Songfacts®:

• Adams told Songfacts the story behind this song: "It started from a track sent to me by Phil Thornalley. I was in Jamaica writing for that album, and it was the right sentiment to be singing at that time '...the whole world could change, the sun's gonna shine, shine thru the rain...' it's totally Jamaica, but it was also interesting as things for me had changed, and I was about to embark on a whole new live show with just a three-piece band, and even more daunting was my record company got out of the business and then the internet arrived."
• Phil Thornalley, who wrote this song with Adams, also played on the album and worked on the string arrangements. Thornalley is a successful songwriter and producer who co-wrote the hit "Torn" and has produced albums by Pixie Lott and Ronan Keating.
• The title track to Adams' eighth studio album, "On A Day Like Today" didn't catch on in the States, but was successful in the UK and his native Canada. The other singles from the album were "When You're Gone," which hit UK #3 and "Cloud Number Nine," which was UK #6.
• The music video was directed by Joseph Kahn, who also directed the clip for Brandy & Monica's hit duet "The Boy Is Mine" earlier that year.
• This was Adams' first collaboration with Thornalley, who presented the idea at the end of an unproductive songwriting session. In a Songfacts interview with Thornalley, he said: "I had this feeling I'd missed a chance, so I was about to walk out the door and I said: 'Do you know what, I've got this one other song; let me play it to you.' Then he was like: 'I love it, play it again,' and that solidified our partnership. You know, I'm still working with him 15 years later.
  
  He just loved it. I think it was different from the stuff he was writing at that time. It wasn't straight-ahead rock, it was a bit melancholic, and I think we made a really good record out of that."