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YOU CAN PLAY ALONG WITH THE RECORDINGS, although I've shortened and tweaked it for BUG! You don't need to play the [Fmaj7] you can just play [F]. Also, the arrows in the sections starting "And Windy has stormy eyes..." are just suggestions as the rhythm in that section can be challenge especially for beginners.
"Windy" was the Association's second U.S. No. 1 hit, following "Cherish" in 1966. Billboard ranked the record as the No. 4 song for 1967. The lead vocals were sung primarily by guitarist Larry Ramos along with percussionist Russ Giguere (both would sing lead together in the band's last Top 40 hit "Time for Livin").
The Association is an American band from Los Angeles, California. During the late 1960s, the band had numerous hits at or near the top of the Billboard charts (including "Windy", "Cherish", "Never My Love" and "Along Comes Mary") and were the lead-off band at 1967's Monterey Pop Festival. Generally consisting of six to eight members, they are known for intricate vocal harmonies by the band's multiple singers.
Ruthann Friedman was introduced to the Association by her friend, Beach Boys lyricist Van Dyke Parks. Originally, she wrote "Windy" in a waltz tempo. But, their producer at the time, Bones Howe, changed it to the common 4/4 beat to assure it would have the commercial appeal necessary to be a hit.
Recording the vocals for the song would prove to be exhausting to Ramos, Giguere, and the rest of the band. The session started in early afternoon and ended at 6:30 a.m the next morning (after that, they had to take an 8:30 a.m. flight to a live performance in Virginia). The band was so tired of recording that Howe had everybody in the studio singing on the ending of the track, including Friedman, vocal arranger Cliff Burroughs, his wife Marylin, and Jim Yester's wife Jo-Ellen, along with numerous others.
Ramos said Ruthann Friedman had written the song about a man, and that the Association changed the lyrics to make it about a woman. Many other sources confirm that it was written for a man.
Friedman later said about it in an interview with Songfacts:
I have heard so many different permutations of what the song was about. Here is the TRUTH. I was sitting on my bed – the apartment on the first floor of David Crosby’s house in Beverly Glenn – and there was a fellow who came to visit and was sitting there staring at me as if he was going to suck the life out of me. So I started to fantasize about what kind of a guy I would like to be with, and that was Windy – a guy (fantasy).
However, in another interview with Songfacts, in 2014, she understood that the song was about herself:
These days, looking back at myself in my mid to late 20s, I finally realized I was talking about me in that song, and how I wanted to be.