Sunshowers

"Sunshowers" is about how in the news the world is being divided into good and evil with this axis of evil and terrorism thing, so the song is asking how can we talk about gun culture and other issues while Blair is preaching that if someone hits us, we should hit back twice as hard." — M.I.A.

"Sunshowers" was released 7 July 2004 as the first single of the album Arular released by XL Recordings. It followed the release of "Galang" on Showbiz Records the previous year. The single was released on CD and 12-inch vinyl format. The B-side to the CD single contains the song "Fire Fire", while an instrumental and a cappella version of the track also follow on the track listing of this format. On the 12" single, tracks 2 and 3 are switched.

Uploading "Sunshowers", "Galang" and others she had recorded onto music sharing website MySpace in June 2004 paralleled the file-sharing and fast propagation of the songs around the Internet by word-of-mouth, increasing the songs' international listenership.[2] This led to wide acclaim for the singer, who is hailed as one of the first artists to build a large fanbase exclusively via these channels and as someone who could be studied to reexamine the internet's impact on how listeners are exposed to new music.[3][4][5][6] Malik Meer of The Guardian notes how the spread of the songs across the web confirmed M.I.A's status as one of the first popstars of the digital age, while Gary Shteyngart, writing for GQ, commented on how her music went viral across the internet "before anyone was even using the word "viral".[7][8] On September 10, 2004, the singer attended designer Matthew Williamson's "Spring 2005" show during the Olympus Fashion Week in New York, where "Sunshowers" was used on the runway.[9]

Writers for Slant, listing the song at number 100 on the "Best of the Aughts: Singles," its list of the Top 100 Singles of the Decade, noted the song's lyrical range and novelty in being used on fashion runway shows, saying "A runway is not the venue you expect to hear about gun culture, the Iraq War, the PLO, snipers, racial profiling, and sweatshops, but those are just some of the topics that M.I.A. managed to squeeze into the three-minute sophomore single from her debut album Arular."[1] Adrien Begrand of PopMatters, citing the lyric “I salt and pepper my mango/ Shoot spit at the window” compared the song favourably to the song "Galang", noting that "Sunshowers" "continued the fascinating contrast between playful and defiant."[10] Begrand described the song as speaking of urban violence and anti-Muslim sentiment in the West.[10] Similarly, Josh Timmermann of Stylus magazine ranked the song alongside "Galang" as "among the most exciting singles of last year" and that the track "managed to sound like honey even while M.I.A. rapped (as much as Mike Skinner or Nellie McKay "rap") about a man being gunned down for associating with Muslims." He concluded "M.I.A. may be a critical darling, but she’s not so esoteric in the grand scheme of things. This is music that everyone can relate to, dance to, salt and pepper their mangoes to."[11]

David Day of Dusted magazine, in a track-by-track review of the album, described the song as one of the three best songs on Arular and containing the best lyrics, citing its lyric "Like PLO we don't surrendo!" Day praised the use of the sample in the chorus, stating it brought the song "a real pop flavor that has crossover written in calligraphy. The beat, minimal like Missy and Lumidee, serves to spotlight her wordplay."[12] Betty Clarke of The Guardian, noted the lyric "I [sic] bongo with my lingo/ Beat it like a wing yo [sic]/ Can't stereotype my thing yo", writing "a fractured backing of hip-hop beats and dancehall rhythms is peppered with poetic slang."[13] Robert Christgau, writing in the Village Voice noted the references to violence in the song, saying it is "everywhere, dropped casually like a funk grenade or flaunted instructively as in the oft quoted "It's a bomb yo/So run yo/Put away your stupid gun yo." But not for a moment does the violence seem vindictive, sadistic, or pleasurable. It's a fact of life to be triumphed over, with beats and tunelets stolen or remembered or willed into existence."[14] Ruth Jamieson of BBC called the song "achingly beautiful" with its "unsettling, unusual but ooh-so alluring vo-coded harmonies" singled out for praise.[15]

The music video for "Sunshowers" was directed by Rajesh Touchriver and filmed in the jungles of South India. M.I.A. has frequently cited it as her favourite music video ever made. In one scene, M.I.A. is perched atop an elephant.[10] The song faced censorship controversies on TV and radio, and was banned from MTV after M.I.A. refused to remove the lines: "You wanna go? You wanna win a war? Like PLO, I don't surrendo" for airplay.[16]

The song's lyrics are sampled in the song "New Thing", released in 2011 by Rye Rye.

CD single

1. "Sunshowers" – 3:16
2. "Fire, Fire" – 3:28
3. "Sunshowers" (Instrumental) – 3:15
4. "Sunshowers" (A cappella) – 2:52

The only difference the 12" single has is that tracks 2 and 3 are switched.

• Main Performer – Mathangi Maya "M.I.A." Arulpragasam
• Songwriting – Maya "M.I.A." Arulpragasam, Ross Orton, Steve Mackey, August Darnell, Stony Jr. Browder
• Production - Maya "M.I.A." Arulpragasam, Steve Mackey, Ross Orton, Anthony Whiting
• Vocals - Maya "M.I.A." Arulpragasam, Nesreen Shah (chorus)
• Mixing – Steve Mackey, Ross Orton, Anthony Whiting
• Artwork – Mathangi Maya "M.I.A." Arulpragasam

Source:[17]

• Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics