Album: The Sound of Music
Year: 1987.
I somehow doubt the two things are related, but just as the Rolling Stones ended the mostly lyrically downbeat side two of their classic Out of Our Heads with the upbeat, optimistic, harmonica-driven “One More Try,” the dB’s end the mostly downbeat side two of The Sound of Music with the upbeat, optimistic “Today Could Be The Day.”
Which is just as well, because after songs like “Think Too Hard,” “Never Before and Never Again, “A Better Place” and “Looked at The Sun Too Long,” it was clearly a great call to end on a note of hope.
Lead by drummer Will Rigby’s near-constant rockabilly drum rolls, “Today Could Be The Day” opens with Peter Holsapple declaring:
Sometimes I think the one for me
Hasn’t happened yet
And sometimes I do play hard to get
But today could be the day
When your heart is broken, when your life is totally sucking, don’t wallow. Don’t stay home, get out and live your life. Because today could be the day when everything changes for the better. Probably not, but it could!
I love an album that ends strong. Love it. I’ve never done an analysis, but I’ll betcha just about anything that the vast majority of my favorite albums end strong. Which is why “Today Could Be The Day” — another utterly catchy pop gem, natch — was the rockin cherry on top of the already awesome The Sound of Music.
Oh, and the only time I ever saw the dB’s was after this album came out. They opened for R.E.M. during my 25th birthday extravaganza weekend when we drove up to Oakland to see R.E.M and The dBs and decided — to stay – in a shitty motel on University in Berkeley — for U2 and The Pretenders (featuring Johnny Marr!) who happened to have just added a second show at the Oakland County Coliseum. We didn’t even have tickets for U2, but we got them. Because we could somehow just do that in 1987.
Everything was crazy and weird for me at that time: I was going through a terrible break-up, I had essentially dropped out of CSUF, I was worried about my impending managership of the Video Zone, so it was kind of awesome to get the hell out of Fresno to what was basically couple of days with my favorite bands on the planet, all of whom played songs from what was then my favorite year in music.
Video for “Today Could be The Day”