The various “happy accidents” that led to ‘Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In’
We all know that when the pop canon decides to combine forces with the theatre world, the results can have varying degrees of success. You only have to look at the litany of jukebox musicals that have hit the Broadway stage in recent years, from Queen to Elvis Presley, to see that transferring mainstream hits to thespian audiences doesn’t always hit the mark. But what happens when it’s the other way around? Rarely have artists ever taken direct inspiration from the stage, but fuelled by the political charge of the swinging 1960s, this is exactly what The 5th Dimension did when it came to their 1969 smash hit ‘Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In’, derived from the Broadway musical Hair.
But epitomising the unlikely source material, the whole process of recording the tune came about as a variety of “happy accidents” that combined to create a swelling force, according to the song’s producer, Bones Howe. He recalled that, like many artists, The 5th Dimension had expressed interest in recording ‘Aquarius’ from Hair, but he was unsure how to make it work. Upon seeing the musical, however, Howe had the brainwave that he could combine it with another two songs from the show – ‘Let the Sunshine In’ and ‘The Flesh Failures’ – and thus have the makings of a hit.
That night, Howe called the show’s publisher, explaining that: “I mean, you don’t mess with the music from a Broadway show. I started my professional career in 1956, and I knew a lot about what you can and what you can’t do with songs.”
He continued: “I said, ‘Look, The 5th Dimension would like to record ‘Aquarius’, but I’d like to make it a medley, and I’d like to use the last three bars of ‘The Flesh Failures’, and I don’t want to do it without permission’. So, he said, ‘OK, you can go ahead and do it’.”
However, the roadblocks to creating the tune were still not out of the way, not least logistically for Howe himself, who said: “The record itself is the result of a conglomeration of things.” For starters, the band couldn’t manage to sing in the two separate keys that the medley demanded, so they had to work out a modulation with the song’s vocal arranger, Bob Alsivar. On top of this, the conditions for recording the track at first seemed far from ideal, but this eventually led to it striking gold.
Howe continued: “We did the track in LA and the vocals in Las Vegas where The 5th Dimension were opening for Frank Sinatra. We were working in that studio in Las Vegas where you used to have to stop when the train went by. Once, when we were doing practice runs while the train passed, Billy [Davis Jr] started that riff at the end, ‘Oh, let the sunshine…’ so I said, ‘Wait, let me put that on a separate track at the end’. There were a lot of happy accidents making the record.”
Thus, with an unlikely storming hit on their hands, The 5th Dimension went to take over the world with ‘Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In’, firing up the last throes of the 1960s revolution and winning ‘Record of the Year’ at the Grammys in the process. It demonstrates that inspiration can strike in even the unlikeliest of places – and that despite seeming poles apart, the theatre has more bearing on the pop world than you think.
