Song Lyric Sunday – These Days

Posted byChristine BoltonPosted inBlog, Song Lyric SundayTags:, , , , ,

Today, for Song Lyric Sunday, our host Jim Adams has asked for a song from a live album. In 2015 I got to see one of my favorite artists, Jackson Browne, in concert. It was one of his solo acoustic tours featuring just him with his collection of guitars lined up on statge and a piano. It was an intimate and memorable evening so I have chosen one of the songs he performed that night called ‘These Days’. A live version of it was on his Jackson Browne solo acoustic album vol. 1. It’s a beautiful song with meaningful lyrics and I hope you enjoy it.

The Song

This sad, hurting song was originally written by Jackson Browne when he was just 16 years old in either 1964 or 1965. It appeared on a Browne demo in early 1967 under the title “I’ve Been Out Walking.” Later in the same year it gained its first release when Andy Warhol’s protégé Nico recorded it on her Chelsea Girl album, with Browne playing acoustic guitar. Other artists covered it over the following few years, including the Nitty Gritty Junk Band on their Rare Junk album and Tom Rush on his 1970 self-titled set.

Browne himself recorded the song on his 1973 For Everyman LP, with an arrangement written by Gregg Allman (who also covered it around the same time on his Laid Back debut solo set). Browne’s version differed from Nico’s both in style and lyrics. In the latter case several lines were changed or omitted, such as a couple of lyrics about “rambling” and “gambling.” This song has continued to be covered by a number of acts including Fountains of Wayne who used it as the B-side of their 1999 single “Troubled Times.”

Browne was very young when he wrote this song, but even then he had a feel for heartbreak. Talking in a radio interview about the first breakup one endures, he said, “That came be the most formative time in your life. Trying to get through your early years is a harrowing experience for a lot of people.”

Nico’s version of the song has the original lyric:

I’ve stopped my dreaming
I won’t do too much scheming

When Browne released his version, he changed it to the much more hopeful:

I’ll keep on moving, moving on
Things are bound to be improving these days

“Over the rest of my teenage years and into my 20s I developed a kind of optimism, a kind of resoluteness, so I changed it to ‘I’ll keep on moving, keep improving,'” he said. “That’s more to me what life is made of, the idea that I’ll get through this, I’ll continue looking.”

Nico’s version featured in the 2001 film The Royal Tenebaums. Browne later recalled on KGSR Radio Austin that he’d forgotten that he’d licensed them to use this song. He explained: “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.”

The Lyrics

Well, I've been out walkin'
I don't do too much talkin' these days
These days
These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do
For you
And all the times I had the chance to

Well, I had a lover
I don't think I'd risk another these days
These days
These days I seem to be afraid
To live the life that I have made in song
But it's just that I have been losing so long

These days I sit on corner stones
And count the time in quarter tones 'til ten, my friend
And now I believe I've come to see myself again

These days I sit on corner stones
And count the time in quarter tones 'til ten, my friend

Please don't confront me with my failures
I'm aware of them
So aware of them

Writer/s: Jackson Browne
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Published by Christine Bolton

I have been writing poetry since I was a child and it has helped in the good times and bad times. I am always looking within to find the answers to life's problems and to write thought-provoking poetry and prose. Thanks for checking it out. Christine

26 thoughts on “Song Lyric Sunday – These Days”

  3. This is such a great Jackson Browne song, Christine, and the information in your write up is wonderful. The formative teenage years can be incredibly difficult for so many; no one is ever truly prepared for that thrill of first love or the pain of a broken heart.

    “These days I seem to be afraid
    To live the life that I have made in song” …. such beautiful lyrics.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. I have been a Jackson Browne fan for decades and I will be featuring one of his songs that was recorded live at a concert of his that I was at almost 48 years ago. You chose a great song…one of my favorites from Jackson Browne. Great job.

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  5. I’m a big JB fan too so this was a perfect choice for today. I know the song well, in various versions. The video for this wasn’t available here but I found this:

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Thanks Clive. Yes that’s the one I was sharing. Thanks for linking it over there for me! Much appreciated. ☺️By the way I didn’t realize you were in Essex. Whereabouts? I read you were originally from Kent.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Happy to help, it saves others having to find it. I have all of his albums, including that one.

        Thanks for asking. I was born and brought up in Dover, moved to Essex when I got married after uni. Three homes in Harlow, then moved to Epping when we divorced.

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      2. Oh what a small world. Most of my family is in Essex and one in Herts. My mum lived in Epping and sadly died in Harlow. She was in hospice care there. Epping is one of my favorite places. Do you remember Rod Stewart used to have a home there? My niece lives in Woodford, my sister-in-law in Redbridge. My brother lived near Colchester before he passed away. My cousin lives in Wickford. I grew up in London but moved to Surrey (going the other way) before I moved here.

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  6. Oh Christine, this song couldn’t have been more perfect for today. I didn’t realize I needed to hear it again until I sat here right now listening with happy tears glistening in my eyes. I love that music can do that for us. Have a most wonderful Sunday.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Oh gosh Jilly, that is amazing. I agree some music and lyrics get buried deep in your soul. Then you hear them again and those emotions and feelings come flooding back. Music is powerful isn’t it? I am happy it touched you today☺️💗

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