Please don’t confront me with my failures/
I had not forgotten them.
Nico is an interesting character and a bit of an enigma. She was a supermodel who took up singing, but she was a real singer…not just someone who was hot. She joined Velvet Underground and was lead singer on some of their best work. She doesn’t have a huge catalog but everything I hear from her sounds good.
“These Days” is a song Nico recorded as a solo artist after leaving Velvet Underground. Interestingly, this song was written by a 16-year-old Jackson Browne and first recorded by Nico who made it a mild hit. Years later Browne would release his own version, and it was average. Browne would also write another huge Velvet Underground hit higher on this list.
It seems like a lyric about a ramblin’ man might resonate better when sung by Browne, but Nico is the one who captured the heart of the song. Nico sings it like she is down on her luck; she sings it like she wrote it, or at least like she believes the lyrics.
We believe Nico when she says she might not love again, simply due to the tone in her voice. The lyrics tell a tale of a narrator undergoing deep introspection, but Nico’s version comes off more like depressed ambivalence. And it works.
These Days Lyrics
I’ve been out walking
I don’t do too much talking
These days, these days
These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do
And all the times I had the chance to.
I’ve stopped my rambling
I don’t do too much gambling
These days, these days
These days I seem to think about
How all the changes came about my ways
And I wonder if I’d see another highway
I had a lover
I don’t think I’ll risk another
These days, these days
And if I seem to be afraid
To live the life that I have made in song
It’s just that I’ve been losing so long
I’ve stopped my dreaming
I won’t do too much scheming
These days, these days
These days I sit on corner stones
And count the time in quarter tones to ten
Please don’t confront me with my failures
I had not forgotten them
written by Jackson Browne
Since every single music conversation I see online (including this one) seems to be discussed as if there was an actual competition between singers trying to do the “best” version of this particular song, I will play along.
As we all know, there’s room enough in this world for only one “definitive” version of every song ever written 😒, and in the case of “These Days”, the definitive version, thus the only one that truly “matters”, is Gregg Allman’s. Right? (Joking aside, Gregg Allman’s cover is easily the “best”, but I digress…).
To think that there’s many people out there who believe that Jimi Hendrix’ cover of “All Along The Watchtower” is the “definitive” version is another of those nuggets of “wisdom” I find reprehensible. The original is nearly-always the best version of a song, regardless of “conventional wisdom”. This is true of Mr Tambourine Man, All Along The Watchtower and many other songs that hipsters believe is “better” than the original. There are exceptions that serve to prove the rule, but it is generally true that the original always trumps the cover version. Allman’s version is so good that it IS the best version. But I believe you are wrong to think that Nico’s version – which I like, don’t get me wrong – is better than Browne’s version from his For Everyman album.
One final note: You said Nico was a “real” singer… But WAS she, really? Nico was an interpreter of others’ material, and I find her stuff very interesting, but She’s far from your typical “real” singer, and you’re description of her a a “real” singer seems way off-base and confusing. (Also, Nico was “in” the Velvet Underground. NOT Velvet REVOLVER.).