You Are My Sunshine by Jimmie Davis

“You Are My Sunshine” by Jimmie Davis
“You Are My Sunshine” by Norman Blake
“You Are My Sunshine” by Ray Charles

I have a way of ruining songs for my wife Diana.

I don’t mean to but sometimes it just happens.

I love researching songs finding out the stories “behind the music.” Most of the time adds to my appreciation and understanding of the song. However, every so often I find out something about a song that changes my understanding of the song. Sometimes this adds a whole new perspective to the song and other times, it just kind of ruins in.

When most of us think of “You Are My Sunshine” we imagine little kids singing this song like in this clip from The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air. Except for the James Brown inspired rap break down in the end of the song, this is pretty much most of our experience with this song.

“You Are My Sunshine” is a song that mothers sing to children. Children sing this song in elementary school. There probably isn’t a adult in America who can’t sing this song or at least hum the melody. This songs is important to our culture that it is used to teach borg woman about humanity.

So when Diana and heard Johnny Cash singing “You Are My Sunshine” and we both realized how depressing the song actually was, it was kind of bummer. Granted, Johnny Cash could make any song sound depressing, but it wasn't just his voice that made this song so sad.

Jimmie Davis’ recording “You Are My Sunshine” popularized the song in 1940. Davis bought the rights to the song and took credit as the composer, which was common at the times. He later became the governor of Louisiana and through this association, “You Are My Sunshine” became one of the state songs. Since Davis recorded it, numerous artists recorded it including Bing Crosby, Gene Autry and Ray Charles.

The four verses of “You Are My Sunshine” are spoken from the perspective of a man who is dealing with the fact that his love has left him. The first verse is an expression of sorrow and sadness as he wakes up to find that he is alone after dreaming of his love. He is so depressed by this fact that he cries.

In the second verse, he pledges his love but states that if she leaves him she’ll regret it. There is a little bit of anger in these words that builds into the third verse as he deals with her leaving. He describes her actions as “shattering” his dreams focusing on the pain that she has caused him. He calms down in the last verse after he realizes that she might actually leave him permanently and promises that he will forgiver her and take all the blame for the situation.

It is extraordinary how clearly this song works through different emotions starting with sadness, moving through bitterness, anger and finally regret. All of this is framed by the chorus which when broken down reflects his state of mind.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You'll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away

There is a sweet sentiment when he describes her as his sunshine. When he adds that she is his only sunshine he is stating how he hasn’t cheated on her. "She makes him happy when the skies are gray" is another heartwarming line followed by “you’ll never know dear, how much I love you.” Is this something you say to someone love? I guess on one hand if I said that to my wife it could mean that I love her so much that I can’t describe it to her. On the other hand it sounds a little bitter. I can imagine someone saying that in response to being dumped as they walk away in anger.

Who is he talking to in the last line of the chorus “please don’t take my sunshine away”? If the metaphor carries through the stanza than the sunshine is his love and someone else is trying to take his love away. Is it God or another man? He isn’t asking her to directly to stay but rather a third party. In some ways this is truly the saddest part of the song as he begs life not to take his only happiness away. This isn’t an affirmation of love. This is a man begging for the one thing that makes him happy.

“You Are My Sunshine” sounds really happy. There is a great tradition in country music in setting depressing lyrics being to happy music. It makes the subjects more palatable and easier to deal with. Often as in “You Are My Sunshine” it adds a level of subtext to the song making it even sadder because the depressed voice is trying to put on a happy face.

Whenever Diana hears this song now, she comments on how sad it is and how she used to get a warm-fuzzy feeling from this song. I guess in changing her understanding of the song I didn't ruin it but the song no longer has that sparkle of childhood delight surrounding it.

My bad.

So there it is. “You Are My Sunshine” is a depressing break-up song. Santa Claus isn’t real and his common image was created by the Coca Cola company. Pop singers often lip sing when they perform on television and just because your mom tells you that you are good looking doesn’t necessarily mean its true.