Days Go By (Keith Urban song)
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| “Days Go By” | |||||
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| Single by Keith Urban from the album Be Here |
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| Released | November 9, 2004 | ||||
| Format | CD single | ||||
| Genre | Country | ||||
| Length | 3:44 | ||||
| Label | Capitol | ||||
| Writer(s) | Monty Powell Keith Urban |
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| Producer | Dann Huff Keith Urban |
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| Keith Urban singles chronology | |||||
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"Days Go By" is the title of a single by Keith Urban, written by Urban and Monty Powell. The song was the lead-off single for his Be Here album, which ends with a variation called "These Are the Days.". It became Urban's fifth Number One single, spending three weeks at the top of the Billboard U.S. Hot Country Songs chart in late 2004. "Days Go By" also ranked #11 on American Country Countdown's list of the Top 50 most-played songs of 2004.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Content
Starting with an acoustic guitar phrase and then built in D major around Urban's typical up-tempo banjo/mandolin-driven riffs with exuberant vocal yelps and electric guitar fills, the song's message is a variation on the carpe diem theme, as played off the song's title phrase:
- Days go by —
- I can feel 'em flying,
- Like a hand out the window in the wind, as the cars go by ...
- It's all we've been given, So you better start livin'
- Right now!
- 'Cause days go by.
[edit] Video
A portion of the song's music video shows Urban appearing to walk forwards, while everyone else about him is walking backwards; this segment was actually filmed in reverse, with Urban walking backwards.[2] The video won a CMT Award for Best Video of 2005.[3]
In another part of the video, Urban makes a hand gesture, holding it parallel to the ground while raising and lowering it in an undulating motion, illustrating the "out the window in the wind" lyric. This inspired a colloborative project in which Urban fans videoed themselves imitating the motion while doing purposeful things, most often by visiting recognizable landmarks such as the Washington Monument, Yellowstone National Park, The Parthenon, or even more modest places such as Paducah, Kentucky; a compilation of these videos was shown on the large image wall backdrop as the song was performed on Urban's 2007 Love, Pain & the whole crazy world Tour.[4]
[edit] Other performances
"Days Go By" is one of Urban's songs with the most pop and rock crossover appeal, and was featured in his sets at both the Live 8 concert in Philadelphia in 2005 and the Live Earth concert in New Jersey in 2007. It was also included in the popular Now! series, on 2004's Now That's What I Call Music! 17.
[edit] Chart performance
| Chart (2004) | Peak position |
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| U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks | 1 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 | 31 |
| Preceded by "Girls Lie Too" by Terri Clark |
Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks number one single by Keith Urban September 18-October 9, 2004 |
Succeeded by "Suds in the Bucket" by Sara Evans |
