Something about the human condition– we fret about which days of our lives are the best days of our lives and songs from Mary Hopkin’s 1969’s “Those Were The Days,” with its forced gaiety and regret, to the joyful, uplifting elegance of Natalie Merchant and 10,000 Maniacs’ 1992 “These Are Days” to Lissie, who is the one who “…wants more best days.”
“Best Days” is charting top-15 on the Adult Alternative chart. Lissie’s popular on college and Public
Radio. Although she has a significant fan base here and abroad, she’s not very famous.
Her sound is throaty and raw–not Janis Joplin raw, but a bit ragged around the the edges.
This verse is intriguing:
‘Cause the best days of my life are coming for me
Waiting to be realized
I keep my eye on that prize
If the best days that I know are just in the past
Am I gonna last forever?
I want more best days
But this one is not:
I could’ve stayed in college but I didn’t wanna
I dropped out and moved to California
Left Ojai for the next best thing
Got a pick-up truck
I want a diamond ring
Oh, oh
Interesting for us 50+ year old Boomers to listen to 35-year Lissie and her tizzy—we have a longer perspective of best days, awful days, just OK days, all the days, really. Been there, done that?
Lissie is from the Midwest, and got her big break 10-years ago, opening for Lenny Kravitz; two years after that she dropped her first album.
Really like the Lissie tune–maybe the very first tome I’ve liked the more recent tune better than the older one! Seems like every tune though, these days, has to have that “cold” acapella-like ending!
Bob..you are so right about these cold endings to songs..has become the norm.
Thanks for the comment and high praise for Lissie, who I’m told also puts on
an awesome show.
Insightful
Thanks much Ann..that’s always our goal!