You Are the Sunshine of My Life

"You Are the Sunshine of My Life"
Single by Stevie Wonder
from the album Talking Book
B-side	"Tuesday Heartbreak"
Released	March 1973
Format	7" 45 RPM
Recorded	November 1972
Genre	R&B
Length	2:58
Label	Motown
Writer(s)	Stevie Wonder
Producer	Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder singles chronology

"You Are the Sunshine of My Life" is a 1973 pop single released by Stevie Wonder. The first two lines of the song are sung, not by Wonder, but by James Gilstrap and Lani Groves. The single version of the song differed from the album version, adding horns to the mix. The song became Wonder's third number-one pop single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and his first number-one on the adult contemporary chart. It also won Wonder a Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. This song was the second single released from the album Talking Book. The song opened 194 Radio City on 21 October 1974.

Rolling Stone ranked the song #281 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 1982, the song was featured in an episode of the American television series Taxi titled "Jim's Inheritance." In the 2005 war drama, Jarhead, actor Jamie Foxx forced actor Jake Gyllenhaal to play "You Are the Sunshine of My Life", but because Gyllenhaal did not have a bugle, Foxx made him play it by buzzing his lips.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Cover versions

"You Are the Sunshine of My Life" has been covered more than twenty-five times, including versions by Wencke Myhre, Sacha Distel & Brigitte Bardot, Acker Bilk, Anita O'Day, Engelbert Humperdinck, Morgana King, Ferrante & Teicher, Ray Conniff, Frank Sinatra, Liza Minnelli, Mel Tormé, Perry Como, Petula Clark, Ella Fitzgerald, Richard Clayderman, Shirley Bassey, The Ventures, Pauline Wilson and Tom Jones. Sacha Distel and Brigitte Bardot have covered the song in french for a duet, the french title being the exact translation of the original title, "Tu Es Le Soleil De Ma Vie". The lyrics are quite different in french.

Preceded by "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree" by Dawn featuring Tony Orlando	Billboard Hot 100 number-one single May 19, 1973 – May 25, 1973 (1 week)	Succeeded by "Frankenstein" by Edgar Winter Group

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