This is where I post my love for "You Are My Sunshine"

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It's a f*cking classic. It's everything Burt Bacharach could never do, although I must admit that Armor Hotdogs came very close to ruining this simple ditty forever. I knew it as the hotdog song when I was growing up but somehow was able to shake that memory mostly outta my mind in the past five years.

But now that I little tricycle engines of my own, the damn thing makes me misty. My grandmother used to sing some wild ass ragtime version of it that she made up on the piano. It reminds me of all the great things in Life even though it's actually so sad.

Unadorned, it is an irristible piece of songwriting.

http://www.nashvillesongwritersfoundation.com/fame/davis.html

― don weiner, Friday, 28 February 2003 20:23 (twenty-three years ago)

Armor Hotdogs? don WEINER? You're sure?

― hstencil, Friday, 28 February 2003 20:27 (twenty-three years ago)

French's Mustard(?)

― christoff (christoff), Friday, 28 February 2003 20:29 (twenty-three years ago)

we can agree on this.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 28 February 2003 20:30 (twenty-three years ago)

Jimmie Davis is just fabulous, especially in his early period where he sung extremely raunchy blues with supple backing by Oscar "Buddy" Woods. More Jimmie Davis facts: he lived to 101; when he was singing raunchy blues, he was earning a master's degree and teaching college; he was a several-(nonconsecutive)-term-governor of Louisiana on a centrist albeit segregationist platform. I'm still waiting for someone on ILX to buy those Bear Family Jimmie Davis box sets for me.

As I recall Jimmie didn't actually write "Sunshine," but he bought it from some unlucky sap and slapped his name on it. Not an uncommon practice at the time.

I mentioned on other threads that my mother sang me to sleep with a version of this song. I suspect this is true for a lot of us.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 28 February 2003 20:33 (twenty-three years ago)

There's a frantic re-working of bits of Sunshine in The Calendar Hung Itself by (who else?) Bright Eyes that I really like as well, on the album Fevers & Mirrors.

― Alexis, Friday, 28 February 2003 20:42 (twenty-three years ago)

About 4 years ago I was in a punkabilly band that did "You Are My Sunshine" at the end of every set. It's a fuckin' fabulous damned-near perfect song.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 28 February 2003 20:44 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh and the movie Louisiana, where Davis plays himself, is not bad at all. Bloodshot released the soundtrack on their Soundies imprint not long ago.

Great versions of this song, aside from Jimmie's own: Ray Charles, Montana Slim, Bing Crosby (who sounds a lot like Jimmie), Bert Jansch, and--improbably--Big Joe Williams.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 28 February 2003 20:47 (twenty-three years ago)

Jimmie became a gospel singer and a neat progenitor of Christian Right hypocrisy in his (very extended) old age.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 28 February 2003 20:49 (twenty-three years ago)

I like this song; one of the few that my wife will sing with me.

― dleone (dleone), Friday, 28 February 2003 20:49 (twenty-three years ago)

Hurrah for Low's version.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 28 February 2003 21:14 (twenty-three years ago)

I think I rated it as the saddest song ever on an old thread.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Friday, 28 February 2003 21:16 (twenty-three years ago)

Yes, it's beautiful, and yes my mommy used to sing it to me.

― Adam A. (Keiko), Friday, 28 February 2003 21:27 (twenty-three years ago)

heh, hstencil I never even noticed that one. don weiner's not my real name, which is why it probably slipped by me.

Low's version is about the only version of anything Low does that I like. Although they are more bearable than they were circa 1994.

― don weiner, Friday, 28 February 2003 22:35 (twenty-three years ago)

(I wasn't talking about the Low version, just to clear that up.)

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Friday, 28 February 2003 23:12 (twenty-three years ago)

i like the dennis wilson smile version (minor key)... "old master painter".

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 28 February 2003 23:22 (twenty-three years ago)

I do not like the pointlessly morose Fire Show version.

― gazuga (gazuga), Friday, 28 February 2003 23:41 (twenty-three years ago)

One of the best songs, truly, and one of my longtime favorites which I dared perform in a so-called talent show in grammar school back when the Salk vaccine was still a novelty. Remember Tina Turner's pumped up with the mighty funk version circa late '60s? Not really one of the best versions.

There's another bluesman who recorded it other than Big Joe Williams, but I'd have to really fire up the memory banks.

― bflaska, Saturday, 1 March 2003 03:14 (twenty-three years ago)

i think this song might've actually moved me to teras @ least 1x

― duane, Saturday, 1 March 2003 03:50 (twenty-three years ago)

tears i mean

― duane, Saturday, 1 March 2003 03:51 (twenty-three years ago)

sometimes my sweetheart of a girlfriend sings (or types) this song to me, which is incredibly cute, but then that last line, "please dont take my sunshine away" just sounds to terribly sad. i'm never sure how to take it.

― Al (sitcom), Saturday, 1 March 2003 05:40 (twenty-three years ago)

My father used to sing this to me, about me.

He's dead now.

I am going to cry when I hear the Low version.

― mei (mei), Saturday, 1 March 2003 12:55 (twenty-three years ago)

in the beach boys' version, dennis sings in the past tense.

― RJG (RJG), Saturday, 1 March 2003 15:18 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't think I've actually heard the original recording of this. Or the Low version. I was very upset when I heard my mother singing it to someone else.

― Adam A. (Keiko), Saturday, 1 March 2003 16:02 (twenty-three years ago)

conor oberst also sings some lines from it in a bright eyes song.

― RJG (RJG), Saturday, 1 March 2003 17:15 (twenty-three years ago)

There was a kid in my gym class who not only HAD but BROUGHT IN to a rambunctious locker-room the 45 of "You Are My Sunshine" on the A-side and "Louie Louie" on the B (one of the classic A/B miscalculations in rock); did he imagine we would be impressed?? I guess I was though...!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Saturday, 1 March 2003 18:12 (twenty-three years ago)

I haven't heard the original either. In fact, until this thread, it never occurred to me that there was an original version. I assumed it was traditional.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Saturday, 1 March 2003 18:18 (twenty-three years ago)

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