SONG OF THE DAY
“These Days” by Jackson Browne (For Everyman, Asylum Records, 1973). Written by Jackson Browne.
INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)
– “These Days” is a song written by Jackson Browne and principally recorded by Nico, Gregg Allman, and Browne himself in three distinctly different musical styles.
– The song has endured for decades as a classic of morose introspection, made all the more remarkable by Browne having been only 16 years old when he wrote it.
– In the mid-to-late 1960s Browne was a precocious songwriter who was pitching his material to various artists and publishing houses. On January 7, 1967 he made some demo recordings for Nina Music Publishing at Jaycino Studio in New York City. An unplanned double album of these recordings was made by Nina Music, with 100 copies issued.
– Included in these demos, and the third song on this “record,” was “I’ve Been Out Walking,” the earliest manifestation of “These Days”.
– German model and chanteuse Nico was the first to record “These Days” for release, on her October 1967 album Chelsea Girl. This was an odd mix of production elements: a fairly fast, almost upbeat fingerpicking electric guitar part by Browne (suggested by Andy Warhol), combined with strings and flutes (added after the fact by producer Tom Wilson, without Nico’s knowledge) combined with the sad, near-desperate tone of the lyrics, all wrapped around Nico’s mannered, German-accented vocals.
– While Nico never achieved much commercial visibility, her work caught the attention of other musicians and songwriters. And although Browne was still several years from getting his own recording contract, his wise-beyond-his-years talent was quickly recognized by other performers looking for material. And of Browne’s catalogue during this period, “These Days,” along with his “Shadow Dream Song,” were regarded as his gems. Thus “These Days” was recorded in 1968 by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on their album Rare Junk, by Tom Rush on his 1970 self-titled album, by Kenny Loggins’ first band, Gator Creek, around the same time, and by Iain Matthews on his 1973 album Valley Hi.
– By 1973, Jackson Browne had become a successful recording artist, and not having raided his back catalogue for the first album, was now more willing to do so for this second, For Everyman.
– This “These Days” was considerably different in several ways from the Nico effort. The fingerpicking guitar figure was replaced with flatpicking, and the instrumentation was typical of early 1970s Southern Californian folk rock — drums, bass, piano, acoustic guitar. Emotionally, the sadness and despair were retained, but Nico’s coolly dramatic delivery was replaced by Browne’s direct, human perspective, characteristic of the early 1970s singer songwriter movement.
– The For Everyman liner notes thanked Gregg Allman for the arrangement. While Allman was most associated with the emerging Southern rock scene, he had spent considerable time in Los Angeles before The Allman Brothers Band came together, he and Browne had become friends. Rolling Stone praised the treatment, saying Allman “does full justice to the quietly hurting lyrics, double-tracking the vocal over a sad steel guitar,” and calling the vocal quality “resigned” and “eternally aching.”
– Many years later, Browne would describe the inspiration he credited: “When [Allman] did it, I thought that he really unlocked a power in that song that I sort of then emulated in my version. I started playing the piano. I wasn’t trying to sing it like Gregg; I couldn’t possibly. I took the cue, playin’ this slow walk.”
– While not released as a single by either, both Browne’s and Allman’s “These Days” recordings gained airplay on progressive rock radio stations and became the most-heard interpretations of the song.
– It was included on both of Browne’s “best of” albums, The Next Voice You Hear: The Best of Jackson Browne and The Very Best of Jackson Browne, and on both of Allman’s compilations, The Millennium Collection: The Best of Gregg Allman and (in a live version) No Stranger to the Dark: The Best of Gregg Allman.
– When Allman toured as a solo act, he generally kept “These Days” in his concert repertoire. Browne was a different story. It had appeared in his concerts since before he had a recording contract, and stayed in through the 1970s, usually played on piano in a surprising segue out of his biggest hit single, “Doctor My Eyes”. But by 1980 he had graduated from halls and outdoor amphitheatres to arenas, and “These Days” disappeared from his set lists, perhaps because he felt it no longer effective in those settings. Save for the occasional acoustic show or benefit show, the song was not heard again until the late 1990s, as Browne was again playing smaller venues, often solo, and where it began to reappear out of the “Doctor My Eyes” segue again.
– In 1990, a cover version by 10,000 Maniacs appeared on the Elektra Records compilation album Rubáiyát. Idiosyncratic indie rocker Barbara Manning included it as the B-side of one of her singles. Power poppers Fountains of Wayne used it as the B-side of their 1999 single “Troubled Times”. Renditions in the 2000s included ones by indie rockers Mates of State for the Wicker Park soundtrack, alternative rock icon Paul Westerberg’s album Come Feel Me Tremble, and Annie “St. Vincent” Clark’s EP Paris is Burning. Elliott Smith was known to cover the song quite frequently in live performances. Glen Campbell covered the song on his album Meet Glen Campbell released in 2008. Jen Stills’s version of “These Days” was featured in the December 6, 2009 Episode 410 “Newlyweds” of the ABC Show Brothers & Sisters.
– In the 2000s “These Days” gained renewed visibility and praise. The key was the appearance of the original Nico recording in a scene in the acclaimed and popular 2001 Wes Anderson film The Royal Tenenbaums.
– As Jackson Browne would later describe it, “I forgot that I’d licensed them to use this song. And this is one of those things that comes to you in the mail and you don’t know what they’re talking about and you simply give them their permission. You’re sitting in the movie theater and there’s this great moment when Gwyneth Paltrow is coming out of a bus or something like that. I’m thinking to myself, I used to play the guitar just like that. And then the voice comes on and it’s Nico singing ‘These Days’, which I played on.”
– Pitchfork Media’s 2006 ranking of The 200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s placed the Nico “These Days” at #31.
– Browne’s 1973 recording surfaced in the 1970’s-set 2006 film Invincible.
– For Everyman is the second album by Jackson Browne, and it peaked at #43 on the Billboard 200 chart.
– In 2003, the album was ranked #457 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
– Guest artists on the album included David Crosby, Glenn Frey, Elton John (credited as Rockaday Johnnie), Don Henley, Joni Mitchell and Bonnie Raitt.
– At two points during the album, Browne crossfades tracks into one another. This technique was popularized by The Beatles across the second side of the Abbey Road LP.