Longtime Sunshine

"Longtime Sunshine" (sometimes rendered as "Long Time Sunshine") is a song written by Rivers Cuomo. It is the seventh track on Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo.
===Appearences===
* Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo (2007)
* Pinkerton (Deluxe Edition) (2010)
* Alone III: The Pinkerton Years 1994-1997 (2011)
* Official Bootleg series (Live)
* Alone IV: The Blue-Pinkerton Years (2020)
==Overview==
"Longtime Sunshine" was written by Rivers Cuomo in December of 1993 or January of 1994, while visiting his mother for Christmas at her home in Connecticut. The title is borrowed from "May the Long Time Sun Shine," a section from the track "," written by of psychedelic-folk group the Incredible String Band for their 1968 album . As a standalone song, "May the Long Time Sun Shine" has became very popular among the hippie movement and even in Sikh religious services in the years since its release and has often been assumed to be a much older or more traditional composition.Wittstamm, Willem. "May the Long Time Sun Shine Upon You: Where It All Began..." Aquarian Times Feb/March 2009. https://studentsofyogibhajan.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Where-it-all-began.pdf Cuomo released this demo to fans online in the early 2000s, and later on the demo compilation Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo in 2007.
Cuomo later retrofitted "Longtime Sunshine" as a song in consideration for a planned (albeit ultimately unfinished) "rock-opera" concept album, Songs from the Black Hole (itself intended as a metaphor for Cuomo's disillusionment with rock stardom). Early drafts of SFTBH featured "Longtime Sunshine" as the closing track, intended to be sung by Cuomo as the story's protagonist, Jonas. The story for the album concept, however, was never fully developed. In one early draft, wherein the characters learn the space voyage depicted in the story was, in fact, some sort of filmed experiment, Jonas sings "Longtime Sunshine" after volunteering to remain on a doomed planet orbiting a supernova in order to allow his crewmates to escape.Cuomo, Rivers. The Pinkerton Diaries. 2011. Self-published. Weezer worked on "Longtime Sunshine" at Electric Lady Studios in New York during early sessions for the band's second album (at this time still planned to be Songs from the Black Hole). During these sessions, the band experimented with an extended coda wherein Cuomo, Matt Sharp, and Brian Bell sing a medley of "Longtime Sunshine," "Why Bother?," "I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams," "No Other One," and "Blast Off!" Though this experiment was apparently discarded thereafter, it appeared on the Deluxe Edition of Pinkerton in 2010. Short vocal demos for the coda, as well as a potential reprise, later appeared on the compilations Alone III in 2011 and Alone IV in 2020.
Though Songs from the Black Hole would ultimately be scrapped, Karl Koch has noted that "Longtime Sunshine" was meant to close Pinkerton until "Butterfly" was recorded on the final day of recording at Sound City in June of 1996. Cuomo revisited the song in 1997, recording a home demo in September of that year and and rehearsing it as part of his short-lived side project, Homie. None of these recordings currently exist in circulation and it was not performed live during this period. During the filming of the second video for "Island in the Sun" in 2001, Cuomo played "Longtime Sunshine" on an acoustic guitar for director Spike Jonze, a few seconds of which could be seen in a behind-the-scenes video released on weezer.com. It is unknown why Cuomo was playing the song.
During a Memories Tour concert in Austin, Texas on June 7, 2011, Weezer performed the song live for the first time, featuring a new arrangement. The song was played live a number of additional times, including on the Weezer Cruise. The song was brought back for a performance for NPR's Tiny Desk concert series in 2019.NPR Music. "Weezer: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert" YouTube. 9 April 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8UKQJZsv4o The song was also performed solo by Cuomo at Weezer concerts in 2023.
==Live performances==
*Weezer concert: 06/07/2011
*Weezer concert: 07/13/2011
*Weezer concert: 08/27/2011
*Weezer concert: 01/21/2012
*Weezer concert: 05/31/2012
*Weezer concert: 06/10/2012
*Weezer concert: 07/14/2012
*Weezer concert: 07/29/2012
*Weezer concert: 11/11/2012
*Weezer concert: 02/27/2019 (a)
*Weezer concert: 04/24/2023
*Weezer concert: 07/04/2023
==Personnel==
===Demo version===
*Rivers Cuomo – piano, lead vocals, percussion, bass guitar, clarinet
===Studio version===
*Rivers Cuomo
*Brian Bell
*Matt Sharp
*Pat Wilson
==Audio==
<youtube>kifG4IcB_hU</youtube> <youtube>44USiU5Nglo</youtube>
==Lyrics==
<tabber>
|-|Solo demo=
Sometimes I wanna pack it all up
Get on a bus and move to Vermont
Or Maine, or any of those states back east
That I remember
Sometimes I wanna go back to school
An east coast college with some history
I'd be satisfied, I know
In the simple things
Longtime sunshine
Longtime sunshine upon me
Sometimes I wanna build a house
With a wood stove or a fireplace
In the middle of the living room
An old piano
Sometimes it don't seem so bad
To settle down with a good woman
Leave this lonely life behind
Forever, and ever
Longtime sunshine
Longtime sunshine upon me
Sometimes I wanna get in a car
Close my eyes and drive real fast
Keep on going till I get some place
Where I can truly rest
Longtime sunshine
Longtime sunshine upon me
|-|'Pinkerton' sessions=
Sometimes I wanna pack it all up
Get on a bus and move to Vermont
Or Maine, or any of those states back east
That I remember
Sometimes I wanna go back to school
An east coast college with some history
I'd be satisfied, I know
In the simple things
Longtime sunshine
Longtime sunshine upon me
Sometimes I wanna build a house
With a wood stove or a fireplace
And in the middle of the living room
An old piano
Sometimes it don't seem so bad
To settle down with a good woman
Leave this lonely life behind
Forever, and ever
Longtime sunshine
Longtime sunshine upon me
Longtime sunshine
Longtime sunshine upon me
Goodbye friends, goodbye my girl
Close my eyes as you fly away
Keep on going till you get some place
Where you can truly rest
Longtime sunshine
Longtime sunshine upon me
Longtime sunshine
Longtime sunshine upon me
[JONAS:]
Longtime sunshine
Longtime sunshine upon me
[WUAN:]
Why bother? It's gonna hurt me
It's gonna kill when you desert me
[DONDÓ:]
He is in my eyes, he is in my ears
He is in my blood, he is in my tears
No, there is no other one
No, there is no other one
Can't have any other one
Even though I would with one
[JONAS:]
Blast off! Up to the stars we go
And leave behind everything I use to know
Somebody's giving me a whole lot of money
To do what I think I want to
So why am I still feeling blue?
Oh, Wuan and Dondó
</tabber>
==Known recordings==
==See also==
*List of Rivers Cuomo songs
*List of Weezer songs
==References==
Category:Songs from the Black Hole
Category:Weezer songs
Category:Rivers Cuomo
Category:Homie songs
Category:Songs that appeared on the 4 and 5 Star Demos of Rivers Cuomo list
Category:Songs on Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo
Category:Songs on Alone III: The Pinkerton Years
Category:Songs on Alone IV: The Blue-Pinkerton Years
Category:Alone series