Sensational '70's Tune for Thursday, April 23rd, '09

About the video: Badfinger's appearance on the Kenny Rogers and The First Edition television program, "Rollin on The River". Drummer, Mike Gibbins, had quit the band for a period during this time and is replaced by Rob Stawinski. Live vocals from Pete Ham over a pre-recorded backing as Joey Molland, Tommy Evans, and Rob mime.

"Day After Day" is probably Badfinger's most famous single, just nosing out "No Matter What" and "Come and Get It." And, as with most of their famous moments, comparisons to the Beatles, or at least to a Beatlesque sound, were inevitable, although it was written by Badfinger's Pete Ham. At the same time, it was produced by just-ex- Beatle George Harrison, who also played some of the slide guitars on the recording. It would be those slide guitars that made "Day After Day"'s arrangement sound very much like the late Beatles and, more particularly, the early George Harrison solo records. The slide guitars are also among the single's principal hooks, particularly at the very beginning in the opening instrumental section, where a slide guitar statement of the main melody line goes into such a piercing high note that it sounds rather like a siren, or as if it's going to jump right off of the upper end of the scale. The slide guitar goes more into the background during the verse, which has an instantly memorable tune of bittersweet melancholy. Characteristically for both Badfinger and their Beatles models, the chorus goes into a contrasting uplifting mode, filled out by luscious backup harmonies, imbuing the narrator's loneliness with a bit of romantic hope. The slide guitars really zing during the instrumental break, and Leon Russell's piano adds appropriate touches of grandiosity, somewhat in the manner as the piano does during sections of Derek & the Dominos' "Layla." It's also cool how the tempo becomes subtly more urgent on the last runs through the verse and how the song ends with an especially dramatic flourish of slide guitar, seconded by Russell's pseudo- classical piano.