Jonathan Edwards’ only single to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, “Sunshine (Go Away Today),” was one of the most popular songs of 1972. Given its association with the news of the times—particularly regarding the Vietnam War—it is now viewed as a quintessential part of early ‘70s culture. Yet before “Sunshine (Go Away Today)” became a staple of Top-40 radio, it seemed as if the universe were conspiring to keep it off the airwaves.
Though the making of “Sunshine (Go Away Today)” didn’t go the way Edwards planned, it wound up being a nearly unstoppable commercial force. Along with Don McLean’s “American Pie (Parts I & II),” it resonated with U.S. listeners who were angry or sad about the state of the country. Just like McLean’s song that helped to block it from being a No. 1 hit in the early weeks of 1972, the lyrics of “Sunshine (Go Away Today)” unexpectedly came to its writer with little effort.
Overcoming Early Obstacles
When Edwards wrote “Sunshine (Go Away Today),” he was living in a group house in Boston with several other songwriters. In an interview for Songfacts, Edwards detailed how he wrote the now-famous chorus on the fly, while he was performing the song. It was routine for he and his housemates to try out their new songs around the kitchen table, but when Edwards launched into “Sunshine (Go Away Today),” the song wasn’t quite finished. He recounted, “I didn’t have a chorus yet so I just went, ‘How much does it cost? I’ll buy it.’ I was talking about freedom and talking about authority, my constant questioning of authority. ‘How much does it cost? I’ll buy it? Time is all we’ve lost. I’ll try it. He can’t even run his own life, I’ll be damned if he’ll run mine.’ That just came out as I was playing the song for these people.”
Edwards trusted his gut in writing the song’s chorus, and another quick decision led to “Sunshine (Go Away Today)” being included on Edwards’ 1971 self-titled debut album. During a late-night recording session, Edwards’ engineer accidentally erased a track called “Please Find Me,” which was slated to go on the album. In an interview for the Jamestown, New York, radio station WRFA-LP, Edwards recalled the engineer asked him if he had a song to fill the blank segment of tape where “Please Find Me” was supposed to be. Edwards said the engineer asked him, “You have anything you can put on this tape, so that when everybody comes in tomorrow morning, there won’t be a glaring hole in the tape?”
The fast-thinking Edwards remembered the song he played for his housemates, so in the wee hours of the morning he recorded “Sunshine (Go Away Today).” Happy with the version he recorded, Edwards added bass and 12-string guitar to the song. Later that day, Edwards asked his drummer, Richard Adelman, to record a part for the song and as quickly as that, the hole in the album was filled.
A Long Wait for Chart Success
A moment of inspiration gave “Sunshine (Go Away Today)” a chorus, and a recording mishap gave it a spot on an album, but the song still had an uphill journey on the way to becoming a radio hit. Atco Records—a division of Atlantic Records—released a single with “Sunshine (Go Away Today)” on one side and Danny O’Keefe’s “Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues” on the other, and it did not get much of a response. Eventually, DJs around New England helped to build a regional following for “Sunshine (Go Away Today),” and its popularity then grew nationally. Just as “Sunshine (Go Away Today)” finally became a hit in 1972—after it was rereleased on the Capricorn label—O’Keefe’s “Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues” reached the Top 10 of the Hot 100 in November of that year.
“Sunshine (Go Away Today)” also got a large audience when Edwards played it in front of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., as part of the 1971 May Day protests against the Vietnam War. Though Edwards did not write “Sunshine (Go Away Today)” explicitly as an anti-war song, the performance reinforced the idea that he wrote it as a protest song.
The Impact of “Sunshine (Go Away Today)”
It took several months for “Sunshine (Go Away Today)” to gain popularity on a national level, but in time it would reach the upper stratum of the pop chart. It spent three weeks at its peak position of No. 4 on the Hot 100, as it was blocked by “American Pie,” Melanie’s “Brand New Key,” and Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” in each of those weeks. The follow-up single, “Train of Glory,” missed the Hot 100 by one spot, and another song from Jonathan Edwards—”Shanty”—received some airplay as an album track.
The Isley Brothers kept “Sunshine (Go Away Today)” in the cultural zeitgeist by covering the song on their 1973 album 3 + 3, which reached the Top 10 of the Billboard 200. Juice Newton had a country hit with “Sunshine (Go Away Today)” in 1980, and Paul Westerberg covered the song for the 1995 soundtrack for the TV series Friends.
Edwards had a minor comeback in 1989 with his country album The Natural Thing, but it didn’t supplant “Sunshine (Go Away Today)” as his most recognized musical accomplishment. The song’s heartfelt vocal performance and catchy melody would have set the bar high for any artist to match. Fortunately, Edwards didn’t ignore the inspiration that struck him while playing the song in the kitchen, and he had the presence of mind to record it when an engineer asked him to bail him out.
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