"Days Go By" is a song co-written and recorded by Australian

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

singer

Keith Urban Keith Lionel Urban (born 26 October 1967) is an Australian-American musician, singer, guitarist and songwriter known for his work in country music. Recognized with four Grammy Awards, Urban also received fifteen Academy of Country Music Award ...

. It was released on 28 June 2004, as the first single from his 2004 album '' Be Here''. It became Urban's fifth number one single on the US ''Billboard''

Hot Country Songs Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data from Nielsen BDS along with digital sal ...

chart in late-2004, spending a four-week stay at that position. Urban wrote this song with

Monty Powell Monty Powell (born June 1, 1961) is an American country music songwriter best known for collaborating with Keith Urban, and for producing albums by Diamond Rio. Powell's first songwriting credit was a jingle for an Allstate commercial. After mov ...

Content

Starting with an

acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...

phrase and then built in

D major D major (or the key of D) is a major scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. Its key signature has two sharps. Its relative minor is B minor and its parallel minor is D minor. The D major scale is: : Ch ...

around Urban's typical up-tempo

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

-driven riffs with exuberant vocal yelps and

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

fills, the song's message is a variation on the '' carpe diem'' theme, as played off the song's title phrase.

Music 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 the opposite direction, with Urban walking backwards. 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 line "I can feel it flying like a hand out the window in the wind". This inspired a collaborative project in which Keith Urban fans videotaped themselves imitating the motion while doing purposeful things most often by visiting recognizable landmarks (such as the

Washington Monument The Washington Monument is an obelisk shaped building within the National Mall in Washington, D.C., built to commemorate George Washington, once commander-in-chief of the Continental Army (1775–1784) in the American Revolutionary War and the ...

Yellowstone National Park Yellowstone National Park is an American national park located in the western United States, largely in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U.S. Congress with the Yellowston ...

, The Parthenon) and the most modest places, like

Paducah, Kentucky Paducah ( ) is a home rule-class city in and the county seat of McCracken County, Kentucky. The largest city in the Jackson Purchase region, it is located at the confluence of the Tennessee and the Ohio rivers, halfway between St. Louis, Missour ...

. A compilation containing those videos was seen on the large image wall backdrop as the song was performed during Keith Urban's 2007 Love, Pain & the Whole Crazy World Tour. The video won the CMT Award for Best Video of 2005.CMT Music Awards : Country Music Television Awards News Headlines : CMT.com
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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.

Chart performance

On the US ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

chart, the song reached number one and spent four consecutive weeks at that position until it was knocked off by "

Suds in the Bucket "Suds in the Bucket" is a song written by Billy Montana and Tammy Wagoner and recorded by American country music singer Sara Evans. It was released in May 2004 as the third single from Evans' 2003 album '' Restless''. It became her third number- ...

" by

Sara Evans Sara Lynn Evans (; born February 5, 1971) is an American country music singer and songwriter. She is also credited as a record producer, actress, and author. She had five songs reach the number one spot on the '' Billboard'' country songs ch ...

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

{{authority control 2004 singles 2004 songs Capitol Records Nashville singles Keith Urban songs Songs written by Monty Powell Songs written by Keith Urban Music videos directed by Wayne Isham Song recordings produced by Dann Huff