Jesse Colin Young’s music is sunlight for the soul, tender and unafraid to speak for love. Born Perry Miller (1941–2025) on this day in Queens, New York, Young became the velvet-voiced heart of The Youngbloods, urging the world to “Get Together.”

“Every voice that speaks for love should come out and speak,” he once said, and his own voice never wavered. A gifted songwriter, singer, and guitarist, Young poured activism and compassion into every note.

In the late 1960s, after leaving New York’s bustling folk scene, he found new beginnings in Northern California, where rolling hills, redwoods, and golden light reshaped his music.

There he wrote Sunlight—not for a single woman, but for the feeling of love itself. A love song to passion and nature. A hymn to the way sunlight warms skin and trust, spilling soft gold across new love like morning after rain. Love feels as natural and life-giving as the sun spilling over green hills into your heart.

In performances just a few years before his death, Young played with the same tender strength. His fingers sure, his voice still glowing, every note repeating the promise he always carried: love shines on. And in every note of Sunlight, he lives, glowing in the music he gave to the world.