This song was written by Wheeler after he did a screen test for the role of Christian in Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 Moulin Rouge! (Ryan, 2019), itself based on the myth of Orpheus. The lyrics are narrated by an Orpheus-character and take place after the loss of Eurydice: ‘ever since I lost her’; ‘hit me without warning, I was left out on my own’. The song ultimately deals with the process of recovery after lost love, underlined by the chorus: ‘I need the sunshine in the morning/ heading for the open road/ sunshine in the morning/ lord, you gotta let it flow’.

The song describes a more straightforward engagement with the myth than the Baz Luhrmann film. The song deals very little with Eurydice or her potential feelings, focusing on the narrator’s feelings as he moves on.

The song recognisably tells part of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, although it is fairly unusual as a reception of Orpheus in that it does not directly reference his musical or creative abilities (although the cover art features an image of a lyre, the instrument associated with Orpheus, the lyrics do not reflect this). Instead, the opening lyrics depict an Orphean character who is, by his own admission, not doing much at all: 

That summer, I did nothing

Just sleeping, thinking and hanging around

I left the dark streets of September

As the air was cooling down

The lyrics are fairly upbeat, but the specific mythical references place the song at the juncture of the myth between the (second) loss of Eurydice and Orpheus’ own death. The second verse directly references’ Eurydice’s death:

Ever since I lost her

Seems the more I learn, the less I know

And everyday I think about her

But if I look back I’m gonna turn to stone

The last line shows a mixing of myths, with idea of turning to stone when looking being associated with the gorgon Medusa and the Perseus myth, although the looking back motif is part of the Orpheus myth and refers to the way that Orpheus loses Eurydice. The third verse begins by mirroring Orpheus’ devastation as it is represented by Ovid in the Metamorphoses (Book 10), but also suggests a lack of responsibility taken by Orpheus for his role in the loss of his wife:

Hit me without warning

I was left out on my own

The bad times they were forming

I went through them alone

A new day it is dawning

And I feel my pain is gone

The open world is calling 

And I am moving on

The end of the verse illustrates Orpheus coming to terms with and moving past his loss, which is a shift from the best-known ancient versions of the myth – the Metamorphoses and Virgil’s Georgics Book 4. 453–494 – in both of which Orpheus is unable to recover fully from the loss of Eurydice. This positive outcome for Orpheus highlights the influence of Moulin Rouge!, in which Christian has a similar revival after the death of the Eurydice-figure Satine.

Although it is fairly straightforward, the mythical themes may not be obvious for the non-specialist listener. The lyrics can easily read as a song about a break-up, and might be readily understood in these terms by young adult listeners. The positive spin on a traditionally tragic story makes the song well suited to younger listeners,

Interview in NME by Gary Ryan (accessed: March 3, 2021).