We'll Sing In The Sunshine - Gale Garnett - 1964

Cafe Society
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Mods, since I’m basing this question/discussion on a song, I felt Cafe Society was the place to put it, although arguments could be made, I suppose, for other forums as the correct place. Please move if necessary and as needed.

So. 1964. Gale Garnett. We’ll Sing In The Sunshine

Very likely many of you have never heard this one. The gist is that the woman/singer is proposing that she’ll stay with her boyfriend/beau/lover (never actually named) for one (1) year, during which it’s said they will apparently have a great time together each and every single day (like that ever happens with real-life couples, but I digress). Then, at 1 year plus 1 day, she packs her bags and moves on. Just like that. Never looking back either, I’ll wager.

Okay, it’s just a song. Trying to compare it to real life is about the same as arguing what Batman could and couldn’t “really” do. But, since I heard it decades ago, it’s always made me (idly) wonder. Now I throw it out to you all for discussion.

Ever known anyone who had a relationship even similar to this? Exclude one-night stands, romances (high-school or otherwise) that last only a few weeks, Hollywood marriages with about the same longevity, or relationships that, for whatever reason, just end up being short. Who would really enter a relationship with someone under those terms? 1 year of fun, then buh-bye. And I’m assuming that the two people in question just met, although the opposite could be argued, for the terms of the relationship are laid out repeatedly, as if no kind of relationship of any kind between the two existed heretofore.

Side note: MAN, I can get pedantic when I type!

Okay, a year of guaranteed good times, there’s a billion lonely people in the world who might jump at the chance. But consider the position of the singer herself. Offering, nay, guaranteeing 365 days of bliss. To do such, she must throw her heart and soul into the relationship, else she’s the greatest actor to walk the earth. Then - POOF - she turns it off as if it never happened.

Who does that?

Who could do that?

It’s my opinion that a person capable of “One (year) and Done” is psychotic in some fashion. Split personality, sociopathic, megalomaniacal, amnesiatic, something.

What’s your take?

P.S. Let my wife of 16 years (and we’ve known each other for 27 years) listen to this; she’d never heard it before. Then I asked her if she’d’ve still said yes to my proposal if I stipulated that we would only be wed for 10 years. Got an emphatic NO on that one.

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I heard this song a million times as a kid, but never paid attention to the actual verses, just the chorus. How funny.

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Compare it to this song about a drifter who’s able to drop in and out of some girl’s life pretty much whenever he wants:

Is this really a bad way to live? :dubious:

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I always thought of it as sort of a one year contract subject to renewal.

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She’s blindly following her father’s advice: “don’t you love you any man. Just take what he can give you, and give but what you can”. Fucked up father.

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Same. I also only knew the Helen Reddy version (she sang it on The Muppet Show). It’s one of those songs that end up as background music for something relating to singing in sunshine, so it’s clear many people don’t pay close attention to lyrics.

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I had a girlfriend in college who made it pretty clear that our relationship would end on or before graduation day. And it did.

My only consolation is that the guy she wound up marrying was an utter twit.

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Okay, is anyone familiar with Save the Best For Last? Sung by Vanessa Williams, but she didn’t write it. I used to love this song, but as soon as I got a chance to sing it at karaoke, I saw right through it. He’s settling for her!

All of those nights you came to me/When some silly girl had set you free IOW, when other women got fed up with his nonsense, he sought you out, for an ego boost and perhaps even some sympathy nookie.

'Cause how could you give your love to someone else/And share your dreams with me? He could tell you anything because you didn’t mean that much to him. A negative response from you wouldn’t crush him, except you wouldn’t give him a negative response anyway: you thought the sun shone out of his ass and he knew it.

I wondered what was wrong with you that he couldn’t see how perfectly suited you and he were to each other. And when would he realize that Sometimes the very thing you’re looking for/Is the one thing you can’t see? Except that he’s had enough chances to “see” you that if he hasn’t appreciated you before, that’s his hangup.

Of course, It’s not the way I hoped, or how I planned/But somehow it’s enough. It’s enough for you, because you’ve invested this much time in him and you’re determined to get something for it. Probably he figures it’s his time to marry and have kids. And since you’ve shown yourself to be so kind and caring and patient, you’ll do a great job raising your/his kids…who he won’t have time for either.

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We had the 45 at our house when it first came out. I was about 4 years old. It wasn’t until I was about 12 that I realized exactly what the lyrics were saying…

One time my brother got set up on a blind date with this girl and when he picked her up the first words out of her mouth were “I’m not going to marry you!”. And he replied “I thought we’d just take in a show”. I remember him telling me how she was screwy as hell and kept talking about how dating and relationships were dumb and marriage licenses should have experation dates and such. He said he just wanted to get out of the car at a red light and run but it was his car!

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Sorry to get here so late, but my interest in this song has just been revived on learning that Gale Garnett is a fellow Torontonian, amongst other things. Anyway, I think the song represents the feelings of a woman, who as a young adolescent is traumatised by the early death of both her parents, first her father when she was 13 and then her mother a year or so later, as happened to Gale. The song is about the inability to commit and form attachments that people who have suffered serious abandonment sometimes have difficulties with. She wants emotional and physical closeness, but doesn’t want to be hurt so has to be the one who leaves first and hurts first to protect herself from further hurt. Check out the song from her first LP My Kind Of Folk Songs, “Wanderin,” released upon the success of We’ll Sing In The Sunshine. It is explicitly about her childhood and perhaps, the death of her father.

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I never got that from the song - Though I’ll never love you, I’ll stay with you one year. She promises to sing in the sunshine and laugh every day, but that’s it.

Still not a good deal for a guy who wants love, not just nookie.

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Back in the 70s, when I was a little kid going to Christian school, they had an assembly once to talk to us about how rock music was a tool of the Devil. “We’ll Sing in the Sunshine” was one of the songs used as an example.

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She’s Canadian? Say no more, say no more. Explains everything. :wink: And just a year? Could be a fun year!

Um, I assume she’s the one on the right, falling out of her top.

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Similarly there’s “Kiss Me in the Morning” and kind of similarly “Different Drum” (1964)…I’m sure I’m forgetting some.

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Errr…“Touch me in the Morning”

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I read that she wrote this song for her boyfriend at the time, Hoyt Axton. He recorded it as “Sing in the Sunshine”. A year later she recorded it as “We’ll Sing…” and it became a big hit. (A real hit, not like the non-melody junk that is called a hit today)
Have you seen a recent picture of her? She didn’t age gracefully is maybe one way of describing the way she looks.

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She looks like a regular old grandma to me. You had me expecting much worse.

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Another way of describing the way she looks: like a not-too-bad-looking woman in her 70s, who hasn’t had any cosmetic surgery. Having everything nipped and tucked and injected is not my idea of “aging gracefully.”

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“'Tis a fearful thing to love what death can touch.” - Judah Halevi