Songfacts®:

• The first single from Jake Owen's fourth album is a banjo-strumming happy track that finds him singing about the good times:
  
  "But just me and my good friends
  Jug of wine lil' sip, out here baby you just never know
  These are the days of gold."
  
  "The days of gold are the good times… the times we remember," explained Owen. "The times we reflect on. I'll always look back on my life and remember these days. For me, these times in my life right now really are the days of gold!"
• Owen told Country Weekly: "When I played it for my brother, he was like, 'Dude, what are days of gold'" I said, 'Are you kidding me? They're the good times, the times we all remember!' Whether it's hanging with friends or the sun beating down on your skin... You've heard songs with that same sentiment, but musically and production-wise, this song is really aggressive and different. I really wanted the first single to get people talking."
• The song was debuted by Owen in a live performance on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon on August 8, 2013.
• The song's music video was directed by Owen's usual visual collaborator, Mason Dixon, and was shot on Old Hickory Lake in Nashville. The clip is part of a trilogy that follows a couple's relationship through "Beachin'" and "Ghost Town." Danielle Maltby, who appeared on Season 21 of The Bachelor, plays the girlfriend.
  
  In a Songfacts interview, Dixon explained how a small part of "Days of Gold" determined what actors would be cast in the videos. "There's a really fast little dialogue moment where [the lead actor] is sitting by the lake and she's in the truck and has him hop in. Originally, that was a much longer scene. There was maybe a minute or so of dialogue there that established them and set up the rest of the trilogy. So, when we were auditioning, when everybody came in, that's the scene that I had everybody read. Anybody who's a good talent can carry a video acting-wise but when the music stops and they have to start talking, it's a different story."
• This was penned by The Cadillac Three members Jaren Johnston and Neil Mason. Johnston told Roughstock about the day it came to life. "One day, I was in my truck driving, and I just singing that chorus," he recalled. "So I called Neil and told him about it. He came over to my house, and we wrote it in about 45 minutes. I recorded it down, and it's actually on our first Cadillac Three record. Jake had the record, and he liked the song. He called me and said, 'Man, I think I'd love to cut this, and I would like to call the record that.' I was like, 'OK, cool!'"
  
  "Then," continued Johnston, "when we signed with Big Machine, they were really into that song, too. So I had to call Jake back, and I was like, 'Dude, I think they want to use that song for us.' He was really cool about it, but then I heard from somebody else that he was a little upset about it because he loved the song so much. So I talked to Scott Borchetta, and I was like, 'He really likes it, so we should just give it to him.' So Scott let me go ahead and give it back to him. It worked out great, and we're really excited."
• Owen explained to Radio.com why he decided to cover this Cadillac Three cut: "Nothing ever happened [for them] with that song, and I was always a fan of it," he said. "I used to ride around in my truck listening to that song, going, 'Man! I'd love to sing this.' So when I asked [them] if it was OK if I recorded it, [they were] gracious enough to say 'yeah.' And I put my own little spin on it."
  
  "Growing up in Florida and being someone who was used to always living in the sunshine…I thought it was really important to have a song that personified that," Owen added. "[And] just with the melodic structure and the tempo of that song, it seemed very conducive for the kind of atmosphere I want to have at my concerts."
• Any Jake Owen fans planning on taking a pilgrimage to Daytona Beach to pose with the sign in the video are going to be disappointed. "Unfortunately that sign doesn't exist," said Dixon. "That shot was actually shot here in Nashville on the lake the day we were shooting the 'Days of Gold' video."