Sunshine of Your Love

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"Sunshine of Your Love"

Single by Cream
from the album Disraeli Gears
Released	September, 1968
Format	Vinyl album
Recorded	Atlantic Studios, New York, May 1967
Genre	Blues-rock
Length	4:10 (album), 3:03 (single)
Label	Polydor (album), Unichappell (song)
Producer(s)	Felix Pappalardi
Chart positions
5 U.S.
Cream singles chronology
"Anyone for Tennis"/"Pressed Rat and Warthog"	"Sunshine of Your Love"/"Swlabr" (1967)	"White Room"/"Those Were The Days" (1973)

"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 used the opening lines from the pop standard "Blue Moon", creating a contrast between the Moon and Sunshine in the two songs. The solo itself highlights the disparity, starting with long sustained notes from the memorable 1930s ballad and gradually altering each line until midpoint when the solo breaks out into a more energetic and somewhat typical guitar solo.

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 (also featuring Clapton's later hit "Layla"), Uncommon Valor, and True Lies. The opening riff also appeared at the end of a Futurama episode.

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.

[edit] 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". 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 the 5th Dimension's, which appeared on the vocal group's "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 1990's. Sunshine of Your Love was also given a skanking up-tempo cover by Bim Skala Bim on the Tuba City (1989) album.

[edit] 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.