Sing Books with Emily, the Blog

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Sunshine On My Shoulders
Words by John Denver
Music by John Denver, Mike Taylor & Dick Kniss
Illustrated by Christopher Canyon

“Sunshine On My Shoulders” is one of my very favorite songs of all time.   “Sunshine On My Shoulders” is a simple, honest song that captures warm, sunny, loving feelings in a beautiful melody and wonderful words without being too sentimental.  Because the song is about one person’s good wishes for another, I think it makes a lovely song for the winter holidays, birthdays, wedding and so many other special occasions.

Every time I sing this song, the children respond to it with open hearts.  The children learn it quickly and sing-along in sweet voices.  It is an uplifting experience every single time.

This book opens with a quote from John Denver’s song “The Music is You,”
Music makes pictures and often tells stories
All of it magic and all of it true.
And all of the pictures and all of the stories,
And all of the magic,
The music is you.

That right there sums up a lot of how I feel about “Sing Books.”  It’s all magical and the magic is in each and every one of us.  The magic is definitely in the wonderful song, “Sunshine On My Shoulders.”

Singing “Sunshine On My Shoulders,” I am flooded with memories of my childhood when John Denver’s songs were spinning on the stereo turntable and of my time years later in New York City.  I spent most of 20′s living in New York City and I spent most of those weekends in Central Park.  On warm sunny days I would go to a hill beside the lake to hear Guitar Dave.  He would stand there, at the edge of the water, strumming his guitar and singing songs all afternoon…and like nothing else, Sunshine on My Shoulders brings it all back…

Sunshine On My Shoulders
Words by John Denver, music by John Denver,
Dick Kniss and Mike Taylor

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy
Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely
Sunshine almost always makes me high

If I had a day that I could give you
I’d give to you a day just like today
If I had a song that I could sing for you
I’d sing a song to make you feel this way

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy
Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely
Sunshine almost always makes me high

If I had a tale that I could tell you
I’d tell a tale sure to make you smile
If I had a wish that I could wish for you
I’d make a wish for sunshine all the while

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy
Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely
Sunshine almost always makes me high
Sunshine almost all the time makes me high
Sunshine almost always…

“Sunshine” first appeared on John Denver’s 1971 breakout album, “Poems, Prayers and Promises,”

John Denver singing “Sunshine on My Shoulders,”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AbxQ2Q4HeU

Mr. Denver performing the song on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show in 1974,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvjNHx_pfX0
Here’s a link to a post I wrote about some of the wonderful things John Denver talks about with Johnny Carson about the nature of music and its special importance for the human condition:
http://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2010/12/27/john-denver-on-singing-the-tonight-show-with-johnny-carson-1974/

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I’m very excited that “Sunshine On My Shoulders” will be one of the songs in “Sing Books with Emily, the Cabaret.”  I make a strong committment to each song I perform and completing my Song Craft Worksheet is part of that process,

 Emily’s Song Craft Worksheet

Because the first section of the Song Craft Worksheet involves background research on the song, I’ll share the answers with you so you can know about the song, too.  The more about the song you know (both concrete facts and less tangible artistic choices), the more “authority,” and heart and soul you can put into the singing and sharing of the song with others.  If you are interested in improving your artistic abilities for singing songs in any capacity, just simply filling out the Song Craft Worksheet is a great place to start!  After the background research, the rest of the Song Craft Worksheet gets VERY personal…don’t worry!  I won’t bore you with that. :-)

1 Q: Who wrote the words?
1 A: John Denver

2Q: Who wrote the music?
2A: John Denver, Mike Taylor and Dick Kniss

3Q: When was the song written?
3A: 1971

4Q: At what point in the lyricists’ and composer’s career was the song written?
4A: John Denver was 28 when this song was released, toward the beginning of his career, although he had been performing and recording songs since around 1965.

