You Are the Sunshine of My Life

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"You Are the Sunshine of My Life"
File:Steviesunshine.jpg
Single by Stevie Wonder
from the album Talking Book
B-side "Tuesday Heartbreak"
Released March 1973
Format 7" 45 RPM
Recorded 1972
Genre
Length 2:58
Label Tamla
Writer(s) Stevie Wonder
Producer(s) Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder singles chronology
"Superstition"
(1972)
"You Are the Sunshine of My Life"
(1973)
"Higher Ground"
(1973)

"You Are the Sunshine of My Life" is a 1973 single released by Stevie Wonder. The song became Wonder's third No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and his first No. 1 on the Easy Listening chart.[1] It won Wonder a Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, and was nominated for both Record of the Year and Song of the Year.[2] This song was the second single released from the 1972 album entitled Talking Book, which stayed at number one on the R&B charts for three weeks.[2] The song opened 194 Radio City on 21 October 1974.

Rolling Stone ranked the song #281 on their list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".

The first two lines of the song are sung, not by Wonder, but by Jim Gilstrap and with Lani Groves singing the next two lines.[3] The single version of the song differs from the album version with the addition of horns to the mix.

There is a live version of "You are the Sunshine of My Life" in Frank Sinatra's 1974 Some Nice Things I've Missed album.

Language versions

The song has been translated to many languages, notably in French as "Le soleil de ma vie" (literally "the sun of my life") sung by Sacha Distel and Brigitte Bardot.

Chart performance

In popular culture

The song was used in the ABC sitcom Taxi in the season 5 episode "Jim's Inheritance". A tape was left by Jim Ignatowski's late father to remind him that he was his favorite of his three children.

The song was sung in the CBS sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond twice during the series run, both times by Ray. The first was in the season 5 finale and the other was in the series finale.[9]

See also

References

  1. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. 2.0 2.1 Hogan, Ed. "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" (song review), AllMusic.com.
  3. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. http://www.flavourofnz.co.nz/index.php?qpageID=search%20listener &qartistid=650#n_view_location
  5. Cash Box Top 100 Singles.
  6. "Top 100 1973", uk-charts.top-source.info.
  7. "Top 100 Hits of 1973/Top 100 Songs of 1973", Music Outfitters.
  8. "The CASH BOX Year-End Charts: 1973",
  9. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

Preceded by Billboard Hot 100 number-one single
May 19, 1973 (one week)
Succeeded by
"Frankenstein" by The Edgar Winter Group


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