Musical Structure
The album version of "Hello Sunshine" is 3 minutes 35 seconds long and is in the key of D major. The track begins with 43 seconds of the track "By the Sea" from Wendy & Bonnie's 1969 album Genesis featuring sparse fingerstyle guitar and female harmony vocals. The last syllable of the line "...so hard to say goodbye" is held and pans from left to right until "Hello Sunshine" itself begins with Gruff Rhys singing the title phrase, joined by the band on the second word. The first verse follows with simple piano and bass guitar backing Rhys's acoustic guitar to a basic 4/4 beat provided by drummer Dafydd Ieuan. The first chorus enters at 1 minute 13 seconds with Rhys being joined by falsetto harmony backing vocals on the lines "In honesty it's been a while, since we had reason left to smile". The song breaks down for the bridge with just arpeggio guitar, simple bass and occasional drum rolls playing as the lines "Hello sunshine, come into my life" are sung.
Another verse follows featuring the lyrics "I'm a minger, you're a minger too, so come on minger, I want to ming with you" (quoted in many reviews of Phantom Power) before the second chorus. This time the bridge leads, not into another verse, but the song's middle 8 which again sees Rhys backed by multiple falsetto harmony backing vocals. The outro follows during which the title phrase is sung five times before a lead guitar line heralds the end of the song with Rhys singing "Come into my life".
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