"Another Day of Sun" is the first song in the 2016 musical movie La La Land. The group performance shows drivers stuck in traffic on a Los Angeles highway ramp, singing and dancing about their dreams of success in Hollywood. The song was filmed at a real location on a 130-foot-high ramp of the Judge Harry Pregerson Interchange. It was shot in three separate parts and edited with special techniques to make it look like one continuous six-minute scene. The music was written by Justin Hurwitz, the lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, and the dance moves were designed by Mandy Moore.
Composition and lyrics
Hurwitz described the song's contrast between the singers' hopes and the uncertain results of their efforts, saying, "It’s an optimistic song, but it’s also about unfulfilled dreams." Paul explained, "You chase your dream, and you go to bed and wake up the next day, which is a beautiful day. The song encourages you, but it also doesn’t mention that you might have failed. When you wake up, the day doesn’t match how you feel. It’s a bright and shiny day."
The song is written in the key of E♭ major, with a tempo of 126 beats per minute. It usually follows an A♭–B♭–Cm–Gm chord progression and includes vocal parts ranging from G3 to C5. Hurwitz composed the song with a fast tempo, mostly using major keys, but also incorporating minor keys, which makes it "more bittersweet than it appears at first," according to Hurwitz. The song includes many layered background vocals, a full 95-piece orchestra, and a 40-person choir. Hurwitz aimed to highlight different parts of the orchestra as the visuals focused on different members of the ensemble.
Shooting and choreography
The first scene of the film was filmed in August 2015 over two days. The song was recorded on a 130-foot-high highway ramp at the Judge Harry Pregerson Interchange, where the Harbor Freeway (Interstate 110) and Glenn Anderson Freeway (Interstate 105) meet in South Los Angeles. The ramp was closed for the entire two days of filming, while the rest of the highway remained open to show normal traffic in the background. The scene was originally planned to be filmed on a ground-level ramp but was changed to the interchange to highlight the size of the city. Director Damien Chazelle compared the location of the scene on a highway to the Yellow Brick Road in The Wizard of Oz.
The scene was filmed in three separate takes, which were edited together to look like one continuous six-minute shot. The actor, Moore, prepared for three to four months, which included over 60 cars, 30 dancers, and 100 extras. The choreography began with one dancer and added more dancers gradually to avoid everyone starting to dance at the same time. The group also included stunt performers. Early rehearsals with ten dancers took place in a studio parking lot using about 20 cars from the production team.
The scene was originally planned to be introduced with an overture, but this was removed during editing because it slowed the film’s opening. Film editor Tom Cross explained that director Damien Chazelle realized people needed to be shown clearly that the film was a musical from the beginning. The filmmakers later decided that showing the film’s title on the final beat of the song was enough to serve as an introduction to the musical.
In the scene, dancer Reshma Gajjar appears to sing the opening lines and other parts of the song, but the lead female vocals were actually performed by Angela Parrish, who does not appear in the film. The filmmakers initially hoped to find someone who could both sing and dance on camera for the opening number but first found their dancer and later auditioned a vocalist during post-production in the spring of 2016. The first male voice heard in the song is performed by Sam Stone.
Other performances
The introductory performance at the 74th Golden Globe Awards in January 2017 included a musical parody of songs from the movie La La Land. The parody featured altered lyrics from "Another Day of Sun," "City of Stars," and "Planetarium." The segment with "Another Day of Sun" showed limousines stuck in traffic heading to the awards. Dancers from films nominated for awards that year performed the routine. The performance was hosted by Jimmy Fallon and included appearances by Nicole Kidman, Amy Adams, John Travolta, Sarah Paulson, Rami Malek, Kit Harington, and others.
The song was performed by the Italian singer Mina and released by Sony Music and PDU on February 9, 2018. In 2022, Will Young, Jamie Winstone, Michael Owen, Charlotte Church, and Mark Feehily performed a version of "Another Day of Sun" in the third season of the British version of The Masked Singer.
Usage in media
Since 2019, the instrumental version of "Another Day of Sun" has been used as the theme music for Sara Cox's teatime show on BBC Radio 2.