Song

STORY BEHIND the

What can you tell me about Rainy Days And Mondays by my favourite 70s duo? It seems like the perfect song for dull, dreich January. – B.

Songwriters Paul Williams and Roger Nichols gave The Carpenters one of their most endearing songs.

It was written for and rejected by The 5th Dimension, and subsequently picked up by the sibling duo. The song reached No 2 in the US Billboard Hot 100 in 1971 but surprisingly failed to make the UK charts, a 1993 reissue only reaching No 63.

Williams and Nichols wrote two other tracks for the doyens of easy listening – We’ve Only Just Begun and I Won’t Last A Day Without You.