Though Johnny Nash is best known today for his 1972 hit "I Can See Clearly Now," his sole chart-topper in the UK was an entirely different song; "Tears On My Pillow" spent one week at #1 on the UK Singles Chart in July 1975. The song is a heartbreaker: His girl has run off with his best friend, leaving him cold and lonely. Now he wakes up with tears on his pillow, pain in his heart, and her on his mind.
Ernie Smith, one of Jamaica's legendary singer-songwriters, penned the song back in 1967 under the title of "I Can't Take It." Johnny Nash took the song eight years later and re-titled it "Tears On My Pillow." The change of title led to Smith initially missing out on royalties due to confusion with the Little Anthony & the Imperials 1958 song of the same name.
After an unsuccessful audition as a radio announcer for the Jamaican Broadcasting Company, Ernie Smith decided to approach Federal Studios looking for work as a songwriter. He brought with him a song he'd penned titled "I Can't Take It." Smith recalled in the book 1000 UK #1 Hits": "When I got there the piano player was in the studio and I told them maybe they can get somebody to sing it because I went there as a writer. They told me there was a band coming in at two o'clock and that I should wait and record it with them, so that's how I recorded my first song, 'I Can't Take It."
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