“April Sun in Cuba” by Dragon

The main sentiment Dragon’s “April Sun in Cuba” revolves around is the vocalist’s desire to go to Cuba. Dragon is a musical act from New Zealand, a part of the world which isn’t necessarily known as a tourist destination. 

Meanwhile Cuba is like an idyllic tropical island, and verily the narrator expresses a longing to go there and soak up some “April sun”. And just as a side note, it has been advertised that April is in fact one of the best times of the year, weather-wise, to visit this Caribbean nation.

But of course what Cuba is also known for, especially back in those days, was as being a communist nation run by Fidel Castro. Fidel was a world leader who did not give AF as far standing up to what he perceived as Western imperialism. In fact there was a moment in time, some 15 years before this track was released, where it looked like Cuba, which is less than 500 miles off the coast of Florida, would be engaged in nuclear warfare with the United States.

That moment in history, known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, is spoken of to this day, so you know it was fresh in the mind of world citizens during the late 1970s.  And logically that would be what the vocalist is alluding to in the second verse, i.e. this beef between the US and Cuba, so to speak. 

So it can be said that while entertaining the prospect of visiting the latter, in the back of the mind, lies the prospect that something really terrible may jump off while there. Or even if not, he still knows that the ‘missiles’ are very much present.

Takeaway

So perhaps we can close out by saying that this is one of the more realistic travel songs that we have come across. No place in the world is perfect, and usually when considering vacation destinations we take into account the potential dangers lying therein. And obviously as far as Dragon goes, as beautiful as Cuba may be, in their minds that doesn’t negate the fact that it is a strategically-placed country, led by a hardcore politician as far as the Cold War is concerned.

Dragon and “April Sun in Cuba”

Dragon is a rock band from New Zealand. With their heyday having been during the 1970s and 80s, this act experienced their most notable success in Oceania, i.e. nearby Australia. And “April Sun in Cuba” is one of their biggest hits, reaching number two on the Kent Music Report in addition to achieving gold certification down under. By the way, another hugely successful Dragon song is 1983’s “Rain“.

What Dragon is also widely known for is having been some really wild boys back in the day. For instance, Paul Hewson, who served as a co-writer/keyboardist/vocalist on this track (“April Sun in Cuba”), OD’d himself to death in 1985.

The other backup vocalists on “April Sun in Cuba” are bassist Todd Hunter and guitarist Robert Taylor, both of whom are still members of the band as of the writing of this post. And their bandmates at the time were percussionist Kerry Jacobson and lead vocalist Marc Hunter, the latter of whom passed away of throat cancer in 1998 at the age of 44.

This song was written by the aforementioned Hewson and Marc Hunter, with its producer having been Peter Dawkins (1946-2014).

When was this song released?

Portrait Records released it in October of 1977. It served the role of the first single from the band’s album titled “Running Free”. This was the band’s official fourth studio project.