Here Comes The Sunshine

Summer Solstice is Seven Days Away…

Here Comes The Sunshine

And I say these songs are alright!

Photo by Victor Freitas on Unsplash

Inspiration strikes again, like lightning in a summer thunderstorm, bright and electrifying… this time it came from the pen, make that keyboard, of friend and colleague Mark Holburn and his poem/story below, where he dropped some sunny tunes too.

[embed]I am the SUN. I am here for YOU! And Some Songs To Celebrate memarkholburn.medium.com

Mark built his story around a poem. Since I’m writing this on a lazy Sunday morning, I thought I’d try something a little shorter… a haiku.

Summer solstice nears And I know, I know, I know Here comes the sunshine

In his comments, the second lightning bolt struck. This time it came from the aptly named **At The Break Of Day**, when he mentioned a great song that might just be my favourite song with sun or sunshine in the title or lyrics…

Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine (When She’s Gone)”.

As I sat down to write this story I thought I might list a few other great sun songs, but as I write this now, I’m being led in another direction…

Back in the day when we were burning our own CD’s, long before playlists became a thing, I decided to burn some of my favourite covers of the song I had discovered, some by artists that may surprise you as much as they surprised me. I’ll present those below and and if you feel like rating them using the immortal American Bandstand/Medium series that never dies rating system of 35 – 98 feel free to.

But before I do, let’s start at the very beginning, where my love affair with the song began.

Back in 1999, while living in LA, I decided to go and see the new UK rom-com that had just been released. It was written by Richard Curtis, so presumably it was going to be good. But that wasn’t the only reason. It was set close to Kensington, London the neighbourhood I had grown up in before moving to the US.

For those unfamiliar with London, Kensington is just around the corner from “Notting Hill” … the same Notting Hill that was about to get world famous again thanks to Hugh Grant, Julia Roberts and the scene stealing Rhys Ifans. (It also featured a young Hugh Bonneville (aka Lord Grantham) in a supporting role.). I say again, because the famous Portobello Road and its street market is situated in Notting Hill and that had been famous long before the film came out.

Perhaps that’s why the film makers chose it as the location for this poignant scene below, the place where my love of ‘…Sunshine’ began, as I expect it did for many others …

1. Bill Withers – for Bonnie Barton

[embed]

While this scene featured Bill Withers’ the soundtrack also included a version by the British pop duo Lighthouse Family…

2. Lighthouse Family – for Divya Johnson

[embed]

So these were the first two versions I burnt to my CD, then came these in no particular order…

3. Joe Cocker – for Miriam Toyama

[embed]

4. Sting -for uDiscover Music

[embed]

5. Tom Jones — for George Fishman

[embed]

6. Jeff Beck -for Buddy Gott

[embed]

and…

7. The Neville Brothers -for Gordon Skene

[embed]

…there may have been other covers too, but I haven’t seen the CD for decades so memory escapes me as to what they were, but the story and voting doesn’t end here if you’re playing along.

When Bill Withers recorded this song way back in 1971 for his debut album Just As I Am, he could never have envisioned just how popular his song would become… according to my go-to source for all things cover related secondhandsongs.com there have to date been 529 cover versions of his track, 14 adaptations (either samples or translations into other languages), and 14 web covers. For a total of 557 known versions. Not too shabby or Shaggy for one little song.

8. Shaggy-for Curt Melzer

[embed]

9. Paul McCartney – for Alex Markham

[embed]

10. Paul Carrack– for Jonathan Clark

[embed]

and last but not least, a surprising Honourable Mention for this ‘web cover’ by Mr Rickrolling… Rick Astley

Photo by wu yi on Unsplash

Did you like that, or do you hate me? If you’re still with me, here’s the real song. Sorry ☺️

[embed]

Thanks for playing along, if you want to leave some scores great or just a note as to what your favourite cover was… Until lightning strikes again…

Ciao, Francis B.

I could hardly give my story its title and subtitle without dropping the song that inspired them…

Here Comes The Sun — The Runaways

for **Alanis Morissette**

[embed]

Everyone expected The Beatles. Where’s the fun in that? Isn’t discovering an unexpected cover like this half the fun? You can also find their version in Mark’s Story! 😎