Rainy Days and Mondays

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Rainy Days and Mondays (m. Roger Nichols, w. Paul Williams)

From Songfacts.com (link fixed, 10/15/2022):

Sometimes song lyrics are written on the fly, and that was the case with a line in this song. Says Williams:

“On ‘Rainy Days And Mondays’ Chuck Kay, who was head of publishing at A&M, said, ‘That’s a perfect song for The 5th Dimension, let’s play it for them.’ I said, ‘Well, there are a couple of lines that aren’t done yet.’ He said, ‘You’ll finish it in the car.’ So in the car going over there, I came up with a fill line, which was ‘What I’ve got they used to call the blues.’ I didn’t have that line done yet, so I wrote it as just a quick fill line, because I wanted to mention the blues, but it was such a hackneyed expression, ‘I’ve got the blues.’ So I just wrote, ‘What I’ve got they used to call the blues.’ And it actually became my favorite line in the song. I think it’s the best line in the song. I met Johnny Mercer once at A&M Records, and he sat down and I introduced myself, ‘Paul Williams,’ and he shook my hand. And he walked back into the studio where he was mixing, then he stuck his head back out into the hall and he went, ‘Paul Williams, ‘what I’ve got they used to call the blues,’ that Paul Williams?’ I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ It was funny. It was one of the great moments of my life, to meet Johnny Mercer, who I think was the lyricist’s lyricist.”

Carpenters

Wikipedia says of the single by the Carpenters:

“Rainy Days and Mondays”…went to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and it was the duo’s fourth #1 song on the Adult Contemporary singles chart.^[1] However, the song failed to chart in the United Kingdom until it went to #63 in a reissue there in 1993.

The single was issued on the A&M (US) label on 23 April 1971, according to 45cat.com, under the following three catalog numbers (variants found on first pressings from three different plants): AM-1260-S, AM-1260, and 1260-S, backed with “Saturday.” Both sides were arranged by Richard Carpenter. This recording of “Rainy Days and Mondays” also became the first track on the album Carpenters, released on 14 May 1971.

from an unidentified TV show, c.1971

Live at the BBC, September(?) 1971

(below) music video with a copyright date of 1985, provided by CarpentersVEVO — I’ve thus far been unable to identify the source of the lip-sync performance (from about :44 on), which is evidently from the early 1970s.

Andy Williams — from his 1971 album You’ve Got a Friend, (US) Columbia KC 30797

Sarah Vaughan — from her 1972 album Feelin’ Good, (US) Mainstream Records MRL 379

Carol Burnett — from the 1972 LP Carol Burnett – featuring If I Could Write A Song, Columbia C 31048 (Mono), CS 31048 (Stereo)

Freda Payne — from her 1973 album Reaching Out, (US) Invictus KZ 32493

Sarah Vaughan — from her 1973 double LP “Live” in Japan, Mainstream Records ‎MRL 2 401

Paul Williams — from his 1974 LP Here Comes Inspiration, (US) A&M Records ‎SP-3606

In the first video, the lyric transcriber, knowingly or not, incorporates Williams’ peculiar pronunciation of a couple of words: “Hangin'” sounds like “Hang-on,” and Walkin'” comes out as “Walk-on.”