Today’s classic song of the day is “We’ll Sing in the Sunshine” by Gayle Garnett. This easy-going single debuted in July of 1964 and rose to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100, #1 on the Cash Box Top 100, and #1 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary (then called Middle-Road Singles) chart.
“We’ll Sing in the Sunshine” was written by Ms Garnett. It’s a breezy little number with a bit of a throwback folkish sound about a young woman offering her man a strings-free relationship for one year. When the year is up, she promises to pack her bags and walk away.
Ms. Garnett wrote the song when she was just 21 years old, and it was originally recorded (in 1963) by Hoyt Axton. Here’s how she regards the song, in retrospect:
“I wrote the words and music and sang it and of all the things that have happened to me, it is possibly the greatest thrill to have had people say ‘yes’ to something of mine to the tune of 900,000 records.”
Gayle Garnett was born in New Zealand but grew up in Canada. After the success of “We’ll Sing in the Sunshine,” she continued to record and perform for another decade or so before retiring from the music business in the early ’80s. She had a subsidiary career as an actress, appearing TV series like 77 Sunset Strip, Hawaiian Eye, and The Real McCoys, and movies such as My Big Fat Greek Wedding. She also wrote a few novels, the latest in 2009. She’s still around today, aged 81.
And here’s your daily bonus video of the day, Gayle Garnett lip-synching “We’ll Sing in the Sunshine” on the April 16, 1966 episode of the Australian TV show, Bandstand. (Yes, there was an Australian Bandstand in addition to the more famous American one, hosted by a guy named Brian Henderson. It ran from 1958 to 1972 on TCN-9, AKA the Nine Network.)
