Songfacts®:

• Jet frontman Nic Cester wrote "Shine On" about the death of his father, John, in an effort to comfort his family. John died of cancer at 45 in 2004 just as Jet were getting huge. The band were on tour at the time promoting their debut album, Get Born, which includes the hits "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" and "Look What You've Done."
  
  Chris Cester, who is Nic's brother and the drummer in the band, said that John was re-watching footage of the band playing on David Letterman's show just minutes before he died. His death hit the brothers hard, and they channeled it into this song, which they chose as the title track of their next album, Shine On.
• Nic Cester talked about this song and how he handled his father's death: "It was inevitable I would write a song that dealt with all of that, but it was almost too big a subject for me to handle. Then I got a phone call from my mum saying everyone was f--ked so I wrote the song through Dad's eyes, what he would say to help everyone through. We recorded it in one take, but it was f--king emotional, very heavy. We couldn't be happier with this album." >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Bert - Pueblo, NM, for above 2
• Jet had a big drop-off on the Shine On album as music trended more toward pop and R&B and away from their rock sound. They put out one more album before disbanding in 2011. In 2017, they started touring again, starting with a series of shows opening for Bruce Springsteen in Australia.