Perfect Day (Lou Reed song)

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Perfect Day
Lou Reed
publication 1972
length 3:46
Genre (s) Pop rock
Author (s) Lou Reed
album Transformer
Cover version
1995 Duran Duran

Perfect Day is a pop-rock - song by Lou Reed in 1972. The piece was originally on the 1972 album Transformer included. It was released in 1973 as the b-side of the single Walk on the Wild Side . It was produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson .

The title became popular again in the 1990s after being featured in the 1996 film Trainspotting and being re-recorded and released by the BBC for charity in 1997 .

text

The song is the idealized description of a perfect day. Some commentators understand the text because of its simple and romantic mood as an allusion to Reed's intimate relationship with his later first wife Bettye Kronstadt and his problems with his own sexuality, with drugs and with his ego . Other commentators see the text as a sign of Reed's romanticized attitude to his own heroin addiction or as a "heroin song".

music

The stanzas are in A minor and use notes from the melodic and harmonic minor scale . The refrain, on the other hand, is in A major. The first five bars of the stanzas form two ii-VI sequences (IIm-VI; the lower case denotes minor, major major ), both of which end a whole tone lower, so that the old I tonic is the new second (IIm). However, the second turnaround uses the II major chord instead of the II minor chord. The scheme ends with an IVm-VI (IVm is the minor subdominant ), i.e. a full cadence in minor, and ends on the tonic.

Initially the IIm-VI sequences sound like a pattern in endlessly descending keys (a typical jazz motif ), but because of the higher thirds from IIm to II, the whole song remains strictly in the original key, but uses chords (such as IVm and IVm), which get their tones from melodic or harmonic minor scales. Notated in the original key, the chord progression in the stanzas Im IV VII III bVI IVm V.

Cover versions

The song was by many artists gecovert , including:

In addition, numerous artists played the piece live, such as Amanda Palmer and Zemfira in 2006 and Wolfmother in 2008. Coldplay played an acoustic version at the Isle of Wight Festival in 2006.

Republished by the BBC

The BBC presented the song in 1997 as part of an elaborate advertising campaign for license fees. In addition, a commercial was shot with the music of Perfect Day , which ran on television and in the cinema and in addition to Lou Reed other well-known artists such as Elton John , Bono , David Bowie or Tom Jones could be seen. In terms of fees, the film ended with the words, “Whatever your taste in music, the BBC and TV serve it. It's only possible thanks to the unique way the BBC is paid by you to do it. They make it what it is. ”And was underlaid with the repeated words“ You will reap what you have sown ”, which the Guardian described as the“ clumsy message: keep signing the check ”. In connection with allegations by commercial competitors that the BBC had spent a lot of money on this film, it was revealed that each artist had received a symbolic amount of £ 250 for trusting the BBC.

Due to public criticism, the BBC released the song as a single in October 1997 in favor of the Children in Need campaign . Each line of text was sung by a different well-known artist. The release included two additional versions of the song - one sung by female artists, one by male. Lou Reed said of the list of artists involved: "I've never been more impressed by the interpretation of any of my songs". The BBC also produced a Christmas version of the accompanying music video . In Great Britain the piece was number one on the charts for three weeks. Over a million copies were sold and the single grossed £ 2,125,000 for charity over six years.

In addition to the artists who were also featured in the commercial (in the order of their appearance), the following were involved:

successor

Following the success of the Perfect Day music video , the BBC produced two more campaigns. The first was a combination of a variety of celebrities and well-known children's programs on the BBC in December 1998 under the name Future Generations . The second, called Shaggy Dog Story , showed various comedians and actors telling a lengthy story (so-called Shaggy Dog Story ), with a different artist for each line. A second shorter Shaggy Dog story entitled Mammals vs. Insects aired in January 2000.

In 2000 the BBC produced a music program called A Perfect Night , which was broadcast live on television. It ended with a performance of Perfect Day . The cast included Rolf Harris and, at the beginning and at the end, Lou Reed. Although millions of viewers watched the show, the single that was supposed to accompany the event flopped in the charts and reached number 69 in mid-June 2000.

Single receipts

  1. ↑ O'Hagan, Sean: Lou Reed: Six of his greatest songs . In: The Guardian . October 27, 2013. Accessed February 2016.
  2. ↑ a b Neil Warwick et al .: The complete book of the British charts: singles & albums . Omnibus Press, 2004, ISBN 978-1-84449-058-5 , pp. 1152 .
  3. ^ Victor Bockris: Transformer: The Lou Reed Story . Simon & Schuster, 1995, ISBN 978-0-684-80366-1 .
  4. ^ Tom Carnwath, Ian Smith: Heroin century . Routledge, 2002, ISBN 978-0-415-27871-3 , pp. 113 ( books.google.de ).
  5. ^ Nigel Morgan, Annette Pritchard: Advertising in tourism and leisure . Butterworth-Heinemann, 2001, ISBN 978-0-7506-5432-6 , pp. 203 .
  6. ^ John Mulholland: Such a perfect way to sing the prices of a license fee; John Mulholland on how Lou Reed's anthem for doomed youth became the ultimate sales gimmick . In: The Guardian . September 27, 1997.
  7. ↑ Christopher Dunkley: Hard sell of the fast cut . In: Financial Times . October 1, 1997.
  8. ↑ Mike J Smith: Who Sang What on “Perfect Day”? In: Sixty Years of British Number Ones. Retrieved January 26, 2010 (English).
  9. ↑ Children to reap what Perfect Day sows. BBC News Online, November 21, 1997; accessed January 26, 2010 .
  10. ↑ Perfect Day for Children. BBC News Online, October 12, 1998; accessed January 26, 2010 .

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