I Can See Clearly Now - it’s a masterpiece

I’ve been watching the French-made TV show Lupin, and the song I Can See Clearly Now by Johnny Nash is used in the first bunch of episodes.

I remember when this song came out. I was nine. I had a crummy AM radio that picked up three stations, one of which was WABC in New York City. And they played this song a lot.

I didn’t know music from mudpies at nine, but I Can See Clearly Now was clearly a great song. It had a fabulous hook, a really interesting arrangement, and there was something about it that felt so good.

Johnny Nash was an American singer from Texas. He had some minor hits in the late 1950’s and in the early 60s had his own record label. But, by 1970, his career was pretty much over. He moved down to Jamaica and stumbled into the Reggae scene there. He wound up mentoring a young Bob Marley, and the two co-wrote songs together. Nash loved Reggae, and its mood, rhythms and instrumentation quite literally changed his life.

I Can See Clearly Now was written solely by Johnny Nash and he himself produced the recording at AIR studios in London in 1971. He used a group of studio musicians called The Fabulous Five and probably some other players, but a lot of the details are lost to history.

I Can See Clearly Now is often credited as the first Reggae hit, the song that introduced Reggae to the Western World, blah blah blah. I wouldn’t say it’s Reggae. The rhythm of it is actually straightforward and doesn’t have the offbeat feel that defines Reggae until the choruses, but it certainly has a huge Reggae influence to it and it was a hugely influential record. It was a GIANT hit. It was inescapable on the radio, used in commercials, covered by hundreds of other artists, and more than 50 years later still gets placed in key moments in movies and TV.

It’s a perfect pop tune. And it’s a recording full of surprises. Have a listen:

1971 at AIR... it’s probably a 16 track recording tracked and mixed on a custom Neve console. Typical of the time, there’s no effort to fill up all the tracks. Engineers back then were only five years from doing everything live to 4 track, and that “resourceful” mentality played a big part in recording technique at the time. Why burn a bunch of tracks when we can stick everybody on two, knock through the mix and hit the pub?

Drums and percussion are mono down the center, probably all recorded at once along with bass, piano and what sounds like an accordion. I hear Johnny’s SUBLIME lead vocal, just a touch off to the left, with what sounds like a reverb chamber on it. The loping bass line is just off to the right. On choruses, two harmony vocals come in panned hard left and right, and they’re dead dry. There’s something about the way those harmony tracks pop in and out that makes me think they’re gated—maybe an Allison Research Kepex, which was about the first noise gate on the market. Sounds like Johnny Nash sang all the vocal parts.

Chord-wise, the verse is a rote I-IV-V progression with a bVII thrown in on the chorus. It hints at a key change and this subtly sets up the bridge.

Now, about this bridge... this has got to be one of the greatest bridges in recorded music history. The tonal center shifts down a whole step. Majors are substituted for minors, there’s all sorts of half-step motion, and it’s wonderfully cinematic, like a film score that is minor for scenes of a storm and then breaks into major as the clouds part and the sun comes out. Which is exactly what the lyrics are like at that moment:

Look all around, there's nothin' but blue skies
Look straight ahead, nothin' but blue skies

The vocals in the bridge are phenomenal, like a choir coming out of heaven but, really, I think all they did was crank up the reverb sends. Whatever - great trick. Sounds great.

There are a bunch of overdubs on the bridge. It sounds like horns... No, sounds like a guitar with a fuzz box... No... sounds like early use of synths. AIR had a MOOG at the time and there is some info out there that a synth was overdubbed. I think it's a synth that was overdubbed a bunch. There are parts that sound like saxes, bells, strange fuzzy pads, little squirps and burps. There’s tons to listen to in there. Very impressive for 1971.

Pay particular attention to how the tempo sags on the bridge, which helps with its triumphant feel, and then how the tempo coming out of the bridge is slightly faster than it's been throughout the song. There’s also... a sense of cadence to the drums and percussion, a feeling that the players know the song is coming to an end, and they somehow get that across to the listener. It’s a very hard to describe thing. John Densmore of The Doors is an absolute master of this: put on a Doors recording and you can tell where you are in the song just by the feel of the drums. It’s uncanny.

The song fades on a vamped chorus, with some further synth noodling. So frickin’ great.

It’s a perfect arrangement. So perfect that when singer Jimmy Cliff covered it, and got a major hit, he basically did exactly what Johnny Nash did.

Nash was an incredible singer, with a beautiful, clear voice that was effortlessly expressive. I would DIE to sing like that guy. Sounds like they plopped him down in front of a U67 and he knocked out all the vocals in 20 minutes.

Lyrically, it’s very simple.

I can see clearly now the rain has 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)
Sun-shiny day

There are idiots on the internet claiming that Nash wrote the song after having cataract surgery! I say bullshit and I say who cares? The song is clearly about what it is about, and it needs no further interpretation.

You don’t figure out a song as great as this with your head; you figure it out with your heart.

All in all, the perfect song for a wet day in Montreal, where the sun might not shine much for months, and some good coffee and music is what gets you through til there’s nothing but blue skies.

Happy Sunday.