Sun's Gonna Rise

Album: Rats (1994)
Charted: 86
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Songfacts®:

  • This upbeat song from Canadian rocker Sass Jordan is actually kind of depressing. A closer look at the lyrics betrays the hopeful title:

    The sun's gonna rise again
    I'll be listening to those lies again


    "In other words, I seem to keep repeating this pathetic pattern of crap," Jordan told Songfacts in a 2023 interview. "Now, the inspiration behind it was just the need to articulate in words that sensation of being on a treadmill - on a negative one, at that. But I kind of wish it was a happy song."
  • This was Jordan's first single to crack the Billboard Hot 100, but it was only a minor hit. It was poised to be her breakthrough in the US, but her record label dropped the ball and failed to promote her properly or even film a music video. The timing was also off for a female-fronted rock number when male-dominated grunge acts were all the rage.

    "The whole thing probably went down the tanker because that record, Rats, was released right when radio and fashion was switching from AOR [album-oriented rock] to grunge and what they call 'modern rock,'" she reasoned.

    "And second of all, it had the audacity of being a female," she continued. "And that wasn't going to fly. In those days, the deck was stacked against anything female. I know it sounds ridiculous now, but that's how it was."
  • The song is Jordan's sole entry on the US Adult Contemporary chart, where it peaked at #36.
  • Jordan debuted in 1988 with Tell Somebody and hit the Canadian charts with singles like "Tell Somebody" and "Double Trouble." She followed up with Racine in 1992, featuring the Mainstream Rock hit "Make You A Believer," and Rats in 1994. Because the latter failed to reach the status of Racine, her best-selling album, she was dropped from MCA Records.
  • To promote the album, Jordan hit the road with her band, which featured a new touring drummer: Taylor Hawkins. The 22-year-old future Foo Fighters stickman was still pretty green and learned the rock-and-roll ropes from the singer. He recalled, "Sass taught me how to be in a rock-and-roll band and gave me my first rock-and-roll check."

    After Hawkins died in 2022, Jordan decided to release an archival recording titled Live In New York Ninety-Four to honor Hawkins and his work on the 1994 tour. Jordan said the drummer's energy kept the rest of the band going. She told Songfacts:

    "His whole life up to that point, he was 22 I'd say, had been dreaming of doing this. It was like he suddenly felt like he was catapulted into it, and he was living the dream. He was having the best time ever. And his incredible joy and his incredible energy just made everything kick up a notch.

    It's very easy to get jaded and cynical when you're in a rock band on the road, especially after a couple of months, so his energy was like that little spark that lit the fire, that kept us just like [let's out a scream]."
  • This is Jordan's highest-charting hit in Canada, where it peaked at #7.

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