Yngwie Matsumoto in the Land of the Rising Sunny

There is a magic place. It’s in a faraway land where they talk in little pictures and wear benches for shoes. I don’t know the name of this place, but it has a fried egg on the wall, and all they ever play there is Sunny by Bobby Hebb. That’s it. It’s like heaven on Earth for a guy like me. Well, except for the bass and drum solos, I mean. With thumb and slap bass, at that, another abomination. But still. Sunny !

I tried to translate the hieroglyphics on the YouTube page to see what this lost tribe of my brethren was trying to say to me, but all the translator could come back with was: “Fast Playing Session.” I’ll say. It’s like he had to go home early, so he’s trying to get in all the notes as fast as he can. He must be working piecework.

As I was saying, this is a magical place. It is my Xanadu. It is my Shangri-La. It proves me right, that Sunny by Bobby Hebb is the Official Cover Song of the Twenty-Teens. The fried egg on the wall signals only one thing: Sunny is coming.

Datfunk Is Featuring Vasilis Xenopoulos! That Makes it a Sunny Day

I hadn’t heard from Vasilis Xenopoulos in ages. Or about him. Or around him. Or something.

As you have probably guessed, when I heard that Datfunk was playing at the Afrikana Bar, I immediately decided to drive on over there. Or fly on over there. I dunno, swim there, maybe. Anyway, as soon as I figure out where it is, I’m there. Well, in spirit. I know Datfunk is trying to lure me from my lair by featuring Vasilis Xenopoulos on the saxophone. What grown-up can withstand the gravitational pull of that? I ask you. Vasily, or Vaseline, or whatever his name is, is world-renowned by several people. Dude can blow.

I don’t know anything. I admit it. I don’t know where the Afrikana Bar is. I don’t know who Vagisil is. I don’t know if those are Christmas lights or Kwanzaa lights hanging in the background. But two things I do know: Bobby Hebb’s Sunny is the Official Cover Song of the Twenty-Teens, and I’d kill four innocent drummers to get my hands on that drummer’s Stax/Volt T-shirt.

OK, I know three things. That last line was silly. There is no such thing as an “innocent drummer.”

Scusi, Ma Sunny è la Canzone Copertura Ufficiale del Decennio

Mi dispiace, but the Montefiori Cocktail version of Sunny is so hot you need a fire distinguisher just to listen to it. This version is sure to plummet to the top of our listings of the Official Cover Song of the Twenty-Teens. This version is unparalyzed in the history of the song. These guys don’t sing through their noses, they sing using their diagrams like they teach you in mucus school. I’ll sing their praises until the undertaker reads my last will and tentacle.

Monetefiori Cocktail

Aw, Baby, Don’t Do Me Wrong Like That. Sunny ‘n Me Was Only at the Party as Friends

You can’t beleeb everything you be hearin down the wisecracker line. Hippie Sabotage was cuttin’ and scratchin’ on Sunny and we got to groovin but she don’t mean nothing to me, baby. We was just playin checkers on triple decker buses in Tripoli. She don’t mean nathan to me at this particular time. She got flava, yeah, but I ain’t been fiendin for her, baby. It’s you, aight? What the dealy?

I’ve been tryin to call you all day, but I don’t have your number.

Sunny Weekend at Bernie’s

That’s not an orchestra. That’s hand-to-hand combat.There’s a battle for primacy between the trombones and trumpets than can only end in death or glory, like a bullfight or a school board meeting. They’re blowing into the wrong end of their instruments, including the piano, I think, as hard as they can, while slapping the person next to them the whole time. It’s glorious, in a way. By “in a way,” I mean it isn’t glorious at all.

Elephants Gerald, as I used to call her, was one of the greatest singers the United States ever produced. She was so good that long after her death in 1842, they’d prop her up on stages all over the world and listen to her anyway. This is just more evidence that Sunny should be named the Official Cover Song of the Twenty-Teens, because I said so.

This particular video does confuse me a bit, though. I have no idea why Tom Jones is wearing a motorcycle helmet.

El Sol de Mexico Derives His Ultimate Power From Sunny. And His Hair, Of Course

That’s not a hairdo. That’s architecture. Call in an expert. Send out for a consultant. Get Moses in here. He’ll turn down the contract. “You want me to part that guy’s hair? I’ve only done small jobs, like the Red Sea. I don’t think I’m up for this.”

You’ve never heard of Luis Miguel. He’s the “Latin Frank Sinatra,” which is a compliment, I guess. His agent can sell 250,000 tickets to see him in Mexico City just by whispering the concert dates out of his mail slot at 4 AM on any given Sunday morning, but that’s no reason why you should have ever heard of him. According to Wikipedia, he once sold 320,000 copies of one of his records in one day, but hey, it’s not like he’s famous or anything.

Of course, he was nothing and nobody until be performed Sunny, the Official Cover Song of the Twenty-Teens.

Sunny On the Corner

Can’t help but think of Miles’ On the Corner album when I hear jazz wah.

Why yes, I spent my formative years listening to Miles Davis electrofunk and Steely Dan records. It would have been a lonely four years of high school if I had actually attended. The secret to not attending high school and not getting caught is being sick on the first day of freshman year, tearing up the note your mother wrote, and then writing  your own. Then, every time you ditch school, you write your own note. The human-manatee hybrid behind the desk in the administrator’s office with the glasses on a lanyard would always dutifully check to see if the handwriting was the same, and then file it. Funny, it always was.

Of course you have to go to school on test days and pass anyway. That’s the complicated part. Complicated for you, I mean. I never had any problems. Of course, I’m smart enough to know that Sunny by Bobby Hebb is the Official Cover Song of the Twenty-Teens. But hell; any two Frenchmen know that.

Angular Pegheads Sound Good to Me

Is Ted Koppel counting down the Sunny days on Nightline yet? Is there a sign next to the eyewash station that reads:

I’m just warming up, really. I’ve outlasted the entire Internet before, you know. I hear the mechanized hum of another, Sunny-er world. Where the sun is shining, but no red lights flashing. Here in this darkness, I know what I’ve done. I know all at once who I am. I am the guy that’s making Sunny into the Official Cover Song of the Twenty-Teens.