2000 Great Songs #1287 & 1288: Perfect Day

Not the first time I've been a little cute and offered back-to-back songs with shared titles. But this time around, given various similarities between the tracks, I opted to go with a single conjoined post. Look, we've been at this reverse-countdown project for more than 3 years, gotta mix it up a bit, right?

So--"Perfect Day"(s). In both instances a drop-dead gorgeous track, lyrically almost hopeful and serene, yet both sounding so relentlessly sad. And in both cases, the depressing tone is partially musical, and partially triggered by cinematic needle-drop associations. (Hell, even the respective album covers share some stylistic parallels.)

Let's start with Harry Nilsson's song, off 1977's Knnillssonn. By this point in his career, most of his best work was behind him, and he'd shot his voice partying with John Lennon and friends; but the album was unexpectedly lovely, if finding him more in his lounge lizard mode. Album closer "Perfect Day" cools things down even further, all molasses-thick dirge, a sweet love song contrasted with a performance that feels far more mournful than celebratory. I'll always associate it with 1979's All That Jazz, one of my all-time favorite films, the song meshing perfectly as we watch a barely-fictionalized version of director/choreographer Bob Fosse work himself into a slow-motion suicide.

Lou Reed's "Perfect Day," from 1972's Transformer, similarly reads like a surprisingly earnest and innocent love song, Lou and his lover spending a day drinking sangria in the park. But it's a comparably downbeat song musically, albeit less so than Harry's. And that closing line--"you're going to reap just what you sow"--seems oddly portentous after the lighthearted joy that preceded it. Though, again, that may have more to do with this track's cinematic context, backdropping the protagonist's heroin overdose in 1996's Trainspotting.

Harry Nilsson, "Perfect Day":

All That Jazz:

Lou Reed, "Perfect Day":

Trainspotting:

Lou live on TV, 2003:

Hannah Miller covers Harry:

Kirsty MacColl & Evan Dando cover Lou:

Duran Duran cover Lou:

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