Better Days

Album: Smile (2000)
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Songfacts®:

  • This twangy tune finds Gary Louris singing with regret of how he treated a one time lover. He told us that it was inspired by the rootsy Toronto singer/songwriter Michelle McAdorey, who was in a band called Crash Vegas. "We totally fell head over heels for each other in a very short amount of time," he explained, "and then somehow it didn't work. She was in Toronto while I was in Minneapolis, and I was married. It was one of those things.
    It was my ode to her. And I still love her. I haven't seen her in so long. But it was one of those songs of regret: I could have done that... if I would have done that... if I could have done this.
    "So to me that's a Canadian song," he continued. "That's a song about my time, Toronto, Hamilton, wherever we were where we fell in love and then it ended. It ended quickly and it was like one of those "what could have been" songs. So it's a song of regret, really. And it's an ode to Michelle, and I love her dearly, and I haven't talked to her since I wrote that song. But it's a pretty heavy, heavy lyric as far as my memories of her apartment. That was an innocent little time we had together, but it was a beautiful time."

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