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