Paper Sun

Album

Single

Label

Island Records

Genre

Psychedelic Rock

Duration

10:00

Composer(s)

Jim Capaldi;Steve Winwood

Entered Chart

Sep 2, 1967

Peak Date

Sep 2, 1967

Released

26 May 1967

Recorded

23–24 April 1967[2] Studio Olympic, London

Catalog #

United Artists 50195

B-Side

Giving To You

Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi wrote this song in March 1967 when Winwood was in the Spencer Davis Group and Capaldi was a member of Deep Feeling. The bands were on tour together, and after a show in Newcastle, the two convened in a hotel room and put the song together. "I got the title from a newspaper in a boarding house in Newcastle," Capaldi explained. "I was half-asleep, lying there writing this lyric in my head at about 3:30 in the morning. I woke up Steve with this idea and then we went into the living room where there was a little upright piano and finished the song." When Winwood and Capaldi formed Traffic a short time later with Dave Mason and Chris Wood, they recorded "Paper Sun" and released it as their first single. Released in May 1967, this trippy track was a good fit for the Summer of Love. Featuring Dave Mason's sitar, Chris Wood's flute and a rather inscrutable lyric, it became a psychedelia classic. Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade Of Pale" was released shortly before "Paper Sun" was issued as Traffic's first single. The Procol song stole much of Traffic's thunder, as the bombastic track proved to be a musical Godzilla, and one with a similar sounding vocalist, no less (Gary Brooker).

So you think you're having good times
With the boy that you just met
Kicking sand from beach to beach
Your clothes are soaking wet
But if you look around and see
A shadow on the run (on the run)
Don't be too upset because it's just a paper sun

Ah paper sun, ah paper sun

In the room where you've been sleeping
All our clothes are thrown about
Cigarettes burn window sills
Your meter's all run out
But there again it's nothing
You just split when day is done (day is gone)
Hitching lifts to nowhere, hung up on the paper sun

Ah paper sun, ah paper sun

Standing in the cool of my room
Fresh cut flowers give me sweet perfume (too much sun will burn)
Too much sun will burn (too much sun will burn)
Too much sun will burn

When you're feeling tired and lonely
You see people going home
You can't make the train fare
Or the sixpence for the phone
And icicles you're crying
Down your cheek have just begun
Don't be sad, good times are had
Beneath the paper sun

Ah paper sun, ah paper sun

Daylight breaks while you sleep on the sand
A seagull is stealing the ring from your hand
The boy who had given you so much fun
Has left you so cold in the paper sun
In the paper sun, in the paper sun, in the paper sun, in the paper sun