For those who want to spend 2025 in a calm, yet zombified state, the sleepy sadness of Nico’s 1967 song “These Days” is still as potent as ever.
Stream: “These Days” – Nico
I first stumbled upon “These Days” from Nico’s debut album Chelsea Girl (1967) in a bleary feverish mono haze, and it became the soundtrack of my life for three sickly weeks.
I walked through dark hallways with rats nest hair, sweated in my sheets, and threw up Gatorade in my toilet, with the words, “I’ve stopped my dreaming I won’t do too much scheming these days,” hanging over my head like a raincloud.
The lyrics of “These Days” reminds me of the laments of a beautiful depressed aunt, whose melancholy has seeped into every aspect of her life. She is neither here nor there. She speaks with eyes glazed, letting the tide pull her further and further away from the present.
And there’s peace there, in the place that you go when you listen to it.
Despite its lyrics sounding like it was written by someone at the end of their life, rock singer and songwriter Jackson Browne penned the song at 16. Browne explains in an interview with The New York Times, “Teenagers have a very vibrant emotional life. There’s so much going on in terms of your ideas about personal freedom and what the world is supposed to hold for you.”
The song landed in the hands of Nico after Browne worked with her at a nightclub called the Dom, where it took on new life.
Nico’s delivery is poignant and reflective, she sings the song with a soft matter-of-factness. She’s not whining, she’s simply stating,
“I had a lover,
I don’t think I’ll risk another
these days,”
The song is 58 years old and still resonates. Filmmaker, Wes Anderson was so moved by the song he later would be inspired to create The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), cementing the song in cinema history by using it in the background of its most iconic scene, Margot Tenenbaum (Gwenyth Paltrow) stepping off the bus to pick up her brother Richie (Luke Wilson) from the pier. In the film, the song is not used as a tool to show a reflection of the past, but as a confrontation between two ghosts and the undead feelings the characters have towards each other.
The fingerpicking acoustic guitar evokes a sense of nowhere, like a farmer driving through fields of wheat at dawn. Then, like a pale rising sun, you hear the strings slowly enter the song at the 19th-second mark. The strings and guitar caress and communicate with each other in the same way the wind makes the leaves on trees softly sing.
Post Donald Trump’s inauguration, I find myself returning to this song once again. Settling myself down with a cup of tea or listening to it while washing the dishes in the morning, seeking comfort in its familiar melody and its honest lyrics.
“These days I seem to think about,
How all the changes came about my ways,
And I wonder if I’d see another highway.”
And I, too, wonder if I’ll see another highway.
I wonder if these days will ever end.
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Stream: “These Days” – Nico
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© courtesy of Verve
© courtesy of Verve:: Stream Nico ::
