Key Lyric: “Love. Is Here. To STAY.”
This song reflects a period of forced optimism breaking apart. While at BC, I was involved in Undergraduate Government advocating for a LGBTQ+ resource center and dedicated staff to support queer students. In the months after my assault, I threw myself into that advocacy. In my mind, I was channeling my pain into optimism and justice while working with a donor who had pledged a $1 million gift to fund these resources.
Just weeks after the trauma, though, the university rejected the donation because it was specifically intended for queer students. That moment shattered the fragile optimism I had been clinging to. The anger from the assault and the school’s refusal to support queer students collided quite publicly and my emotions were labeled as mania, leading to hospitalization and medication that suppressed my creativity for years.
Sunshine Lollipops & Rainbows focuses on that moment of anger. Its bright instrumental slowly glitches and destabilizes, culminating in a sonic eruption after the line “we don’t want a million dollars for the gays,” representing the moment when suppressed rage, grief, and injustice finally overwhelmed me. My mania, if you will.
Purpose (Why this song?)
The creative process for Sunshine was defined by a motivation to create a song that represented “mania,” or at the very least, the emotions that surround what mania is usually described as. For me, that was a few things: An extremely forward energy that isn’t actually energized, loudness, and a sense of uncomfortable positivity. Throughout the creation process of the song, I came back to these ideas time and time again to shape the song’s vocals and production. The vocals are forward but don’t contain the same joy as Lesley’s original. The marimbas and steel drums are produced to sit within the vocals, rather than around them. So on and so forth. This is most notable in the song’s outro. During this section, I got to play with tempo and extreme distortion to fully illustrate the moment where my anger “popped” and I was considered manic by my community. I’ve never put my anger into music quite so literally, so it was really cool to get to work on that.
The Creative Process:
Sonic Identity
I had already finished Supercut by the time of thinking about Sunshine as the next track in the album, and so wanted something that could stand in contrast to Supercut’s Ocean Outro. Something to bring the energy back after “sitting and watching the water” for nearly two minutes. And for me, the answer was to arise from the water onto a lively daytime beach. As such, the sonic identity of Sunshine, Lollipops & Rainbows is based around Beach levels from my favorite retro games. Most notably, I was inspired by the “musical caffeine” I like to describe the Kirby soundtrack as & Treasure Trove Cove from Banjo Kazooie for the Nintendo 64.
Core Sounds
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Storyline
There’s a few reasons I’m singing Lesley Gore here. The first reason that stands out has to do with the story that the song represents to the album itself. As I mentioned earlier, I had been working with a donor who was going to help fund LGBTQ+ resources at BC. I also was just friends with the guy. And back when my college boyfriend dumped me, I remember the donor friend sending me a podcast about Lesley’s song You Don’t Own Me. My ex had a freak obsession with… freedom, if you will. So I think it was to help me process loving someone who masked a sex addiction behind “independence.” But regardless, it reintroduced me to Lesley and gave me the image of an older gay man stanning an artist the way I might stan Lady Gaga or Kesha. It always stuck with me. So for the song about my school rejecting my friend’s donation on my album where I’m covering the artists I stan, I wanted to cover an artist he stanned!
The other reason is silly and personal. I used to love the movie Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. There was a scene with this song, a scene I watched over and over again when I got the movie on DVD as a kid. During this album’s creative process, I found myself thinking about how it could be my one chance to record an album (as I didn’t enter the process with any expectations of continuing this type of work outside this specific project), and how it’d meaningful to choose songs I’ve loved throughout my life. My love for pop blossomed from moments like my appreciation for that movie scene; making the choice to include Sunshine a special one.
Key Moments
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As previously mentioned, this lyric is the reason for Babylon’s inclusion on the tracklist of this album. Already a cute cheeky line from the original, my rendition allows the lyric to become a play on words referring equally to the Era “Before Christ,” B.C, as well as the instituion of “Boston College,” BC.
Within the song, the line is emphasized through some additional background harmonies and a little chipmunk voice saying “oh, nice!” It kinda sounds like “all night,” too, which I like. Both work for the line!
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Before the final chorus and song outro, I have a section that centers vocals that have been pitched down considerably. I sang those lyrics with the intention of sounding commanding, envisioning myself as a sweaty athletic coach instructing my team to strut it out. It becomes an important moment in the song as a short shift in energy before exploding into the track’s finale, making the loud finale sound even louder than it actually is.
