Sunnyvista covers wide ground stylistically and includes some of Richard Thompson's most overtly rocking songs – possibly reflecting pressure from the record label to deliver a commercially successful album.

[2] "Saturday Rolling Around" is a homage to cajun music, a genre that Richard Thompson had long admired and which he had previously experimented with on Fairport Convention's Unhalfbricking (1969) album.

Elsewhere the mood is more spiteful, especially in the opening "Civilisation" with its sarcastic lyrics and in the heavy-handed satire of the title track which takes a tilt at a community which is superficially happy but also controlled and uniform.

Linda Thompson, in the liner notes for her 1996 compilation Dreams Fly Away, has revealed that it is not about actual sisters but about a Muslim polygamous relationship: "You have to be a very big person to make that work.

[citation needed] The front and back cover of the album feature a number of photographs of the Alexandra Road Estate in Camden, London.

The front cover features a visual pun on the company logo used at the time by UK travel agent Thomson Holidays.