Summary
You Are My Sunshine was written in or around 1939 and was adopted by the then governor of Louisiana, Jimmy Davies, who recorded and used it as his campaign theme song.
It has since been recorded by more than 400 artists, from Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash to Aretha Franklin and Bryan Ferry.
A mother and daughter tell their story of how the song helped the daughter's recovery after a catastrophic car crash, and how it has come to symbolise her struggle to rebuild her life after being in a coma for several months.
A resident of 'Tornado Alley' and author of The Mercy of the Sky tells the story of a devastating tornado that hit a town in Oklahoma in 2013, killing several schoolchildren, but how all the toddlers in a nearby daycare centre survived.
The staff comforted them by singing You Are My Sunshine as the storm destroyed the building. And pensioner Alice Kennedy fondly recalls a friend from the Irish Pensioners Choir in London, who used to sing the song and add his own cheeky lyrics.
Music historian: Paul Kingsbury
Producer: Maggie Ayre
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2017.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Traitors is back and so is that mysterious cloaked figure with the familiar fringe. |
| 0:06.7 | Yeah, it's me. |
| 0:07.9 | And when you've watched Claudia in the castle, join me, Ed Gamble, for the official visualised companion podcast. |
| 0:13.7 | And remember, I'll be listening. |
| 0:15.9 | Okay? |
| 0:16.7 | No, seriously, I love it. |
| 0:18.5 | What a faithful. |
| 0:19.7 | We'll unpack betrayals and spill scandalous secrets with celeb guests, traitors' legends, and murdered and banished players. |
| 0:26.6 | The Traitors Uncloaked. |
| 0:28.6 | Watch on EyePlayer, listen for more on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:32.6 | Nine years ago, almost ten years, I was driving. Well, we were driving and we were T-bone by |
| 0:44.3 | dump truck. It hit us. Zidon, drove into us. I spent three and a half months in a coma and mom used to sing, you are my sunshine |
| 1:00.1 | to me when I was asleep, hoping that I'd wake up. |
| 1:09.9 | To begin with, they gave a less than a 5% chance to live, |
| 1:13.0 | so there wasn't a lot of hope. |
| 1:16.9 | And that when she woke up, she'd be, or if she woke up, |
| 1:20.4 | she'd be a, as they used the word, it's not a very nice one, but a vegetable. |
| 1:25.7 | I wouldn't believe that, and I didn't want to believe it and I wouldn't |
| 1:28.8 | give up. You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. I don't know why, but I have a tune in my head |
| 1:39.2 | from when I was in a coma. You make me happy when skies are gray. |
| 1:47.3 | It was just a song that I used to hum to them and sing to them. |
| 1:50.9 | And when they were sick, I remember sort of stroking their hair |
... |
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