Kinks – Days

The Kinks are a band that belongs up with The Beatles, Who, and Stones but sometimes gets overlooked. I’ve always been a fan of them since I had a greatest hits album at a young age that covered the early years. In 1981 I bought Give The People What They Want when it was released and I’ve been hooked ever since. I saw them in 1983 and it is still one of the best concerts I’ve ever attended. I saw them at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville in an intimate setting.

I’ve always liked this song. The lyrics are a touching goodbye to someone or a situation. It’s up in my top 10 of the Kinks songs. I’ve read a critic who said The Kinks were “the most adamantly British of the Brit Invasion bands.” I think that is a fair statement.

Days was originally going to be an album track on the 1968 concept album Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society. The reason for the change is because Their previous single “Wonderboy” failed in the charts and the record company rushed this song out as a single. It did the trick because it peaked at #12 in the UK and #11 in New Zealand.

At the time The Kinks were making these great albums but they couldn’t tour in the US because of a touring ban. It didn’t chart in America or Canada. They would not chart a song in America or Canada until 2 more years later with Lola.

After the failure of Wonderboy, Ray Davies wrote this song to say goodbye to his career. Davies: “I didn’t care anymore. So I thought, ‘Say goodbye nicely,’ and wrote ‘Days.'”

That wasn’t the only thing that was on his mind with this song though. His sister Rosie had just immigrated to Australia. Ray Davies: “She left and said, ‘Say goodbye, my loving brother,’ and I said, ‘Thank you for being my sister, so the song’s for her, really, and her generation.”

The song peaked at #12 in the UK but failed to chart in the US.

Ray Davies: “I started writing it in a hotel on tour. Strangely enough, it was the rhythm I wanted to get first, the sustained chords. The actual tune came later. And then I wrote some of it in a phone box while I was phoning somebody I shouldn’t be phoning. The song wasn’t about the person on the other end of the line. Well, not really. But I suppose it’s the ultimate kiss-off, isn’t it? ‘Thank you for the days.'”

“The song has grown in intensity over the years,” he said. “I didn’t think much about the song when I wrote it. Sometimes songs occur like that. You don’t think about it, but it’s built up quite a lot of mystique over the years. It certainly left me. It belongs to the world now.”

Kirsty MacColl did a version that peaked at #12 in the UK in 1989

For those of you in the UK you might remember it in a 2011 Volkswagen Golf Cabriolet Comercial.

Days

Thank you for the days
Those endless days, those sacred days you gave me
I’m thinking of the days
I won’t forget a single day, believe me

I bless the light
I bless the light that lights on you believe me
And though you’re gone
You’re with me every single day, believe me

Days I’ll remember all my life
Days when you can’t see wrong from right
You took my life
But then I knew that very soon you’d leave me
But it’s all right
Now I’m not frightened of this world, believe me

I wish today could be tomorrow
The night is dark
It just brings sorrow, let it wait

Thank you for the days
Those endless days, those sacred days you gave me
I’m thinking of the days
I won’t forget a single day, believe me

Days I’ll remember all my life
Days when you can’t see wrong from right
You took my life
But then I knew that very soon you’d leave me
But it’s all right
Now I’m not frightened of this world, believe me
Days

Thank you for the days
Those endless days, those sacred days you gave me
I’m thinking of the days
I won’t forget a single day, believe me

I bless the light
I bless the light that shines on you believe me
And though you’re gone
You’re with me every single day, believe me
Days

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

42 thoughts on “Kinks – Days”

  5. Quite nice indeed! Good easy-going sound and nice lyrics. A brand new one to me. What are the odds that you and I would both end up with posts today that mention VW Golfs, LOL!?

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  6. Golden era for the Kinks- this one, Wonderboy, Autumn Almanac, Victoria- couldn’t be anyone else but the Kinks. And when, recently, we jaunted around London on a double decker tourist bus, what was I singing to myself as we trundled past Waterloo Station?
    Also loved Dave Davies solo song ‘Death Of A Clown’ from the same era.

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  7. It’s one of their best. Any band would be happy to have written just one song like this. They have a whole catalogue. It’s a shame that the US missed out on so much good music. I also love Wonderboy.

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      1. Both are music treasures in my book. It would be cool to jump in a time machine and go back to that first concert you seen. I’d tag along.
        (Being a bass guy you’d be interested in a new doc on Ron Carter. I have it taped ready for a special viewing.)

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      2. We would cruise to the Grand Ole Opry…it was great with the White Animals opening.
        Oh yes…those jazz bass players just amaze me. I’m in awe of them.

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    1. I love their late seventies and eighties music as well. I found “Rock and Roll Fantasy” at our dimestore and I thought it was the current hit at the time by Bad Company. I ended up liking the Kinks song much more of course and it opened up a lot of doors to their music.

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      2. You probably like “Do It Again” and maybe Come Dancing. Both were hits in the 80s…Do It Again really rocked.

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  12. Except for Lola and Victoria, I like the earlier stuff better. Especially around the time of Sunny Afternoon and Tired of Waiting and Well Respected Man etc. But the Sleepwalker album from the late 70s is pretty decent.

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    1. They are two different bands really,…early and young… once punk came out The Kinks started to have more of an edge on them. I do think they were one of the first punk bands.

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      1. You always hear people say that You Really Got Me and All Day and All of the Night, from way back in 1964, were proto-punk or some such thing, but actually they were better because they were also better songs.

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      2. I agree with that. I never fell for punk much. I like a few tracks off of Nevermind the Bollocks…. but it just didn’t appeal to me as much as a whole.

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  13. I know. Even the biggest punk fans can’t come up with more than three or four albums that are classics. It’s been around for over 40 years now but it really doesn’t have much to show for itself. Ain’t it?

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    1. Correct! The example that aggravates me as far as attitude is… a young punk was hurling insults at Led Zeppelin about being “commercial” as they walked out of a recording studio…that young punk was no other than Billy Idol…who would in a few short years be doing his own commercial lyrics.

      The Clash…to me were the best of the bunch but they weren’t punk to me.

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      1. That is so funny. And the thing is, he never came up with anything good himself until he went commercial. I really like Eyes Without a Face. It’s a total classic. Actually I also like White Wedding and Rebel Yell also. Totally commercial but totally great too. It’s ridiculous that he would insult Led Zeppelin to their face considering that he was never anywhere near being in the same class as them

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      2. White Wedding is the one I enjoyed the most. He was the lead singer of Generation X at the time. Yea it’s the hypocrisy of it all that gets me about punk.

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  14. Nice tune, Max, and one I don’t recall I had heard before. While it’s fair to say I’m not as familiar with The Kinks as I am with The Beatles, I agree with your statement they are right up there with the Fab Four, The Stones and The Who. I particularly dig their ’60s output, but they also had some great songs in the ’70s and thereafter. So cool you actually got to see them!

    BTW, yesterday completely got away from me, I’m hoping to finally catch up today!

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    1. Chrisitan I’m the last person you need to say that to about catching up lol. Yesterday was one of the few Saturdays I stayed caught up! Yea I love the Kinks and Davies wrote so many good songs.

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