"Sunny Afternoon" is a song by The Kinks, written by chief songwriter Ray Davies. Like its contemporary "Taxman" by The Beatles, the song references the high levels of progressive tax taken by the British Labour government of Harold Wilson. The track later featured on the Face to Face album as well as being the title track for their 1967 compilation album. Its strong Music Hall flavour and lyrical focus was part of a stylistic departure for the band (begun with 1965's "A Well Respected Man"), which had risen to fame in 1964-65 with a series of hard-driving, power-chord rock hits.
Released as a single on 3 June 1966, it went to No. 1 on the UK singles charts on 7 July 1966, remaining there for two weeks. The track also went to No. 1 in Ireland on 18 July 1966. In America, it peaked at No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart early autumn 1966. "Sunny Afternoon" was placed at No. 200 on Pitchfork Media's list of The 200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s.
The promotional video for the single featured the band performing in a cold, snowy environment.
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Famous quotes containing the words sunny and/or afternoon:
“How sweet I roam’d from field to field
And tasted all the summer’s pride,
Till I the Prince of Love beheld
Who in the sunny beams did glide!”
—William Blake (1757–1827)
“We say that the hour of death cannot be forecast, but when we say this we imagine that hour as placed in an obscure and distant future. It never occurs to us that it has any connection with the day already begun or that death could arrive this same afternoon, this afternoon which is so certain and which has every hour filled in advance.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)