Days Go By (Dirty Vegas song)

Coordinates: 34°01′06″N 118°08′43″W / 34.018291°N 118.145361°W / 34.018291; -118.145361

"Days Go By"
Single by Dirty Vegas
from the album Dirty Vegas
Released	23 April 2002[1]
Format	12 inch, vinyl
Recorded	2001
Genre	House
Length	7:07 (album version) 3:33 (single edit)
Label	Capitol
Songwriter(s)	Victoria Horn Steve Smith
Dirty Vegas singles chronology
"Days Go By" (2002) "Ghosts" (2002)

"Days Go By" is a song by the British electronic band Dirty Vegas from their eponymous album. The song was originally released in 2001 in the UK, where it initially peaked at number 27.^[2] It became a radio hit in the summer 2002, peaking at number 14 in the United States, and received the Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording. It also re-entered and peaked at number 16 in Dirty Vegas' home country of the United Kingdom.^[3] "Days Go By" received significant public exposure in a commercial for the 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse. The album artwork is done by American artist Richard Phillips.^[4] Fall Out Boy sampled "Days Go By" in their 2007 hit "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race".^[5]

Music video

Two male dancers - one young and wearing a sweatsuit, the other older and in suit/tie/suspenders - each perform a routine of popping, locking, the robot, and breakdancing outside a restaurant. The dancers represent the same man at two different periods in his life, as evidenced by the orange high-top Chuck Taylor All-Stars sneakers they wear. The young man's shoes are clean and new, while those worn by the older man are faded, scuffed, and held together with tape.

One day out of every year, the older man travels to the restaurant and dances on the sidewalk from sunrise to sunset. He does so in the hope of bringing back a lost girlfriend, who gave him the orange sneakers as a present when they were young but who ultimately left him because he could not stop dancing. The music pauses briefly while a few spectators voice their thoughts about the young woman's fate. At the end of the day, two of them leave to get a cup of coffee together; the older man catches a brief glimpse of his girlfriend's younger self, then picks up his belongings and leaves.

The video was filmed at Chroni's Famous Sandwich Shop in East Los Angeles, California. Garland Spencer and Byron McIntyre portrayed the dancer's younger and older selves, respectively.

There are two versions of the music video; one has three of the onlookers observing from within the restaurant, while the other replaces those shots with footage of the same onlookers in a silver Mitsubishi Eclipse sitting at a stoplight. In addition to the replaced shots, the Eclipse version of the video includes footage of the approach to and departure from the stoplight, suggesting that the onlookers arrived in the morning and remained at the light all day to watch the man dance.

Release and commercial performance

A Mitsubishi executive saw the music video for "Days Go By" in a hotel room, and personally tracked the group down to procure rights to feature the song in an advertisement.^[6] The song was licensed to be used in the Mitsubishi ad, which began airing in early 2002. A New York radio station began playing the song,^[7] which was subsequently released to rhythmic and Top 40 radio stations in Spring of 2002.^[7] American brand awareness for Mitsubishi went from 44% to 60% following the use of the song in the commercial.^[8]

Official versions

• "Days Go By" (album version) – 7:07
• "Days Go By" (single edit) – 3:41
• "Days Go By" (acoustic) – 2:43
• "Days Go By" (acoustic remix version) – 3:33
• "Days Go By" (full vocal mix) – 8:08
• "Days Go By" (instrumental dub) – 6:06

Appearances in popular culture

• The song was used in a promo for the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards. It parodied the music video and showed the host, Jimmy Fallon as the only dancer in the video.
• The song was featured in a commercial for the 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse. In the commercial, a man (Kelvin Parker) is driving the Eclipse while a woman (Dusty Paik) dances to the beat of the song in the passenger seat.
  • The Eclipse commercial was in turn parodied by a skit on Chappelle's Show in which Dave Chappelle is driving a car and the woman is dancing in the passenger seat. Dave says, "What the fuck are you doing?" (due to the weird moves she is making) and then leaves her by the side of the road. He then puts on some hip-hop music and a black woman sits in the passenger seat and starts dancing. Although this is a parody of the Eclipse commercial, the car actually used in the commercial was Dave's own Nissan 350Z.
• The song is featured in the rhythm game DDRMAX Dance Dance Revolution 6thMix.
• This song also appears in the game Dance Central for the Kinect peripheral on the Xbox 360. The routine performed is similar to the one in the music video.
• This song inspired the stage dance sequence in the song "O Pardesi" from the film Dev D.
• This song was also included in Grand Theft Auto V on the radio station Non Stop Pop FM, exclusive to those who bought the game on eighth generation consoles.

Charts

References

External links

• Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics