Don’t you just love when you hear a song and it instantly makes you happy (and maybe even a little high)?

You hear it on the radio, groove into a little happy dance, and the smile starts to spread across your face.

When a song has a title like “Lovely Day,” you know it has a damn good chance of being one of those feel good songs, and this classic from Bill Withers (circa 1977 ) is my new yoga theme song. Go on, hit the play button below, you know you want to feel the love…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYi7uEvEEmk[/youtube]

I’m convinced that Bill has to be a yogi with amazing breath control, because at 3:05 in the video he holds a note for 18 seconds! According to Wikipedia that note remains the longest  held in any Top 40 hit in the United States. Yowza – nice pranayama Bill!

This song will be on one of my yoga class playlists real soon, and when it does, I’ll be singing the official Daily Downward Dog song parody lyrics….

…

A Yoga Day

When I wake up in the morning
love
and the muscle ache hurts my eyes

And stressful mindless chatter
love
bears heavy on my mind.
Then I grab my mat and the world’s alright with me

Just one breath and stretch and I know it’s gonna be –

A yoga day – yoga day
yoga day
yoga day
yoga day

Yoga day
yoga day
yoga day
yoga day
A yoga day – yoga day
yoga day
yoga day
yoga day

When the day that lies ahead of me is full of stress and angst

And someone else instead of me always seems to know the way
Then I grab my mat and the world’s alright with me

Just one breath and stretch and I know it’s gonna be –

A yoga day – yoga day
yoga day
yoga day
yoga day
…

To me a lovely day = a yoga day. Just a little yoga every day and the world’s alright with me. Just a few asanas and some breathing and suddenly the day seems possible to face. Wishing you a beautiful yoga daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyy (that was 22 seconds a new DDD record!).

Image: Yasin Oztürk