Creativity Is Like Giving Birth

Posted from Royal Oak, Michigan--

Creativity is an amazing thing.  Give a speech, build a house or write a song and the thing lives on in ways you can never imagine. 

I've always liked the song The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (Anymore).  The verse isn't much, but the hook in the chorus happens fast and just won't let go.  Ya gotta love a song that gets right to the point.  I like people who are that way, too. 

I own the Jules Shear version and had never heard any other act cover the song, so I thought he might have written it.  Turns out that the tune has been recorded by a hundred artists including Cher in 1996.  Actor Alan Rickman even sang it in Truly Madly Deeply.

A California group called The Walker Brothers actually did best with the song way back in 1966.  Nobody in the band was named Walker and they weren't brothers, but that's besides the point.

Here's the best part.  The song was written by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio, the hit-making team for Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons (Walk Like a Man, Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You, etc.).  Both Crewe and Gaudio are in the Songwriters Hall of Fame.  They get a royalty every time their song is performed or played.

Valli recorded The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine as a solo artist one year earlier than the Walker Brothers, but didn't do nearly as well with it.  So, this simple song that was originally recorded back in 1965 had a life of its own long afterward.

The story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, by the way, is now being told, er, sang to sold-out audiences as the musical Jersey Boys.  Ideas spawns ideas. 

Creativity is like giving birth.  Whatever you create grows into a life of its own.  Now, go give that speech, build that house or write that song.