| "Land of Sunshine" | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Promotional single byFaith No More | |
| from the albumAngel Dust | |
| Released | 1992 |
| Recorded | January–March 1992[1] |
| Studio | Coast Recorders & Brilliant Studios, San Francisco, California |
| Genre | Funk metal[2] |
| Length | 3:43 |
| Label | Slash |
| Composers | |
| Lyricist | |
| Producer | Matt Wallace |
"Land of Sunshine" is the opening track toAngel Dust, the fourthstudio album by the Americanrock bandFaith No More. It was released as apromotional single in 1992 along with "Midlife Crisis" and has been compared in its opening style to "From out of Nowhere", the opening track and first single from the band's previous studio album,The Real Thing.[3] The song's lyrics contain, amongst other things, questions from Scientology personality tests, with one of them, the question "Does emotional music have quite an effect on you?", being described by Tom Sinclair ofRolling Stone as "the perfect tag line forAngel Dust".[4] The song was one of the three key songs picked out byRobert Christgau from the album in his review, the two others being "Midlife Crisis" and "Midnight Cowboy".[5]
The lyrics for "Land of Sunshine" were written byMike Patton alongside "Caffeine" during a sleep deprivation experiment and included lines taken almost directly fromfortune cookies[6] and theOxford Capacity Analysis personality test offered by theChurch of Scientology. He also watched much late-night television to get into the right frame of mind.[6]
There are three lines taken from the personality test, although a fourth appears in the lyric booklet withAngel Dust; question 179 "Do others push you around?".[7] Two of the questions used were shortened slightly for their use in the song; question 27, "Do you often sing or whistle just for the fun of it?"[8] had its end changed to "just for fun", and question 196, "Do you sometimes feel that your age is against you (too young or too old)?"[7] was shortened to "Do you feel sometimes that age is against you?". The unchanged question 69, "Does emotional music have quite an effect onyou?"[9] is featured during the choruses along with the phrase "Here's how to order."
The lines taken from the fortunes in Chinese fortune cookies were virtually unchanged and appear throughout the first and second verses of the song. They are as follows, as they appeared on the fortunes:
| No. | Title | Lyrics | Music | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Land of Sunshine" | Patton | Gould, Bottum | 3:43 |
| 2. | "Caffeine" | Patton | Gould, Patton | 4:28 |
| 3. | "Kindergarten" | Patton, Bottum | Gould, Martin | 4:29 |