This is #150 in the series, and I wanted to mark the occasion with something celebratory. I’ve already used celebrate as a theme, so had to rule that out. But I found my inspiration in the weather forecast for this week. A few weeks back I gave you a couple of selections of rain songs, as that was the predominant forecast, but this week the Met Office tell us that every day this week we will see some sunshine. This seems like an ideal choice for some happy songs, right? So I’m afraid I’m disqualifying Bill Withers: great song, but not cheerful. I did actually use this as a theme a couple of years ago, but this time, unlike then, I’m also omitting any of the related words, like sun or sunny – these will be entirely sunshine tunes. Having said that, there is one obvious place for me to begin, so that’s what I’m doing:

Katrina and the Waves had a big hit with Walking On Sunshine in 1985, when it was a top ten hit in both the UK and the US (#8 and #9 respectively). The band comprised members from both sides of the pond, and grew out of the foundations of an English covers band called Mama’s Cookin’, which had as its lead singer Katrina Leskanich, who is American. After this record they had moderate chart success for several years, until making a remarkable comeback by winning the 1997 Eurovision Song Contest for the UK with Love Shine A Light, which was a #3 hit here but didn’t chart in the US. Wisely, America decided to have nothing to do with Eurovision – I wish it didn’t still happen here, too, but at least it gives me a chance to explore the other channels while it is on. This song has a really happy feel to it, and is a great starting point for this set.

My second song takes me right back to my teenage days. I haven’t been able to find a decent video for it, so it will have to be the official audio-only one, but it is still a great song from a band that were all too short-lived:

As I expect you may well know, Cream were a British rock band formed in London in 1966. The group consisted of bassist Jack Bruce, guitarist Eric Clapton, and drummer Ginger Baker. Jack was the primary songwriter and vocalist, although Eric and Ginger contributed too. Sunshine Of Your Love was a track on their second album, Disraeli Gears, which was released in November 1967 and got to #5 in the UK and #4 in the US. This track was taken from it as a single the following month, and peaked at #25 in the UK and #5 in the US. The song was co-written by Jack and Eric, along with frequent collaborator Pete Brown, and the two of them share lead vocals. This has long been a favourite of mine, as were the band, who gave us four albums in a little over two years and then went off to do other things, as you may have noticed.

I’m jumping forward five years for my next song, which is also another long time favourite:

This performance was part of a special evening in February 2011, when Motown music was celebrated at the White House. The song dates back a few years earlier, though! Stevie Wonder initially released You Are The Sunshine Of My Life on his Talking Book album in October 1972, which reached #3 in the US and #16 in the UK. It came out as a single in March 1973, when it topped the US chart and got to #7 in the UK. This is still one of my favourite albums of his – highly recommended.

I’m going back to the Sixties again now. I know I’m biased towards the decade in which my musical tastes were formed, but it was such a great time. Here’s another you may know:

Sunshine Superman was the title track of Donovan’s third album, which was released in the US in July 1966, reaching #11, but due to a contractual dispute with his record label wasn’t released here. It finally appeared in the UK in July 1967 as part of a compilation of songs with his March 1967 album, Mellow Yellow. Stay with me! The single of this song was released in July 1966 in the US and topped their charts. In the UK it came out in December 1966 and got to #2. Donovan had a string of hit singles here in the Sixties, starting with folk songs like Catch the Wind and Colours, and then branching out into a more rock-based sound. To illustrate his rock credentials, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, who went on to form Led Zeppelin, both played on this recording (guitar and bass respectively). Another of my favourites from that era.

This will be a first airing here for the next band. The song isn’t exactly imaginative in its lyrics, but it is such a happy sound that I just had to include it:

Don’t ask me what all the snow is about! I guess it must have had something to do with the time of year the record came out – December 1975 – but it shows a total lack of thought on the part of the TV show’s director! Osibisa are a Ghanaian-British Afro-rock band founded in London in the late 1960s by four expatriate West African and three London based Caribbean musicians. They are just about still in existence, though one of the remaining original members passed away last December. They released albums up to 2009, and then returned with another in 2021. A couple of their early records both reached #11 in the UK Albums chart, and Sunshine Day was their best performing single, getting to #17 in January 1976. It’s happy and fun, and I’ve always rather liked it.

This next one was a big hit in the UK, and again it is a little bit of fun, although the remastered video seems to have parted company with the vocals in some places:

Herman’s Hermits had been around since they were formed in Manchester in 1964, and had enjoyed quite a bit of chart success even before this one. They were especially popular in the US, where they had a string of albums in the charts which barely made a ripple over here, and had a couple of US chart toppers with records which weren’t even released as singles here: Mrs Brown, You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter, and I’m Henry VIII I Am. You get the impression they were playing to American stereotypes of what we Brits were like, don’t you! Sunshine Girl was released as a single in July 1968, and reached #8 in the UK. It only got to #101 in the States, though: not British enough for you, guys?

Today’s penultimate tune is the only one from the 21st century in the set. Does that tell you something about where my tastes lie? I do like this band, though, and this lyric video is great:

I hadn’t realised it until researching this, but OneRepublic have actually been around since 2002, though their first album didn’t appear until 2007. I have played them just the once before, I think, as the song to illustrate one of my monthly reviews, and I do rather enjoy their brand of pop-rock. Sunshine was released as a single (and EP) in November (and December) 2021, and served as the theme tune for the movie Clifford The Big Red Dog (no, me neither). It didn’t chart in either the US or the UK, or in many other countries: its highest placing was #14 in Switzerland, which probably means it sold about a hundred copies (not an official stat!). Like I said, it is a fun song and the video is great.

I’m closing this week with one from the band that, for me, began everything, musically speaking:

I’m sure I have played this one before, but I have included so many of their songs it is almost impossible to work out which one was when! Good Day Sunshine was released in August 1966 as a track on The Beatles’ seventh album, Revolver. This was a good time for a new album, as England won the World Cup the previous weekend, and this kind of became the soundtrack for a joyous summer here. It has sold well over 7m copies worldwide in various forms, and on original release reached #1 in the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, Finland, Sweden and, showing that there was no lingering resentment over that Russian linesman, in what was then still West Germany. (Actually, some of them still bang on about it now!)

That’s all for this week. I’ll be back again for Song Lyric Sunday and may well be digging something up again from the vaults in the meantime. Have a great week and enjoy the sunshine – suitably protected, of course 😎