Walking On Sunshine

If you're "walking on air," you're feeling pretty good. But you know what's even better? Walking on sunshine. In this song, Katrina is filled with such unadulterated joy because she's now sure her man loves her. Apparently it's a long-distance relationship, but that's OK. She knows that someday he'll show up at her door and they'll live happily ever after.

Before Katrina Leskanich came along, the band was simply The Waves. Based in England, they were led by Kimberly Rew, who left the group in 1978 to join Robyn Hitchcock in The Soft Boys. When The Soft Boys broke up in 1981, Rew and his former Waves bandmate Alex Cooper joined forces with two Americans whose fathers were in the Air Force and stationed in England: Leskanich and Vince De La Cruz. Leskanich took over from Rew as lead singer and also played rhythm guitar; Rew was on lead guitar, Cooper on drums, De La Cruz on bass. As The Waves, they released an independent album in 1982 called Shock Horror! with the song "Going Down to Liverpool," later covered by the Bangles. In 1983, rechristened Katrina & the Waves, they released "Walking On Sunshine" on an album of the same name that was issued only in Canada, where it created enough buzz to get the attention of Capitol Records. In 1985 they re-recorded "Walking On Sunshine" and released it as the lead single from their first Capitol album, the self-titled Katrina & the Waves. With the promotional might of Capitol behind it and a music video that MTV adored, the song became a big hit and endured as an '80s classic.

"Walking On Sunshine" was written by Kimberly Rew, the primary songwriter in the band (he also wrote "Going Down to Liverpool"). He brought a pop sensibility to the group that contrasted with his more psychedelic punk sounds in The Soft Boys.