"Steal My Sunshine" by Len

Author: The Best Song Ever (This Week)

"Steal My Sunshine" by Len

A sample from a disco hit by a porn star looking to change careers gave a career to Len -- if only they really wanted one. This is the story of how "Steal My Sunshine" randomly became an enduring hit from the randomness of the late '90s.

You can hear "Steal My Sunshine" along with other songs from The Best Song Ever (This Week) here:

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Hello, and welcome to the BestSong Ever this week, A short deep
dive into a song and what makesit special. The best song ever this
week this week is steal My Sunshineby Lenn I'm Scott Frampton My voice.

(00:28):
This week is brought to you bySeats and All Allergies. Please see your
local Ragweed for details. We won'tbe listening to Steal My Sunshine together here.
Please add to the show notes,where you'll find a link to a
playlist with this and other songs thathave been the best song ever this week.
So let's begin. Andrea True,a star of over fifty adult films,

(00:51):
could leave Jamaica, but not withher money. It was nineteen seventy
five, went in response to UnitedStates sanctions Prime Minister Michael Manley of AI
del Castro supporter banned asset transfers fromJamaica to the US. Unable to take
home what she earned appearing in TVads for a Jamaican real estate company,
Drew decided to invest the money incutting a demo for a song she had

(01:14):
been working on with music producer GregDiamond, a song called More and More
and More. At the height ofthe disco era, the Andrea True Connection
went top five in the US inUK with the slinky club hit More and
More and More topped the Canadian chartsaltogether for a week. It was after
returning to Toronto from a rave northof the city that lends Mark Costanzo,

(01:38):
still feeling the effects of the electronicmusic festival, had the disco hit played
for him by Broken Social Scenes BrendanCanning. In the song's rhythmic piano break
punctuated by a pinging pop pop ofwoodblock percussion, Castanzo heard something for the
lyrics he had scrawled out the nightbefore, first on his leg and then
continuing on an He sampled the songright then and there for something he was

(02:04):
working on, a song he wouldeventually call steal My Sunshine. Steal My
Sunshine went top ten in the USand UK in Australia in nineteen ninety nine,
reaching its highest position at number threein Canada and pushing Len's third album,
You Can't Stop the Bum Rush togold in the US and Canada.
The song is little like anything elseon the album, which Costanzo later described

(02:28):
as quote white Boys from Canada hiphop, and features poisons CC deville on
the track hot Rod Monster Jam.Steal My Sunshine got its initial push,
however, as part of the soundtrackto the movie Go, which was director
Doug Lyman's film Between Swingers and theBourne Identity. The soundtrack includes songs from
No Doubt, Nadeline Brulia, andFatboy Slim. In its random assemblage of

(02:50):
whatever seemed hip in the late nineties, Lens was the obvious track to take
to radio, and radio quickly tookto it. Costanzo named the group Len
after a high school chum, thesort of friend with whom you'd sit around
and get high when that seemed thebest thing in life. Calling them a
group is stretching it. However,it was more of Costanzo's basement project with

(03:14):
his sister Sharon, who would popdown to do vocals. They started out
doing lighthearted punk rock and self releasingindie albums until Costanzo gave light to his
hip hop influences on what would becomeYou Can't Stop the Bum Rush. Some
of the album is straight hip hop, of which Castanzo later said a lot
of it's terrible, which makes stealMy Sunshine all the more random. But

(03:37):
then randomness is what makes Steal MySunshine. The song begins with an awkward
spoken word intro of conversation between twoyoung men expressing some half hearted concern for
Mark's well being. It suggested thatbringing him a pastry could be the answer.
Soon after, the more and moremore sample begins to chug away takes

(04:00):
the first verse with raspy speaks,singing. Just as it seems that that's
all there is to the shambolic song, Sharon sings the title lyric and sets
the hook. After another interlude ofdialogue, where it suggested that Sharon too
is worse for wear, she singsthe second verse. Her high, whispy
vocals lend a guileless charm to thelyrics, like quote, my sticky paws

(04:26):
were into making straws out a bigfat slurpy treats. It's all irresistibly meaningless
in the best way. Cut andpaste, meta and random. The voice
of a generation Gen X coming ofage in the context of no context,
set to a sample of a recordby a porn actor looking to make a
career change for an anxious generation.It's what Joy sounded like twenty plus years

(04:50):
and a couple of generations on.It still does steal My Sunshine would be
the only hit for Lynn, whichwould make them a one hit wonder that
phrased in smack of the failure ofartists who couldn't stay in the spotlight.
That wasn't Lynn. The Costanzas onlygave a desultory effort to hang on to

(05:13):
the fame their song, surprisingly broughtafter eighty shows of a two hundred eight
tour and supportive you can't stop thebum rush, They indeed stopped it.
They turned the tour bus around andwent home to Canada. Lynn got another
record deal and made other albums,but nothing sounded like Steal By Sunshine.
Nothing could. The song is amoment, a feeling that's otherwise impossible to

(05:36):
express, like the bliss of gettinggoofy with a friend when there's literally nothing
better to do. Greg Diamond,the producer who brought the Andrea True Connections
more and more and more to life, received a posthumous writing credit for Steal
By Sunshine. In that Jamaican studio, he pulled out every trick he had

(05:56):
to work around True singing, whichwas maybe a step short pedestrian, but
did have a certain resonance from herformer career, as he later said you
can do marvelous things with tape delay, referring to the old school technique of
atting echo. The song is abit janky, though, that break that
Marc Costanzo sampled is a bit toojarring. More and more and more,

(06:17):
but apps in a strong vocal.I'm in knew the track needed a hook.
That that hook became steal My Sunshineseems to bear out Brianino's quote about
how what initially seems wrong in musicwill eventually become its enduring influence. You
know said, whatever you now findweird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about

(06:39):
a new medium will surely become itssignature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of
digital video, that crap sound ofeight bit, all of these will be
cherished and emulated as soon as theycan be avoided. Thanks for listening.
Please give us a follow on yourpodcast platform of choice. We very much

(07:00):
appreciate it. You know, I'lladmit a love for the thing that's wrong
in a song, So thank youtoo to Brian Eno for validating me being
a WEIRDO. Mean you're enduring wisdom, you know, somewhere in a pile
of volca sets as a tape ofan old college radio show w RSUFM at
eight point seven Record University, NewBrunswick, New Jersey, from when I

(07:21):
woke up with no voice whatsoever.I cranked the mic as far as it
would go. You could hear thetrucks idling across the street almost as loud
as you heard me, and Isounded like a werewolf for Freddy Krueger auditioning
for a street card named Desire.So as we're coming up on October and
spooky season, I hope to havea bit more voice soon, or at
least one that sounds convincingly in lakeanthropic. Thanks again, see you next week.