Another Day of Sun

Album: La La Land (2017)
Charted: 75
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • The opening song for the 2016 musical film La La Land is a big ensemble production number set in LA traffic. It was shot in a six-minute single take on a 130-foot (40 m)-high freeway ramp in South Los Angeles.
  • The upbeat and energetic number is the only fully ensemble song in the movie. The film's music director and soundtrack producer, Marius de Vries told The Independent:

    "It was a wonderfully deep process of collaboration with Mandy Moore and the choreography department, many weeks of planning and rehearsal brilliantly overseen by Music Supervisor Steven Gizicki, and a long and challenging journey with lyricists Benj Pasek and Justin Paul - because the piece acts as an overture to the story, it was really tricky to establish just exactly what the song should be about, but Benj and Justin eventually found the perfect balance between poetry and naturalism and between the specific and the general in this hymn to the daily LA routine."
  • The song had a working title of "Traffic." Composer Justin Hurwitz told Genius:

    "In Damien's script, there were all the big moments, there was the big opening moment on the freeway which he described very elegantly in his script, you know… how music bubbles up from under the car radios and the girl in the first car starts humming along to it and then she gets out of her car and starts singing. And so our working title for that song, for a very long time, was just 'Traffic.' Even late in the process I remember… After Pasek and Paul wrote the words 'Another Day of Sun' and that title existed, all of the crew and department heads were still sometimes calling it 'Traffic.'"

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Stand By Me: The Perfect Song-Movie Combination

Stand By Me: The Perfect Song-Movie CombinationSong Writing

In 1986, a Stephen King novella was made into a movie, with a classic song serving as title, soundtrack and tone.

Modern A Cappella with Peder Karlsson of The Real Group

Modern A Cappella with Peder Karlsson of The Real GroupSong Writing

The leader of the Modern A Cappella movement talks about the genre.

Jeff Trott

Jeff TrottSongwriter Interviews

Sheryl Crow's longtime songwriting partner/guitarist Jeff Trott reveals the stories behind many of the singer's hits, and what its like to be a producer for Leighton Meester and Max Gomez.

Michael Schenker

Michael SchenkerSongwriter Interviews

The Scorpions and UFO guitarist is also a very prolific songwriter - he explains how he writes with his various groups, and why he was so keen to get out of Germany and into England.

Loudon Wainwright III

Loudon Wainwright IIISongwriter Interviews

"Dead Skunk" became a stinker for Loudon when he felt pressure to make another hit - his latest songs deal with mortality, his son Rufus, and picking up poop.

Little Big Town

Little Big TownSongwriter Interviews

"When seeds that you sow grow by the wicked moon/Be sure your sins will find you out/Your past will hunt you down and turn to tell on you."