THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,300) Paul Williams — “Someday Man”
Paul Williams was only just beginning when he and collaborator Roger Nichols [see #631, 828, 1,054] came up with this wonderful ode to just abiding. And the Monkees (sans Peter Tork) were only just ending when they released it (before Williams) as a cool Davy Jones-sung A-side, only reaching #81.
As to Paul Williams, Mark Deming writes:
Paul Williams remains one of America’s best recognized all-purpose celebrities in the ’70s and ’80s — while plenty of folks are aware that he was a songwriter, vocalist, and instrumentalist, he also acted in movies and television, was a frequent guest on leading talk shows (he appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson over a dozen times), competed on game shows of all sorts, and was as likely to pop up in a Planet of the Apes sequel as he was to write a hit song. . . . Williams developed a passion for both music and acting, and began appearing in school theater productions as well as local talent shows. A medical condition stunted Williams’ growth, preventing him from becoming taller than five feet, two inches, and at one point he considered a career as a jockey. But his love of the stage won out, and Williams did regional theater . . . before returning to California and joining a repertory theater company . . . . Williams hoped to break into the movies, but . . . his career in Hollywood didn’t take off right away. After a spell as a comedy writer . . . Williams teamed up with songwriter Biff Rose, providing lyrics for Rose’s melodies, and the two enjoyed a windfall when Tiny Tim recorded their song “Fill Your Heart.” The tune ended up on the B-side of Tim’s smash single “Tiptoe Through the Tulips,” and after getting his foot in the door of the music business, Williams formed a band with his brother Mentor Williams called the Holy Mackerel [see #24]. . . . but its sole . . . album was a commercial disappointment, and Williams set out on a solo career as he worked on his songwriting. Williams cut his first solo album for Reprise, 1970’s Someday Man, but it fared no better . . . . It was when Williams landed a job as a staff songwriter at A&M Records that his career finally started to click; working with Roger Nichols . . . he penned “Out in the Country,” which became a major hit for Three Dog Night, and the group had major chart success with two other Williams tunes, “Just an Old Fashioned Love Song” and “The Family of Man.” And a tune Williams and Nichols wrote for a bank commercial enjoyed an impressive second life when the Carpenters cut “We’ve Only Just Begun” and it became a massive chart success. . . . [H]e was cast in a supporting role as an orangutan in 1973’s Battle for the Planet of the Apes, and in 1974 he did double duty on Brian DePalma’s cult classic Phantom of the Paradise, composing songs for the film and playing sinister rock & roll mogul Swan. Williams also earned an Oscar nomination for writing the song “Nice to Be Around” for the movie Cinderella Liberty, a Song of the Year nomination after Helen Reddy cut “You and Me Against the World,” and in 1976 he . . . [took] home an Oscar for the love theme from A Star is Born, “Evergreen.” . . . While all this was happening, Williams somehow found time to cut five more albums for A&M . . . . Between his songwriting work and his acting gigs in everything from the TV shows The Odd Couple and The Love Boat (he also co-wrote the theme song for the latter) to the movie Smokey and the Bandit, Williams was seemingly everywhere, and in 1979 he won another Grammy . . . for the song “The Rainbow Connection,” written for The Muppet Movie. . . . [B]y the mid-’80s, Williams’ career had gone into a major slump; by his own admission, he had developed a serious addiction to drugs and alcohol during his years in the spotlight, and it wasn’t until 1990 that he got clean and sober and began rebuilding his life and career.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/paul-williams-mn0000753254#biography
As to the Monkees, Pete Mills writes:
By the time ‘Someday Man’ was issued as a stand-alone single in 1969 . . . the vertiginous drop in the band’s popularity was there for all to see. Peter Tork had quit after the dismal TV special and the commercial belly flop of Head – not because of these failures, but just because it was time. . . . The remaining three . . . ploughed on. . . . Davy Jones finally managed to persuade Screen Gems to allow him to record a song they did not own. . . . [It] allowed Jones to bring in a song by a young singer-songwriter Paul Williams. . . . Davy Jones said that he loved Williams’ work from the first hearing . . . Here was a song which fitted well with Jones’ own interests and strengths, had all the components of a hit in the pop scene of 1969 – a real find. The first hurdle to clamber over was that . . . the watertight contracts which locked in outright ownership of everything Monkee to Columbia and Screen Gems meant that only songs published (that is owned) by Screen Gems would be issued under the band’s name . . . . [P]erhaps the unmissable decline in the group’s commercial fortunes forced something of a rethink and permission was granted to Jones to go ahead and record the song Regardless it is arguable that Jones recording Williams’ tune did him a great favour and him titling his album after the song shows it was to some extent his calling card at this time. It did The Monkees and their fans a favour too, giving us a late career highlight albeit one which drifted by almost unnoticed at the time . . . . Davy reminisced about how he came to record ‘Someday Man’: “I went to Screen Gems many, many times with Paul Williams tunes…but they felt they were too sophisticated. This one was all right. They accepted that.” . . . [Producer] Bones Howe recalled . . . . “Paul Williams and I were friends going back for a long time…I played it for Davy and he liked it. We were able to convince Colgems that we could do an outside song…I kept saying to them ‘Find me another song that’ll knock this one out of the box’. And no-one could find a song that everybody liked better’.”
https://petesounds.home.blog/2023/07/03/tomorrows-a-new-day-baby-someday-man/
The Monkees:
Here is a demo by Paul Williams and Roger Nichols:
Here are the Casuals (UK group based in Italy):
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