{"id":1697,"date":"2015-11-20T08:50:12","date_gmt":"2015-11-20T14:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/?p=1697"},"modified":"2015-11-20T08:50:12","modified_gmt":"2015-11-20T14:50:12","slug":"you-are-my-sunshine-not-so-sunny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/you-are-my-sunshine-not-so-sunny\/","title":{"rendered":"‘You Are My Sunshine:’ Not So Sunny"},"content":{"rendered":"

Print this entry<\/a><\/p>

I decided to add \u201cYou Are My Sunshine\u201d to the repertoire of songs I can mangle on the guitar. So I found it with the OnSong app, uploaded and opened it. Most everybody knows the chorus to this tune, popularly believed to have been written by Jimmie Davis, who rode his fame singing that song all the way to the Louisiana governor\u2019s mansion in 1944. Term limits kept him from running for re-election, but a decade or so later, Davis reprised the song and won another four-year term as governor.<\/p>\n

Actually, Davis did not write \u201cYou Are My Sunshine.\u201d He purchased the song from Charles Mitchell in 1939 and recorded it for the first time. He then claimed authorship. Apparently this was not an uncommon practice.<\/p>\n

Mothers sing the chorus of \u201cYou Are My Sunshine\u201d to their wee children. Rug rats learn it and belt it out with gusto. I have been mumbling the chorus for decades, sang it to my two older daughters as well when they were tykes. Since Davis\u2019s debut, \u201cYou Are My Sunshine\u201d has been recorded by Gene Autry, Lawrence Welk, Bing Crosby, Johnny Cash and many more. One writer for Salon called it the most ubiquitous song of the 20th<\/sup> century, second only to \u201cHappy Birthday\u201d in being sung. I think the \u201cStar Spangled Banner\u201d might be pretty high on that list as well, but there is no disputing that this song still thrives more than 75 years after first being recorded.<\/p>\n

Now that I have downloaded the song to play, and examined the lyrics, I finally realized after more than five decades of happily singing the only semi-cheerful part of this ditty, that this is an extremely depressing song.<\/em> We have been singing this downer song to tykes for decades, omitting \u2014 usually from ignorance \u2014 what this song is actually about. A woman has left her man for somebody else. Or she is about to kick him to the curb. That, of course, is one of the two themes of country music: loving or leaving.<\/p>\n

So, here\u2019s the first stanza:<\/p>\n

The other night dear, as I lay sleepin’<\/em>
\nI dreamed, I held you in my arms
\nWhen I awoke dear, I was mistaken
\nSo I hung my head and I cry.<\/em><\/p>\n

Then it\u2019s the chorus, which we all know and love:<\/p>\n

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine<\/em>
\nYou make me happy when skies are grey
\nYou’ll never know dear, how much I love you
\nPlease don’t take my sunshine away.<\/em><\/p>\n

OK, so far so good. We can sing along with gusto and minimal depression. But the song quickly heads into the Land of Lexipro.<\/p>\n

You told me once dear, you really loved me
\nAnd no one else could come between us
\nBut now you’ve left me and you love another
\nAnd you have shattered all my dreams.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hoo boy. Things are heading downhill. Once more with the chorus, which now doesn\u2019t ring as cheerfully. Then the final stanza:<\/p>\n

I’ll always love you and make you happy
\nIf you will only say the same
\nBut if you leave me to love another
\nBut you’ll regret it all some day.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is beginning to sound a bit threatening, a tad stalkerish. It is hard to imagine singing the entire<\/em> song to a group of first-graders in hopes of soothing them. So we just stick to the chorus.<\/p>\n

Not me. As I flail away on my Hound Dog, I play every single stanza, tears streaming down my face. OK, not really.<\/p>\n

On YouTube, I found a video of Jimmie Davis in 2000 singing \u201cYou Are My Sunshine\u201d at the age of 100. Davis can be forgiven for stopping after the first stanza and chorus, and he did a creditable job. But it made me wonder. Had the song become too depressing even for the fellow who became famous singing it?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Print this entry<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Print this entryI decided to add \u201cYou Are My Sunshine\u201d to the repertoire of songs I can mangle on the guitar. So I found it with the OnSong app, uploaded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[50,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-50","category-columns"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1697"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1698,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697\/revisions\/1698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}