Tag: Daydream

Beatles – Good Day Sunshine

It’s hard to be unhappy when you hear this song. McCartney said the song was influenced by The Lovin’s Spoonful’s song Daydream. I can hear that but I can’t help but think the song was also influenced a little by The Kinks. I could hear Ray Davies singing this song.

Beatles - Good Day Sunshine

Original handwritten lyrics to Good Day Sunshine

McCartney did admit to hearing not only Lovin Spoonful but the Kink’s Sunny Afternoon. Most of these British bands would play off each other and the fans were the benefactors to this. John Sebastian would not know about this until 1984 (quote down below) Paul mentioned it in an interview.

Ray Davies did in fact rave about this song in Disc and Music Echo magazine…a very popular British popular music magazine in the 60s and early 70s. The song has a bounce to it and also an older sound…even in 1966 when it was released.

The song was on the album Revolver. That album I think personally is their artistic best…not my number 1 favorite but one of the greatest albums ever made. When they hit America in 1964 all of their albums progressed ahead and weren’t the same. They never remade an album…they were always looking to improve and change. You could see the progression of this from Help! to Rubber Soul to Revolver. After Revolver came their most famous album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. With Revolver, listeners heard more sophisticated sounds and techniques adopted by the Beatles. This song was not released as a single…but it could have been.

The album peaked at #1 on the Billboard 100, Canada, The UK, and probably Mars as well.

An interesting piece of info on this song. Now all of you non-musicians may not care about this part but George Harrison played bass on this song…so please indulge me. George was right-handed so he could not play Paul’s left-handed basses. He ended up renting one out to play at the session.

I thought I knew most of the instruments they played but this I didn’t know. He played a 1965 Burns Nu-Sonic bass guitar. There is a reason I never heard of this bass guitar. The Nu-Sonics were one of the first instruments discontinued by Baldwin after they bought the Burns company in September 1965. They disappeared from the catalog by the fall of ’66 so the total production run for all versions was only about two years.

Beatles - Good Day Sunshine Bass

Here is a picture of George playing the Nu-Sonic Bass Guitar. 

Paul McCartney: “Once again, I was out at John’s house in Weybridge. I’d driven myself there from my home in London in my beautiful sierra-blue Aston Martin, ejector seat and all. I love to drive, and an hour’s drive is a good time to think of things; if you’ve got half an idea, you can flesh it out on the way. I would often arrive at John’s place with a fully formed idea. Sometimes I would have to wait, if John was late getting up; he was a lazy bastard, whereas I was a very enthusiastic young man. Mind you, if I did have to wait there was a little swimming pool I could sit beside.”

“Around that time there was quite a spate of summer songs. ‘Daydream’ and ‘Summer In The City’ by The Lovin’ Spoonful, The Kinks’ ‘Sunny Afternoon’…We wanted to write something sunny. Both John and I had grown up while the music hall tradition was still very vibrant, so it was always in the back of our minds. There are lots of songs about the sun, and they make you happy: ‘The Sun Has Got His Hat On’ or ‘On The Sunny Side Of The Street.’ It was now time for us to do ours. So we’ve got love and sun, what more do we want?”

Paul McCartney: “Wrote that out at John’s one day…the sun was shining, influenced by The Lovin’ Spoonful. It was really very much a nod to The Lovin’ Spoonful’s ‘Daydream,’ the same traditional, almost trad-jazz feel. That was our favorite record of theirs. ‘Good Day Sunshine’ was me trying to write something similar to ‘Daydream.’ John and I wrote it together at Kenwood, but it was basically mine, and he helped me with it.”

John Sebastian: “One of the wonderful things The Beatles had going for them is that they were so original that when they did cop an idea from somebody else it never occurred to you, I thought there were one or two of their songs which were Spoonfuloid but it wasn’t until Paul mentioned it in a Playboy interview (in 1984) that I specifically realized we’d inspired ‘Good Day Sunshine.’”

Good Day Sunshine

Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine

I need to laugh, and when the sun is out
I’ve got something I can laugh about
I feel good, in a special way
I’m in love and it’s a sunny day

Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine

We take a walk, the sun is shining down
Burns my feet as they touch the ground

Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine

And then we lie, beneath a shady tree
I love her and she’s loving me
She feels good, she knows she’s looking fine
I’m so proud to know that she is mine

Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine

Lovin’ Spoonful – Daydream

Nice easy going laid back song by the Lovin’ Spoonful. John Sebastian wrote this song and he was influenced by “Baby Love” by the Supremes.

A good song by the Lovin’ Spoonful who had a string of hits in the sixties. They had a short window…1966-1969 but they had 14 songs in the Billboard 100. 1 number one and 7 top ten hits. This song peaked at #2 in 1966 in the  Billboard 100, #1 in New Zealand, #2 in the UK, and #1 in Canada.

Lovin’ Spoonful played “jug band” music and like the Rascals, they were more of a singles band than an album band.

John Sebastian on Daydream: “We had no way of knowing what a nice long shelf life some of that material was gonna have. At the time, we were certainly aiming only for the next few months. That’s really what we were trying for, a Top Ten record right now, right then. Everything else is unexpected.”

From Songfacts

This song started The whole New Vaudeville Bandwagon in the late 1960s of which Sgt. Pepper was the most well-known example. This song influenced the Beatles, as John Lennon’s jukebox included both this and “Do You Believe In Magic?.” This song was a major influence on Paul McCartney’s Beatles composition “Good Day Sunshine.”

Films and TV shows to include this classic as part of their soundtrack include 1989 film Field of Dreams, the pilot episode of the TV series Men of a Certain Age, 1994 film The War, the “John Lennon’s Jukebox” episode of the TV series The South Bank Show, 1967’s Poor Cow, and 1970 film Summer in the City.

One of our research team members ranted about something involving the Grim Reaper frolicking to this song in a TV commercial. Yes, that’s a Jeep Cherokee commercial with the Grim Reaper enjoying a relaxing day off to the tune of The Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Daydream”, and anybody else suffering from the same fits of half-remembered nostalgia can now see it at that link and rest in peace, at last.

How authentic is the Baby Boomer street-cred of Lovin’ Spoonful lead John Sebastian? So much so that he was born in 1944 in Greenwich Village, New York, and his tie-dyed denim jacket is on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, since they were inducted into it in 2000.

More trivia: John Sebastian is the godson of actress Vivian Vance, who played Ethel Mertz in the classic TV series I Love Lucy.

Other artists to cover this song include: Chet Atkins, David Cassidy, Art Garfunkel (on the album named Daydream – Songs from a Parent to a Child), Rick Nelson, The Sweet, and The Sandpipers.

Daydream

What a day for a daydream
What a day for a daydreamin’ boy
And I’m lost in a daydream
Dreamin’ ‘bout my bundle of joy
And even if time ain’t really on my side
It’s one of those days for takin’ a walk outside
I’m blowin’ the day to take a walk in the sun
And fall on my face on somebody’s new mowed lawn

I’ve been havin’ a sweet dream
I been dreamin’ since I woke up today
It’s starrin’ me and my sweet dream
‘Cause she’s the one that makes me feel this way

And even if time has passing me by a lot
I couldn’t care less about the dues you say I got
Tomorrow I’ll pay the dues for droppin’ my load
A pie in your face for bein’ a sleepy bulltoad

And you can be sure that if you’re feelin’ right
A daydream will last along into the night
Tomorrow at breakfast you may pick up your ears
Or you may be daydreamin’ for a thousand years

What a day for a daydream
Custom made for a daydreamin’ boy
And now I’m lost in a daydream
Dreamin ‘bout my bundle of joy