Cream - Sunshine of Your Love
Writing by richard on Thursday, 11 of October , 2007 at 10:32 am
Listen to the first 15 seconds
Long before I was old enough to understand who Cream or Eric Clapton was, I recognized the opening riff of Cream’s Sunshine of Your Love. And as far as I knew, the song was nothing but the riff. It was not until 1999 when I heard the riff on TV and asked my roomate at the time, “What the hell is that? I hear it all the time during scenes like that, especially if people are smoking.” His reply was, “You mean Sunshine of Your Love?” I have never felt so ignorant.
Ultimately, it is not so much the song, but the opening riff which repeats in my head. It somehow comforts me when I dress especially comfortably and am just sitting around doing nothing when I could be far more productive. Oftentimes, the only thing missing is a big cloud of smoke in the room I happen to be in.
The song simply reads like a poem, and for the most part, I can’t sing along with the song at all. However, I do sing along with the opening riff. And I simply repeat it over and over in my head. This works because the same riff lies underneath the whole song. Though I am tempted to go into some lyrical analysis, I would simply be making it up.
The essence of a great hook, and thus a repetune, is how often it will repeat in my head and remind me of a song, even though I do not even know the song. I was over 21 when I finally heard the song in its entirety. All things told, I think I would have lived perfectly fine had I never heard the whole song.
This is a repetune in the truest sense. It is not the song, but a segment that repeats. In this way, it stands out, much like Smoke on the Water, Back in Black, Seven Nation Army, Smells Like Teen Spirit, and Are you Gonna Go my Way. A few notes, and you instantly know it. And for the most part, that’s all you need.
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Category: Cream
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