Links of John Denver Biographies, here:
Biogrpahy.com: http://www.biography.com/articles/Denver-John-9542069
Wikipedia.com: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Denver

5Q: What is the song from?
5A: The song was first released on John Denver’s album “Poems, Prayers and Promises”

6Q/7Q: NA (This song is not from a stage show)

8Q:  What other contextual elements of the song are significant?
8A:  A few important contextual elements include,

• The song was written as a soothing response to the winter blues and despair over the Viet Nam war
• For me, this song captures memories of childhood, hearing the song play on my parent’s record player
• For me, this song also reminds me of warm days in New York City in Central Park, going to hear “Guitar Dave” play his guitar and sing songs by the lake.

9Q: Was the song written for a particular singer?  Why?
9A:  Seems to be there could hardly be a more quintessential ”John Denver” song than this one.  He wrote the song for himself to sing (clearly), but he was uniquely qualifies to deliver the beautiful lines of the melody with his beautifully expressive voice and to convey the simple loving message of the song in his straight forward, uncomplicated delivery.

10Q: If not from a show, why did the songwriter write the song?
10A:  I read that John Denver said of his song,
“I wrote the song in Minnesota at the time I call ‘late winter, early spring’. It was a dreary day, gray and slushy. The snow was melting and it was too cold to go outside and have fun, but God, you’re ready for spring. You want to get outdoors again and you’re waiting for that sun to shine, and you remember how sometimes just the sun itself can make you feel good. And in that very melancholy frame of mind I wrote “Sunshine On My Shoulders.”

11Q: What do you feel the lyricist is trying to say?
11A:  I think the song says that what is truly important in life are things like love for family and friends, the joy of a sunny day, appreciation for the beauty of the earth, and the enriching qualities of sharing story and song.

12Q: Does the song tell a story or just express feelings or ideas?
12A:  This song, though it also expresses a desire to share stories, is all about feeling and ideas (specifically love for family and friends, the joy of a sunny day, appreciation for the beauty of the earth, and the enriching qualities of sharing story and song)

13Q:  Look Up Newspaper Articles and Review
13A:  Done, see above

14Q: Who else has recorded this song:
14A: Besides John Denver:  Sutton Foster, Brothers Four, Sadiki, and a number of easy listening/”musak” versions

The rest of the questions require VERY personal answers and I will spare you those!

I hope you’ll come see “Sing Books with Emily, the Cabaret” to see for yourself if all this work pays off!  It’s a wonderful line-up of songs.

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11/11/2011
As a song for Thanksgiving…
The lyrics do not specifically mention gratitude, but as it lovingly appreciates one of nature’s greatest gifts and wanting to give and share the experience with a loved one makes it feel like a song of Thanksgiving.  At least this is how I felt about it today.

I thought a little more about it, and can put it this way:  “Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy…”  seems like you can’t really be happy about something without appreciating it.  And you can’t really appreciate something without being grateful for having it… This is why I think “Sunshine on My Shoulders” makes a terrific Thanksgiving song.

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Related Posts

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THE SINGABLE PICTURE BOOKS OF JOHN DENVER
http://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/the-singable-picture-books-of-john-denver/

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“Sunshine” is one of Ms. A’s Ks Faves:
http://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2011/01/02/ms-as-ks-favorite-songs/

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“Sunshine” is a suggested Singable Picture Book for use in a Kennedy Center ArtsEdge class manual featured available for teachers online:
http://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2010/12/29/kennedy-center-artsedge-set-a-poem-to-music-creating-singable-songs-from-poetry-in-print/

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John Denver sings his song on The Johnny Carson Show in 1974 and has wonderful things to say about the uplifting effect of singing:
http://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2010/12/27/john-denver-on-singing-the-tonight-show-with-johnny-carson-1974/

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“Sunshine” is featured in my Summer Celebration, a list of Singable Picture Books for Summer:
http://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/songs-for-summer-a-list-of-summery-singable-picture-books/

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THANKSGIVING
A Songlist to help us Celebrate Thanksgiving!
http://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2010/11/06/thank-heavens-singable-picture-books-for-thanksgiving/