#bj thomas

B. J. Thomas - Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head 1969

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a 1969 American Western buddy film. Based loosely on fact, the film tells the story of Wild West outlaws Robert LeRoy Parker, known as Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman), and his partner Harry Longabaugh, the "Sundance Kid" (Robert Redford), who are on the run from a crack US posse after a string of train robberies. The pair and Sundance's lover, Etta Place (Katharine Ross), flee to Bolivia to escape the posse. The film was released on September 24, 1969, and while initial reviews from critics were lukewarm, it has since seen a positive retrospective reappraisal. In 2003, the film was selected for preservation in the US National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

"Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" is a song written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Director George Roy Hill wanted something for a particular scene involving a romantic bike ride. Some felt the song was the wrong tone for a western film like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but Hill insisted on its inclusion. The single reached number 1 on charts in the US, Canada, and Norway, and reached number 38 on the UK Singles Chart. It won an Academy Award for Best Original Song. Bacharach also won Best Original Score. On December 3, 2013, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences announced that the single would be inducted into the 2014 Grammy Hall of Fame.

The song is used in the background of a montage in Spider-Man 2, where Peter Parker decides to opt out of being a superhero after he loses his powers. It is used extensively throughout Hideo Kojima's 2025 video game Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, both as non-diegetic background music in scenes and being sung by characters in-universe.

"Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" received a total of 81,5% yes votes!

Rules: put your music library on shuffle, then list the first five songs that come up in a poll to let people vote for their favorite! <3

I've been listning to lots of genres lately - so this is a little all over the place lol

Sunshine On My Shoulders - John Denver VS Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head - BJ Thomas

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[Image description: a collage of photos of the 10 musicians and musical groups featured in this poll. In order from left to right, top to bottom: Simon and Garfunkel, The Carpenters, The Guess Who, B.J. Thomas, Edwin Starr, Diana Ross, The Jackson 5, Rare Earth, The Beatles, Frede Payne. End description]

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A major theme in doing these polls is that decades are rarely defined by the exact stretch of time. It's all arbitrary, and any kind of cultural change tends to take a while to kick into gear without waiting for the exact calendar date. The seventies, however, feels like the exception. Keep in mind that this is all coming from the benefit of hindsight, but many accounts I've read and heard describe the shift from the 60's to the 70's as being jarring. First, we need to address the losses. The transition to the 70's came with musical trauma. Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and many others would pass away between 1969 and 1970. The Beatles would permanently break up this year. Whatever 1970 was going to look like, it was going to be a decade without many of the artists that helped to define the previous era.

There is something from the sixties that was brought over into the seventies, however: The Vietnam War. By this point, it was becoming clearer to the general public that the war effort was less about any sense of patriotic duty, and more about President Nixon not wanting to be the first American president to lose a war. The anti-war movement wouldn't just be populated by the anarchists or the hippies. However, the movement won't get as much traction in the top of the mainstream music charts as it did before. War by Edwin Starr, occupies a strange space in the early seventies as well as a strange space in Motown Records. Originally recorded for The Temptations, the track was covered by Edwin Starr out of fear that the original version would damage the group's crossover appeal.

Motown and its divisions will continue to reign supreme (or The Supremes...I'll stop) this decade as the label introduces the nation to a new flock of superstars. In addition to Diana Ross' solo debut, we're also seeing the introduction of The Jackson 5.

It's really hard not to apply a narrative to the songs listed above. As I keep saying, trends are rarely that neatly-defined and we're just looking at the very tip of the most popular/mainstream in doing these polls. But I can't help but notice that most of these songs are about learning to cope with some kind of hardship. Again, that's probably just a coincidence, but I think it's neat.