Day is Gone

Album: Sons of Anarchy: Songs of Anarchy Vol. 3 (2013)
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Songfacts®:

  • Credited to Noah Gundersen & the Forrest Rangers, "Day is Gone" was written by Seattle-based singer-songwriter, Noah Gundersen, Sons of Anarchy's creator, Kurt Sutter, and the show's music supervisor, Bob Thiele Jr.

    In our interview with Gundersen, he talked about his experience co-writing the tune: the three wrote it remotely and sent ideas back-and-forth to each other. Gunderson had never written with others, so this experience got him out of his comfort zone and helped him grow as a writer.

    "I knew it was being written for the show, but I had no idea what the context of the song was going to be in it," Gundersen said. "So I had to rely on the broader sense of what I knew about the show, which was that it was dark, it was violent, and it usually involved some kind of tragedy between characters. I just took that and ran with it, which thankfully is similar to a lot of the themes in my own music, so it wasn't too much of a stretch."

    The song ultimately played during a vital moment near the end of the Season 6 finale, "A Mother's Work."
  • Bob Thiele Jr. expressed to Rolling Stone why they chose Gundersen for the task. "Noah Gundersen has a voice that can bend the heart without any conceit," he said. "What I love about this performance is his deep, soulful intensity, without any sentimentality attached. Noah doesn't live in that over-refined world where many of his counterparts reside."
  • Gundersen, Sutter, and Thiele also co-wrote the song, "He Got Away," included on the show's soundtrack, Sons of Anarchy: Songs of Anarchy Vol. 2. It played in Season 5 at the end of the first episode, "Sovereign."

    Noah Gundersen's own music can also be heard in Season 4 of Sons of Anarchy. "Family" is played in Episode 6, "With an X," and "David" is featured in Episode 12, "Burnt and Purged Away."

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