anodyne songs “A Very Special Love” and “Almost In Your Arms” which were minor hits thanks to his exposure on TV.

After bouncing around to different record companies, he had a breakthrough in 1967 when he went to Jamaica and recorded his song “Hold Me Tight” and a cover of Sam Cooke’s “Cupid” with a local rhythm section. Both songs became hits in Jamaica, and over the next two years also charted in the UK and the United States. By 1972, “Cecilia” and “Mother And Child Reunion” found some success in the States incorporating reggae rhythms, and Nash followed that trend with “I Can See Clearly Now.”

Nash wrote this song himself. He recorded it in London with members of The Average White Band, who in 1974 had a hit of their own with “Pick Up The Pieces.”

A cover version by Jimmy Cliff (for a time, a bigger reggae star than Bob Marley) went to #18 in the US in 1994. His version was used in the John Candy movie Cool Runnings, about the Jamaican bobsled team.

A story floated around that Nash wrote this song while recovering from cataract surgery, but there’s no evidence that this is true. His publicity people would sometimes embellish a bit to create talking points; one press release claimed that when he was a baby, he cried a song in the crib.

The song went to #1 in the U.S., Canada, and South Africa, and #5 in the UK.

I Can See Clearly Now

Johnny Nash

I can see clearly now the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind

It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day

Oh, yes I can make it now the pain is gone
All of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is that rainbow I’ve been praying for

It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day

look all around, there’s nothing but blue skies
Look straight ahead, there’s nothing but blue skies

I can see clearly now the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Here is that rainbow I’ve been praying for

It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day

Bri-ri-ri-ri’, bright, (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day, yeah, eh
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day, yeah, na
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day
Bri-ri-ri-ri’, bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny…

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Johnny Nash

I Can See Clearly Now lyrics © Cp Masters Bv, Nashco Music Inc, Dovan Music Inc