From Robyn on Patreon in 2023
When I first heard this song I couldn’t picture anyone whose love would be sunshine to me. The singer obviously spends the night with the person they are serenading, and things go well for them. I hadn’t slept with anything larger than a furry panda or model trolleybus at that point. The singer and his love are probably about to have breakfast, although there’s no mention of that in the lyrics. Breakfast back in 1967 meant Cornflakes and possibly a slice of toast, in my world. I suppose you could say breakfast is the elephant in the room, as far as this song goes. Do I think of eggs, scrambled or fried, when I hear it? That’s a good question, to which there is no simple answer.

My life began in a cocoon of Cornflakes and toast; by the time it ends - if climate change or international conflict don’t put an end to us first - we will be in the silicon bosom of Artificial Intelligence. We are indeed replacing ourselves, with all the witless genius our species can muster. Will AI need breakfast? Or will it simply need to overhaul itself, with a kind of mechanical grooming? I guess that will depend on how much our creation wants to mimic its creators.

It’s hard to picture Artificial Intelligence coming up with guitar riffs as compelling as the one that’s the spine of this song, made up by Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce. Kimberley Rew and I faithfully cleave to the riff throughout this acoustic version of their vintage hit - although Kim does step out for a brief solo mid-performance. This take may or may not make the cut for the ‘1967’ album due for release on Tiny Ghost Records when my memoir of the same name is published by Little, Brown in the summer of 2024, all being well-ish.

I’ve spent many nights in the company of other people since I first heard this song. Many of them have gone well, thanks for asking; however, my insomnia has solidified into a lake that I must cross pretty much every night between 2 and 6am. That’s when I wrote and edited the memoir, and why I’m now working on a follow-up. It’s a good time to write, as there are no distractions. Breakfast shimmers like a mirage at the end of the night: O siren wafting with thine eggs, slide up on thy ceramic legs. Hey ho, up the Talbot - enjoy!