"Sunshine of Your Love" is a song by the British supergroup
Cream, released on the Disraeli Gears album.
It was Cream's best-selling song and Atlantic Records' best-selling to date as well. It
features an immediately recognisable guitar/bass guitar riff
(even to those who have never heard the song in its entirety) and an acclaimed guitar solo from Eric Clapton. It was written by bassist Jack Bruce, Pete Brown, and Clapton.
Development of the song began in January 1967 when Bruce and Clapton attended a Jimi Hendrix show at the Saville Theatre in
London. Inspired by the likes of Richard Wetherell and rock drummer, Bruce returned
home and wrote the now memorable guitar riff that runs throughout the song. The lyrics to "Sunshine of Your Love" were written
during an all-night creative session between Bruce and Brown, a poet who worked with the band: "I picked up my double bass and played the riff. Pete looked out the window and the sun was coming up. He wrote 'It's
getting near dawn and lights close their tired eyes…'" Clapton later wrote the bridge ("I've been waiting so long…") which also
yielded the song's title.
Clapton's guitar tone on the song, created using his Gibson SG guitar and a
Marshall amplifier, is renowned among guitarists as perhaps the best example of
his legendary late-'60s "woman tone", a thick yet articulate sound that many have tried to
emulate. For the solo Clapton quoted the opening lines from the pop standard "Blue
Moon".
Drummer Ginger Baker's distinctive drum part was suggested by producer Tom Dowd, who drew his inspiration from what he called the "Indian beat" of classic Western films. This slow, downbeat-stressing beat forms a key element
of the song.
The band's publisher, Atlantic Records, initially rejected the song.
Booker T. Jones, leader of Booker T. and the
MG's and a respected Atlantic musician, heard the band rehearsing the song in the Atlantic studios and recommended it to
the record company bosses. Based on this recommendation, Atlantic approved the recording.
"Sunshine of Your Love" was the band's first big US hit. In the US, this first charted in February, 1968 at #36. With the
release of the album in August, it re-entered the chart and went to #5. The song appears on the soundtracks of the movies
School of Rock, Goodfellas,
Uncommon Valor, and True Lies. The
opening riff also appeared at the end of a Futurama episode and in an episode of
The Simpsons, in a 60s flashback with Homer Simpson's mother.
The song's distinctive riff is based on a D blues scale (pentatonic).
In March 2005, Q magazine placed "Sunshine of Your Love" at number 19 in its list
of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks.
Versions by other performers
Jimi Hendrix performed "Sunshine of Your Love" as a setlist staple throughout his
1968 and 1969 concerts, employing wailing guitar riffs in place of
the lyrics and ending the song by dramatically slowing the tempo to a grinding halt, as well as including leitmotifs from other
Cream songs such as "Swlabr". Recordings of the song can be found on Experience Vol. 1 and The Last Experience Concert: Live at the Royal Albert
Hall in their entirety (slightly less than seven minutes) and in a truncated version on BBC Sessions. During a January 1969 appearance on the "Happening
for Lulu" television show, Hendrix halted his band near the end of the set and broke
into "Sunshine of Your Love", running the show past its scheduled end time[1]. This moment inspired Elvis Costello's
rendition of "Radio Radio" on Saturday Night Live in 1977.
Blood, Sweat & Tears also used the riff in their song "Blues Part II,"
and a cappella singer Bobby McFerrin recorded a
voice instrumental version of the song on the album "Simple Pleasures" (1988), in which he
replicates Clapton's guitar solo using only his vocals and some effects processing. Ella
Fitzgerald also recorded a version in 1968. The trippiness of her rendition might be compared with that of
The 5th Dimension's, which appeared on the vocal group's The Age of Aquarius LP. A version (with some sexually-charged lyric changes) performed
by Frank Zappa (and band) appears on his The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life album, along with a cover of
Hendrix' frequent staple "Purple Haze" and a number of other covers. English Doom band
Fudge Tunnel recorded it on their "Hate Songs in E Minor" on Earache Records in the 1990s. Living Colour recorded their take
on the song in 1994 for the True Lies soundtrack, which also appears on their Everything Is Possible: The Very Best of Living Colour
2006 compilation album. Sunshine of Your Love
was also given a skanking up-tempo cover by Bim Skala Bim on the Tuba City (1989)
album. Hardcore band Earth Crisis released a live version on their Best-Of album Forever
True. The song was also covered by Ozzy Osbourne on his 2005 cover album Under Cover. Brant Bjork and The Bros recorded it on their double-album
Saved by Magic.
The song will be featured in Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock as a
cover.
References
- Discography
- Disraeli Gears (liner notes). 1967, PolyGram International Music.
- McDermott, John. The Best of Cream: 20th Century Masters The Millennium Collection (liner notes). 2000, Universal
International Music.
- Michael Schumacher. Crossroads: The Life and Music of Eric Clapton 2003, Citadel Press.
- Moormann, Mark. Tom Dowd and the Language of Music. 2003, Language of Music Films.
External links
- Lyrics
- Live version performed at the Revolution Club, London, in November 1967 for French TV [2]
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