Shay Wolf looks on the bright side in her warm, optimistic new single Sunny Days — premiering exclusively on Tinnitist.
The latest release from the Winnipeg singer-songwriter is a breezy tale of resilience and renewal. Fashioned from playfully vibrant guitars, shuffling drums and popping percussion, glistening keyboards and breathy harmonies — all topped with Wolf’s charming, merrily soaring vocals — Sunny Days wraps its upbeat, timeless message in the tie-dyed colours of vintage ’60s and ’70s pop and folk.
Surprisingly — or maybe not — the song came to life in the snowy depths of a typically bone-chilling prairie winter. “One frigid cold Winnipeg winter day, after a few days of cloudy, gloomy days, I wrote Sunny Days at the piano,” she recalls. “Those rays of sunshine through the window let me close my eyes and put me somewhere else. It kind of melted my soul. It got me thinking about how much energy and vitality I feel when the sun is shining.
“Sometimes it’s been days, weeks, or months since you’ve seen the sun shine and you might lose hope that the sun is still even there. But it is. It’s waiting to shine on you sometime soon. This is Sunny Days — a radiant, upbeat anthem of hope that helps you believe that better and brighter days are right around the corner.”
Along with Mother Nature and Old Man Winter, she was inspired by some of the most famous sun-loving songs in rock and pop. “As thoughts of what a sunny day meant to me swirled through my head, I was reminded of Here Comes The Sun by The Beatles,” she admits, calling it “a perfectly arranged song that is sweet, hopeful and simple. I was inspired by The Beatles’ use of lyrics and arrangement as I was writing Sunny Days.
“Over the course of 2024, after writing the song, I was demoing it at solo and band performances and having a ton of fun getting audiences to sing along. The spirit of the song was emerging. When I brought Sunny Days into the studio, I wanted to maintain this energy, and was reminded of No Rain by Blind Melon. Using No Rain as our inspiration, my producer John Paul Peters and I recorded the track with the attitude that we wanted a little dirt in it. That is to say, it’s not perfection that we want to ring true with this song — it’s that in spite of everything in this imperfect world, we will always choose to turn and face the sun.”
And she always does. Wolf is nothing short of an alt-pop dream weaver, crafting vibrant, ethereal soundscapes that shimmer with emotion and imagination. Born on the wide-open prairies, her endearing vocals and luminous stage presence draw listeners into a world where reality blurs with reverie. A classically trained pianist turned singer-songwriter, she blends cinematic textures with soaring pop melodies, balancing introspective vulnerability with bursts of joyful defiance.
Inspired by Charlotte Cardin, Aurora and Lana Del Rey, as well as the vast, untamed beauty of her prairie roots, her music captures both stillness and movement, longing and wonder. Her songs explore the tender chaos of being human — loss, hope, transformation — always with a sense of curiosity and quiet magic. With each note, Shay invites listeners to lean into the unknown and find beauty in the in-between.
Listen to Sunny Days above, hear more from Shay Wolf below, and feel the warmth on her website, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.
