Tendencies That Deserve to Be Ignored

Sasha Frere-Jones's nice piece on Bill Withers points out the amazing fact that "Ain't No Sunshine" was the first song Withers ever wrote, and makes these perceptive observations about that song as well:

Withers says that he is an untrained musician, and his songs bear him out, not because they lack sophistication but because they ignore tendencies that deserve to be ignored more often. “Ain’t No Sunshine” is a two-minute song with only three verses, a bridge that repeats two words twenty-six times—“I know”—and no chorus to speak of.