Sunny Came Home

Infobox Single
Name = Sunny Came Home


Caption =
Artist = Shawn Colvin
from Album = A Few Small Repairs
Released = June 24, 1997
Format = CD
Recorded =
Genre = Rock, Contemporary Folk
Length = 4:24
Label = Columbia
Writer = Shawn Colvin, John Leventhal
Producer = Malcolm Burn
Certification =
Chart position =
Last single = "Get Out of This House"
(1996)
This single = "Sunny Came Home"
(1997)
Next single = "You and the Mona Lisa"
(1997)
Misc = Extra tracklisting
Album = A Few Small Repairs
Type = studio
this_track = "Sunny Came Home"
track_no = 1
next_track = "Get Out of This House"
next_no = 2Extra tracklisting
Album =
Type = greatest
prev_track = "This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)"
prev_no = 8
this_track = "Sunny Came Home"
track_no = 9
next_track = "You And The Mona Lisa"
next_no = 10

"Sunny Came Home" is a Grammy Award-winning folk-rock song by American musician Shawn Colvin. It is the theme song to her 1996 concept album "A Few Small Repairs", and quickly became a hit when it was released as a CD single on June 24, 1997.

About the Single

The song tells the story of Sunny, "a frustrated housewife who torches her own home." ["Bio." " [http://www.shawncolvin.com/ Shawn Colvin] ". Accessed July 14, 2006.] (The cover art on the single shows images of a woman and a burning house.)

It is one of several "story songs" on "A Few Small Repairs", a method of songwriting Colvin began experimenting with while writing for the album. The title of the song comes from the opening lyrics.

The song's calming and upbeat music, fronted by a distinctive mandolin strum, contrasts sharply with the destructive lyrics, particularly the haunting bridge: "Count the years; you always knew it / Strike a match; go on and do it". [Colvin, Shawn, and Leventhal, John. Lyrics. " [http://www.songmeanings.net/lyric.php?lid=109642 Sunny Came Home] ". "A Few Small Repairs". CD. Columbia. 1996.]

At the end of the song, the lighting of a match can briefly be heard, followed by a quick breath to presumably put the flame out. It should be noted that the version that played on most radio stations was edited; approximately 30 seconds of instrumental music was cut out, mostly at the end of the song.Fact|date=August 2008

Track listing

#"Sunny Came Home" (Colvin, John Leventhal) (4:24)
#"What I Get Paid For" (Colvin, Neil Finn) (3:23)

Recognition and Sales

"Sunny Came Home" is Colvin's most successful single to date. In the 1998 Grammy Awards, it was named Song of the Year and Record of the Year. It peaked at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US, and likely would have achieved a higher peak had it been released commercially sooner to correspond with the song's airplay maximum: it was #1 on the Hot 100 Airplay chart for four weeks and also #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart for four weeks. On the Hot 100 Single Sales chart, however, it peaked at #29. Colvin's record label did not plan to release the track as a retail single until it became an airplay favorite on CHR as well as AC and Adult Alternative radio stations and the label deduced that the song appealed to a younger audience who might be willing to buy the single.

Impact on Pop Culture

*"Sunny Came Home" is sampled on Bobby Valentino's R&B album "Special Occasion". The song is titled "Only Human".

References

External links

*" [http://www.answers.com/topic/sunny-came-home-us Sunny Came Home] ". "Answers.com".
*" [http://www.shawncolvin.com/ Shawn Colvin] ". Official Web site.