My Past is Not Today

My Past is Not Today is a song featured in the My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks animated encore short of the same name, which leads up to the third Equestria Girls film installment, Friendship Games. The short and song were uploaded to the Hasbro Studios Shorts YouTube channel on April 1, 2015 before being made private and separately reuploaded on April 3, 2015, both times alongside Life is a Runway and Friendship Through the Ages. The song marks Sunset Shimmer's first solo. At the end of the short, Sunset takes on a phoenix-like appearance, which was a visual metaphor according to Ishi Rudell and is reminiscent of her "rock star dress" from both her Time to Shine doll and the cover of the chapter book Sunset Shimmer's Time to Shine.

Daniel Ingram stated that these songs will likely be released with the next Equestria Girls album later this year.

Animated short synopsis
At dusk, Sunset Shimmer is seen singing on the roof of Canterlot High School. We then get a flashback of her demonic transformation from the first film. Through further flashbacks, we see her discarding the photos of her as Princess of the Fall Formal as seen in Principal Celestia's office, and how difficult it was for her to make friends. Sunset decides to let it go by letting her leather jacket blow away in the wind. She is soon surrounded by a yellow magical aura. As she starts to float, she takes on a phoenix-like form.

Lyrics

 * [Sunset Shimmer]
 * Power
 * Was all I desired (I desired, I desired)
 * But all that grew inside me
 * Was a darkness I acquired


 * When I began to fall
 * And I lost the path ahead
 * That's when your friendship found me
 * And it lifted me instead


 * Like the phoenix burning bright
 * In the sky
 * I'll show there's another side to me
 * You can't deny


 * I may not know what the future holds
 * But hear me when I say
 * That my past does not define me
 * 'Cause my past is not today


 * Ambition
 * Is what I believed
 * Would be the only way
 * To set me free


 * But when it disappeared
 * And I found myself alone
 * That's when you came and guided me
 * And it felt like I was home


 * Like the phoenix burning bright
 * In the sky
 * I'll show there's another side to me
 * You can't deny


 * I may not know what the future holds
 * But hear me when I say
 * That my past does not define me
 * 'Cause my past is not today