David Bowie Cover of the Week: “Days” by Loveheart<34

Loveheart<34 describes this cover of “Days” as “super simple,” performed entirely on his acoustic guitar “with some effects.” That’s an accurate description. Nothing fancy here, but the song, which the artist describes as “dear to me,” is performed in earnest and stands out as a self-contained piece. The arrangement is similar to Bowie’s, but this version comes across as even more intimate. This version has less going on in it instrumentally than Bowie’s studio version, yet (unlike Bowie) Loveheart<34’s vocal appears to be harmonizing with himself throughout. The harmonies are slightly out of sync, which adds a hint of a divided mind— if anything the performance seems to express even more self-doubt and regret than the original. I surely like the way this cover sounds— I wouldn’t have selected it otherwise, but I also appreciate that the song was covered at all. I seldom hear Bowie’s version outside the context of the Reality album and I don’t recall ever hearing anyone else perform the song.

“Days” is one of Bowie’s middle-aged regret songs, that started to appear on Hours… and would continue until they evolved into old man regret songs on The Next Day and Blackstar. As is pointed out in The Bowiebible, the song’s lyrics echoed Bowie’s past. “All I’ve done, I’ve done for me” inverted the line “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for you” from the Labyrinth song “Within You,” while “All you gave, you gave for free/I gave nothing in return, and there’s little left of me” anticipated themes later revisited in the lyrics of “I Can’t Give Everything Away” on Blackstar.

Listening to Loveheart<34’s version also, perhaps oddly, makes me think of the opening lines of “Stay”— “This week dragged past me so slowly; the days fell on their knees.” Those are among my favorite Bowie lyrics. They describe a sensation I really haven’t heard described in song before or since. The connection between that song and this, is of course the word, “days.” Back in the time of “Stay” (1976) the days passed slowly, but by the time of “Days” (2003) I get the sense that the days have come to move much faster. That’s not explicit in the song— the word is used to refer to “all the days of my life,” which suggest backward contemplation rather than forward movement. But the contemplation is dripping with regret. I have to imagine the song’s narrator wishes he had some of those days back, and had more of them going forward. Bowie’s days would be interrupted by imminent health problems that sidelined him for a decade. His days as a recording artist were sadly numbered. The A Reality Tour would be Bowie’s last. As if knowing that in advance, Bowie was more comfortable mixing in some of his greatest hits along with the new songs on that tour than he had been in a while. That was fun to experience in concert, but on some level also distracted from a quality new song (at the time) like “Days.” So, I was very happy to refocus on it through this cover. Good job!