86. Good Day Sunshine

Being in love on a sunny day really is the best

The Beatles have quite a few songs that almost invariably make me smile. This one is high on the list.

Deserving particular attention on that front is the introduction, which I’d put up there among the very best introductions to any pop song ever written. The gentle piano line invites you to step outside, and then those quick drum beats hit and you are lifted up up up into the bright blue morning. And yes, it really is a good day. And yes, the sun really does feel good on your shoulders. The rest of the song is lovely, too, and would be well-deserving of its place in history. But it’s that introduction that truly makes me feel alive.

Some other major highlights of the song include the multi-tracked pianos which feel warm and inviting throughout. There’s also some pretty interesting tempo-shifting as they move through the track, with Ringo jumping effortlessly across registers. So effortlessly, in fact, that I never actually noticed it happening until I sat down to listen super closely.¹

I also really appreciate the simplicity of the song. There are a lot of complicated ideas floating around on Revolver, and for good reason. They were really starting to push the boundaries of what pop music could be about. But that makes it all the nicer to preserve a bit of clarity about the basic joys of life. And there is almost no joy more basic or more important than being in love on a sunny day.

Paul has said that it was inspired by (which is maybe a nicer way of saying ‘ripped off from’) Daydream by the Lovin’ Spoonful. It’s not something I’d ever noticed explicitly, but once I read the comment, it was very clear. There’s clearly some melodic inspiration (particularly the little piano interlude at roughly a minute) and the thrumming piano line at the base of the song is also quite similar. But more than anything it’s a question of vibe. And fortunately, you can’t litigate on the basis of copying a vibe.

I’ve also seen the Kinks’ Sunny Afternoon referenced as an inspiration, something that Paul himself mentions when he discusses this song in his Lyrics book. But it’s the other thing he references in that passage that really resonated with me:

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.²

The echo of music hall isn’t nearly as heavy here as it would be on some of his later ‘granny’ songs. But once you hear the reference, it’s pretty unmistakable. And it makes sense in terms of the broader album, as well. Just like When I’m Sixty-Four provided a bit of levity, Good Day Sunshine is a similar bit of fresh air after a pretty jarring first half of Revolver.

In fact, I’d say that this ended up being one of their greatest pieces of album sequencing. It’s the perfect way open side two of the record: a welcome invitation to a beautiful day. It seems to have worked so well that they returned to the same well a few years later with George’s ode to sunshine kicking off side two of Abbey Road.

But as much as I love it as an opener, I might actually like the outro transition even more. As the song concludes, and they trade off “Good Day Sunshine”s, the lazy feeling of the song is called short, and your ears rise to attention. Which makes it all the more powerful when those opening guitar licks from And Your Bird Can Sing burst forth. It’s a quintessential example of how contrasts can support one another.

1. I have some comments on Ringo’s 1966 drumming still to come, with a few tracks that could plausibly be counted as his best performance over his entire career. This one isn’t quite at that level, but it’s still really good.

2. Paul McCartney, The Lyrics A-K, p. 233