So today I’m kicking off something that I think will be a semi-regular if not weekly feature here. I spend a lot of time on Spotify looking for new music to listen to, and while I enjoy discovering new music, I need to be honest. I really spend time digging up new music so that my music taste doesn’t get fully stuck in its default rut, which is music from about 1963-2004.

Thanks to my parents’ musical tastes and a lack of a sibling to expose me to more current stuff, I grew up listening to ’60s, ’70s and ’80s music. I was coming of age in time to really latch on to ’90s alternative, hip-hop and rap. Really what it means is that if you’re entering a trivia contest and the likelihood of questions about the British Invasion, Singer and Songwriter movement, ’80s New Wave and ’90s alternative/hip-hop/rap are high, I am your gal.

New music is hip, but there are some amazing gems from the old days that I think everyone should know and love. That’s what Friday Flashback is all about. (Plus, it’s Friday. Who wants to spend a lot of effort on anything?)

Today is all about sunshine. The weather in Knoxville has been especially obnoxious this week, which isn’t totally unusual in March. On Monday we got an inch and a half of rain. Yesterday it was 35 degrees and lunchtime. But today, today it is in the mid-60s and the sun is beating down. After lunch my coworkers and I were peering outside our office window to the pond on our company’s campus, and there were dudes playing with remote-control speedboats. And then, the will to work was gone.

I Can See Clearly Now by Johnny Cash reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1972, and I don’t remember the first time I heard it because it’s pretty much been in my rotation for my entire life. Jimmy Cliff covered the song in 1993 for Cool Runnings, which is, of course, a great movie.

And you can’t mention sunshine without mentioning one of my favorite Beatles songs, Here Comes the Sun, from the Abbey Road album.

What sunshine song should we add?